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shadowkatPouring at the moment. I had the day off -- to get reacclimated to NYC before heading back to work. The differences between the city and Hilton Head are huge. For one thing - I take trains, walk, and the subway in the city, rarely am in a car, while in Hilton Head - we drive everywhere.
Also grocery stores are much smaller in the city, and in Hilton Head - they are the size of two city blocks and you could lost in one for days.
Saw the Doctor Who Christmas Special finally, entitled The Many Husbands of River Song -- which I enjoyed far more than I anticipated. And it's stuck with me a bit longer than most.
Had some interesting metaphors...the idea that each of Song's husbands lost their heads or was about to. And how they all got stuck in what amounted to a huge lobster space suite --- at the very end, echoed River Song's own demise. Also her fight with the doctor over who should sacrifice themselves for the greater good...a fight that he eventually loses, but not in this episode. And finally her perception of the Doctor, she almost puts him on a bit of a pedestal, seeing him as beyond her reach and greater than she is. (He's not, which he seems to know, even if she can't quite grasp it.)
It's an odd relationship that they have...when they first meet, she knows more about him and their relationship than he knows of her. And she can't tell him, because if she does, it may never happen. And she doesn't want to lose what she's had. ("Don't you dare change things...I don't want to lose any moment of it," she'd told him or something similar long ago, in another episode.) And he can't tell her either - not what he knows, not enough to avoid her death -- for that could unravel everything as well. Their relationship appears to be ass-backwards and outside yet inside of time.
But is it? They both realize that if they live in the moment. They have all the time in the world. Not in the future and not in the past, not an easy thing for a couple of time travelers to stick to. Happily Ever After - River tells him - doesn't necessarily mean forever, it means happy as in now. To live happily in the now.
Instead of run around like chicken little or a headless lobster worrying about a tomorrow that may never come or a yesterday that has already passed you by. Besides one night beside the singing towers...is in actuality 24 years. Even if the singing towers are an allusion created by the wind...and the time, short, if you compare it to a lifetime of zigging into, around, and in between for 200 years.
The reason I liked this episode better than well 90% of the past season, and why I've skipped over so much of it, is it related back to previous episodes...in particular my favorite - Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead...where River told the Doctor that he wasn't her doctor, he was too young, his eyes were younger, he hadn't seen the things her doctor had. The idea of evolving, of how time does change us, does wear us down and mark its territory, even if you are immortal and seemingly ageless.
She doesn't recognize him. He's not the young man she knew and fell for, so much younger than her current version. The man of many faces, at least 12. The 13th face is an older one, a wizened one, and a sad one - who has suffered one too many losses.
There's a gravitas there...that I often find missing in the more episodic stand-alone episodes, which frankly don't work for me. Or the convoluted plots with multiple characters all vying for adequate screen time. But mileage differs here so don't bother wasting time haranguing me over it. Besides, I'm a moody viewer...whose mind changes daily.
I still have saved on the old DVR, the last three episodes of Doctor Who. Haven't been able to bring myself to delete them or watch them.
Perhaps I will before the year comes to the close or shortly thereafter.
Also grocery stores are much smaller in the city, and in Hilton Head - they are the size of two city blocks and you could lost in one for days.
Saw the Doctor Who Christmas Special finally, entitled The Many Husbands of River Song -- which I enjoyed far more than I anticipated. And it's stuck with me a bit longer than most.
Had some interesting metaphors...the idea that each of Song's husbands lost their heads or was about to. And how they all got stuck in what amounted to a huge lobster space suite --- at the very end, echoed River Song's own demise. Also her fight with the doctor over who should sacrifice themselves for the greater good...a fight that he eventually loses, but not in this episode. And finally her perception of the Doctor, she almost puts him on a bit of a pedestal, seeing him as beyond her reach and greater than she is. (He's not, which he seems to know, even if she can't quite grasp it.)
It's an odd relationship that they have...when they first meet, she knows more about him and their relationship than he knows of her. And she can't tell him, because if she does, it may never happen. And she doesn't want to lose what she's had. ("Don't you dare change things...I don't want to lose any moment of it," she'd told him or something similar long ago, in another episode.) And he can't tell her either - not what he knows, not enough to avoid her death -- for that could unravel everything as well. Their relationship appears to be ass-backwards and outside yet inside of time.
But is it? They both realize that if they live in the moment. They have all the time in the world. Not in the future and not in the past, not an easy thing for a couple of time travelers to stick to. Happily Ever After - River tells him - doesn't necessarily mean forever, it means happy as in now. To live happily in the now.
Instead of run around like chicken little or a headless lobster worrying about a tomorrow that may never come or a yesterday that has already passed you by. Besides one night beside the singing towers...is in actuality 24 years. Even if the singing towers are an allusion created by the wind...and the time, short, if you compare it to a lifetime of zigging into, around, and in between for 200 years.
The reason I liked this episode better than well 90% of the past season, and why I've skipped over so much of it, is it related back to previous episodes...in particular my favorite - Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead...where River told the Doctor that he wasn't her doctor, he was too young, his eyes were younger, he hadn't seen the things her doctor had. The idea of evolving, of how time does change us, does wear us down and mark its territory, even if you are immortal and seemingly ageless.
She doesn't recognize him. He's not the young man she knew and fell for, so much younger than her current version. The man of many faces, at least 12. The 13th face is an older one, a wizened one, and a sad one - who has suffered one too many losses.
There's a gravitas there...that I often find missing in the more episodic stand-alone episodes, which frankly don't work for me. Or the convoluted plots with multiple characters all vying for adequate screen time. But mileage differs here so don't bother wasting time haranguing me over it. Besides, I'm a moody viewer...whose mind changes daily.
I still have saved on the old DVR, the last three episodes of Doctor Who. Haven't been able to bring myself to delete them or watch them.
Perhaps I will before the year comes to the close or shortly thereafter.