Review of "The Doctor's Wife" - Doctor Who Episode 4

Just finished watching The Doctor's Wife by Neil Gaiman, who is best known for his Sandman comics and various novels, including the one recently made into a film Caroline. This episode had many of Gaiman's trademark and imaginative touches - which are why I read him and watch his films, even though I'm often frustrated with the wandering plots. In some respects, I think, Gaiman is a far better short-story or episodic writer than he is a novelist or serial writer. Short-story or episodic works better for writers concerned mostly with theme or exploring one idea or an aspect of a character, while serial or novel writing works better for writers who like complex twisty plots, exploring characters thoroughly, with less emphasis on one idea or theme. One is better than the other, they are just very different. The Sandman comics are very anthology/episodic in nature. As was American Gods in some respects. There's a through line, but the individual stories were often more interesting.

This story acts, much like Curse of the Black Spot as a stand-a-lone, but provides to a degree information on the arc, not nearly as much information - largely because Gaiman, as he stated on his blog, knows little about the arc himself, just general stuff. I think Stephen Thompson knew more of the story than Gaiman did and actually wrote Spot with an eye to exploring the arcs themes, while Gaiman was guest writer who wrote well the story he always wanted to write. Personally, I preferred tonight's episode to last week's - which is odd, since I tend to like arc stories better. But this one had some delicious bits of imagination.

( Spoilers for the Doctor's Wife )

Game of Thrones - episode 5 - Review/Recap

First off - it is irritating me to no end that I can't get HBO Go because Time Warner, my cable and internet provider doesn't carry it. Remind me to shoot them a complaint on this at some point.
Although - I really don't have the time or the energy to watch the series on my computer or ipod touch. But still - considering how much I pay? It's the least they could do.

Just finished watching tonight's episode of Game of Thrones - and I've clearly forgotten quite a bit of the books or I've remembered them differently, because this episode has bits that well don't appear to follow the books at all? Maybe I should just ignore the books entirely and just enjoy the series as a separate entity? Which is actually what I usually do - since it is impossible to adapt something exactly from one medium to another. And this series actually comes the closest that I've seen to an exact or legitimate adaptation which stays true to the flavor and nature of a fantasy series of books in minute detail, the only one closer may be Jackson' Lord of the Rings. Other than that slight confusion - I loved the episode and once again appreciated the difference between it airing on HBO and on regular network tv. There is no way in hell, we'd have gotten some of the sex scenes and full frontal nudity on network tv that we get here.

( spoilers, although not really for the books because I don't remember them that well apparently )