![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Saw a bit of a discussion on Doctor Who and Daleks - have a confession to make, part of my problem with Doctor Who is the Daleks. I just can't take the silly things seriously. Every time they appear in an episode, I find myself rolling my eyes, and groaning. They don't scare me. Be a bit like being scared by Robby the Robot. Sorry mutated people rolling around in machines, saying exterminate, exterminate, no matter what - isn't that interesting. Or scary. Scorpius on Farscape - on the other hand - is scary and interesting, so is The Terminator in the first Terminator movie (but not after you've seen the entire series). I'm scared by things that are unpredictable, that can hide, and are clever. The Shadows in Babylon 5 give me nightmares. Daleks - just make me roll my eyes and/or giggle uncontrollably for fifteen minutes. Hmmm, maybe that's part of it - they are supposed to make me giggle? That's not to say Doctor Who doesn't have scary villians - it does, two that were created by Stephen Moffat - the first is the Angels, which literally creeped me out. Blink has got to be one of the scariest hours of tv. Another is the Blood family in S3, the villians who look like scarecrows. And the final one - are the piranahas of the air - which you can only see if the shadow moves. Now those are scary monsters. And all three are close to impossible to defeat. Plus great metaphors. I love the stone angels - that kill you or send you back in time, stuck, if you blink. Nice twist on both the idea of angels, and the idea of gargoyle statues on churches. Another great twist - are the shadow piranha, that live in forests, and are the reason people did not venture in forests at night. They come out of the books which are made of wood. All are creatures of nightmare and fairy tales.
Saw an interesting quote by Stephen Moffat - stating he doesn't see Doctor Who as science fiction so much as a dark fairy tale - the tale that parents tell their children to warn them about the creatures that want to eat them. This was probably why I wasn't watching Doctor Who in the 1970s and 1980s - I tended to steer clear from horror shows back then, because my vivid imagination had a tendency to incorporate the horror tale into dreams at night, making it impossible for me to sleep. Horror stories aren't good for kids with vivid imaginations, we don't need more ideas.
Farscape continues to blow me away. Watched The Ugly Truth last night. Rather interesting episode that contains multiple themes. Farscape like most tv series centers itself around a theme. For Buffy it was growing up and slaying one's demons, specifically those of high school and adolescence. For Star Trek - it was mainly about maintaining a peaceful, harmonious existence and spreading that around you, as well as exploration - a somewhat naive idea, not to mention romantic. Farscape - the theme is about warfare or violence/aggression.
It's a story about a bunch of prisoners or fugitives fleeing a somewhat facist regime of peacekeepers. (The irony of a warmongering race being called "peacekeepers" is intentional - and they of course believe they are justified).
In each episode - they deal with an aspect of war, weapons, violence and how it changes and effects people. John Crichton - an astronaut - starts out as the niave and innocent explorer, pacifist, who does not want a gun and can barely figure out how they work - to a somewhat cynical tortured man, who not only can shoot a gun, but has named it Winona. In the Ugly Truth - Talon, a warship that Moya, a peace-loving vessel who carries no weapons, has given birth to due to tinkering by the peacekeepers - has fired on and destroyed a weapons dealer. No one is certain if Talon fired or someone ordered Talon to fire. A second ship appears and takes Moya's crew, those who'd been aboard Talon and were forced off before Talon fled into custody and proceeds to interrogate them on the destruction of the other ship.
( spoilers for The Ugly Truth - S2 Farscape )
The other episode that struck me as interesting, is The Locket - this episode is hardly innovative, it is what the leads, Ben Browder and Claudia Black call it in the commentary - the quintessential lets age our leads episode to see what it is like. Every science-fiction series does this at some point - they have their lead grow old magically, then become young again or travel through time, live a full lengthy life and do a RIP Van Winkle.
( spoilers for The Locket, S2, Farscape )
I really love this show. Burn Notice, on the other hand, is starting to bore me and may get axed from the old DVR.
Finally, A Clockwork Nebari - a take on, you guessed it, A ClockWork Orange, by way of Stanley Kubrick. Even the gadget they use in this episode is a satirical take on Kubrick's - except here they literally pull the eyes out of the sockets and attack neural drug transmitters to the optical nerves - which will cause a cleansing. Making the recipient docile, not wishing to hurt anyone, and serving the state. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the other tv series that played with Clockwork Orange - except in Buffy the effects weren't temporary.
( Spoilers for Clockwork Nebari )
An episode like the ones before that plays with the brain long after it has been completed. Farscape is one of the few tv series that I feel compelled to rewind and rewatch bits as I'm watching. Wait, I think, that is bloody brilliant, I must see that again.
Saw an interesting quote by Stephen Moffat - stating he doesn't see Doctor Who as science fiction so much as a dark fairy tale - the tale that parents tell their children to warn them about the creatures that want to eat them. This was probably why I wasn't watching Doctor Who in the 1970s and 1980s - I tended to steer clear from horror shows back then, because my vivid imagination had a tendency to incorporate the horror tale into dreams at night, making it impossible for me to sleep. Horror stories aren't good for kids with vivid imaginations, we don't need more ideas.
Farscape continues to blow me away. Watched The Ugly Truth last night. Rather interesting episode that contains multiple themes. Farscape like most tv series centers itself around a theme. For Buffy it was growing up and slaying one's demons, specifically those of high school and adolescence. For Star Trek - it was mainly about maintaining a peaceful, harmonious existence and spreading that around you, as well as exploration - a somewhat naive idea, not to mention romantic. Farscape - the theme is about warfare or violence/aggression.
It's a story about a bunch of prisoners or fugitives fleeing a somewhat facist regime of peacekeepers. (The irony of a warmongering race being called "peacekeepers" is intentional - and they of course believe they are justified).
In each episode - they deal with an aspect of war, weapons, violence and how it changes and effects people. John Crichton - an astronaut - starts out as the niave and innocent explorer, pacifist, who does not want a gun and can barely figure out how they work - to a somewhat cynical tortured man, who not only can shoot a gun, but has named it Winona. In the Ugly Truth - Talon, a warship that Moya, a peace-loving vessel who carries no weapons, has given birth to due to tinkering by the peacekeepers - has fired on and destroyed a weapons dealer. No one is certain if Talon fired or someone ordered Talon to fire. A second ship appears and takes Moya's crew, those who'd been aboard Talon and were forced off before Talon fled into custody and proceeds to interrogate them on the destruction of the other ship.
( spoilers for The Ugly Truth - S2 Farscape )
The other episode that struck me as interesting, is The Locket - this episode is hardly innovative, it is what the leads, Ben Browder and Claudia Black call it in the commentary - the quintessential lets age our leads episode to see what it is like. Every science-fiction series does this at some point - they have their lead grow old magically, then become young again or travel through time, live a full lengthy life and do a RIP Van Winkle.
( spoilers for The Locket, S2, Farscape )
I really love this show. Burn Notice, on the other hand, is starting to bore me and may get axed from the old DVR.
Finally, A Clockwork Nebari - a take on, you guessed it, A ClockWork Orange, by way of Stanley Kubrick. Even the gadget they use in this episode is a satirical take on Kubrick's - except here they literally pull the eyes out of the sockets and attack neural drug transmitters to the optical nerves - which will cause a cleansing. Making the recipient docile, not wishing to hurt anyone, and serving the state. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the other tv series that played with Clockwork Orange - except in Buffy the effects weren't temporary.
( Spoilers for Clockwork Nebari )
An episode like the ones before that plays with the brain long after it has been completed. Farscape is one of the few tv series that I feel compelled to rewind and rewatch bits as I'm watching. Wait, I think, that is bloody brilliant, I must see that again.