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shadowkat1. Regarding Hurricane Irene, which is over now - no damage in my area that I can see. No flooding that I can see. Power still on and the cable is still on. But according to the media - it's a mess out there, the highways are flooded and has fallen trees. And you can't go anywhere. Well not unless you have a canoe. I don't know if I can believe them or not. The storm according to the red band at the bottom is a category one, but they said it was down-graded to a tropical storm when it hit us.
Still...I don't know...feels like a lot of strum and drang signifying nothing. I took a shower. The water is fine. The power is still on. The cable is still on. Seriously, I've had worse things happen during the thunderstorms in the spring and in June.
The media is interesting...they are trying to justify all the strum and drang, stating it's worse than it really is. And not noticing that this is not all that different from other storms we've had.
We got 60 mph winds. So no window breakage.
I swear we should call this the age of MISINFORMATION.
2. Regarding Last Night's Episode of Doctor Who - "Let's Kill Hitler" - surprisingly AWESOME! I loved that episode. Everything about it. I was watching Dexter, realized Doctor Who was on - and was so not going to miss it, and glad I jumped over. Far more entertaining and a lot less predictable.
That's been my problem with Dexter this season, I sort of know what will happen next. So my attention wanders. It's my problem with Alphas too - which I kept trying to watch yesterday and kept losing interest during. Was so bored with the stock characters, stock responses, and stock
episode that metaphorically shows issues with the leads, but not directly. Formula tv at it's best.
Bored now.
Then I saw Stephen Moffat's twisty Doctor Who episode "Let's Kill Hitler" and for the first time all day, I was distracted by the show, and into it. It was so good. And not at all what I expected. So glad that I was NOT spoiled for that one. Being spoiled for Doctor Who, ruins Doctor Who.
This episode demonstrated how pov can be done effectively. We were throughout in the pov of four characters, the Justice workers, Doctor Who, Amy/Rory - who have become a unit of sorts. The title of the episode and the tease is a joke and a huge mislead. We're lead to believe they are off to kill Hilter, and we're about to get yet another of those somewhat cliche time travel series episodes where the lead characters have to deal with the difficult dilemma of choosing whether or not to kill Hilter - and the impact that would have on our history. (I wonder, has anyone written a book about what the world would have been like if Hitler had been killed early on?) But that's a huge mislead. First off, the Justice group realizes they've arrived too early, in 1938, several years before Hitler's death. They aren't here to kill Hitler and change history, they are here to give him hell before his ultimate execution. They are prevented from doing it by the crashing Tardis, which is crashing because of Mels. Mels pops up in a nifty red sports car that she's stolen.
The set up? Amy and Rory have down a crop burning in the Doctor's name. They are contacting him because they want news on their daughter. They need to find their child, while they know she becomes River Song, they want to raise her. The Doctor shows up in Tardis and says really. When all of a sudden - he sees a line bisecting the name of The Doctor in the newspaper. Mels changes the history - driving her car straight through his name, neatly bisecting it in two.
Who is Mels? The Doctor wants to know. Amy and Rory seem to know her. She's a sexy, person of color sort of gal, with braids, and a devilish attitude. Doesn't look like Rory or Amy or River. Her reaction to the Doctor is - "You said he was funny, but you Never said he was 'hot'." She tells the Doctor that she's Amy's best mate. Funny, the Doctor responds, I don't remember you at the wedding. And Mels responds that she's not a fan of marriage...so skipped it.
Then we get a flashback - with Mels inserted in all the young Amy/Rory scenes. From Mels pov.
It feels like a huge retcon. But that's mislead number two. And Moffat gives you clues - 1) the line bisecting the Doctor's name, 2)in their childhood, Mel's constantly talking about the Doctor, and does not see the Doctor as perfect. Rory is perfect but not in a romantic sense. And she knows that he's not gay, like Amy thinks, and totally into Amy. Also Amy is always pulling Mels out of the slammer. A BFF who is also a bit of a mom.
Mels pulls a gun on the Doctor, once the sirens arrive and tells him - I got a gun and you got a time machine, let's kill Hitler. (In the flashbacks she gets in trouble for stating that the only reason Hitler rose to power is the Doctor didn't stop him. Or the Titantic Sank - because of the Doctor.)
In a nice twist, Hitler shoots Mel's when the Doctor attempts to stop him from shooting the Justice Guy (which is also an imaginative device - a robot run by lots of little people inside. And antibodies that take care of unauthorized personnel.) The Doctor tells Mels she needs to stick around so he can marry her. And Mels shocks everyone by stating you need to ask my parents first, who are standing next to you. And that it had taken her a while to hunt them both down, but she had. Which explains the retcon. Best use of a retcon ever. It also shows how time travel can incrementally change events, without quite realizing it. Mels exists because Mels found her parents as children - he interaction with them, along with the Doctor's created Mels.)
Amy apparently named her daughter after Mels - short for Melody.
The Doctor: You named your daughter after your daughter.
Then twist number 2 - happens, The Justice realizes they've found a war criminal more interesting and harder to catch than Hitler, at first we think - the Tardis, the Doctor? No, it is Melody Pound.
And Melody Pound regenerates into River Song. But she doesn't know she is River yet, she's going by the name Melody Pound. The Doctor ironically gives her the name River Song, which River gave to him. River is who she becomes. She's not there yet.
The story isn't being told in any sort of linear fashion, neither backwards or forwards - it's being told in a twisty out of sequence fashion, because here's the thing - the human mind is linear. But time is NOT. Time and light bend. Moffat seems to have figured that out, and is telling a tale in a completely new way. As a result - it's unpredictable. The variables make it difficult to predict where it will go, which makes the narrative more realistic in some ways than most tv shows.
What is the first thing she does? Try to kill the Doctor. And we know she eventually succeeds, because - the Justice tells us, and we literally saw it in The Impossible Astronaut. Melody Pound kills the Doctor in Impossible Astronaut. And Amy ironically tries to kill her own daughter in the same episode, but she doesn't know it's her daughter, and it's her daughter who calls out to her and the Doctor to go back in time and rescue her from The Silence. The astronaut that Amy tries to kill in The Impossible Astronaut is not the one who killed the Doctor, it's Melody Pound, before she escaped from the Silence.
The Doctor explains Melody Pound - when he tells her that she is a child of the Tardis. He figures it out, when the voice interface in the guise of Ameila Pound reminds him as he lies dying, unable to regenerate, that when he last regenerated he ate everything, hunting what he liked. Which is what Melody Pound is now doing - hunting what clothes she'd like to wear. He remembers something - she still is regenerating. Still has that power. He also realizes that the Tardis can show Melody how to save her parents.
He tells Melody: Rule number 3 or 5, Never Run when you're scared. (which is the opposite of what he did.) and Rule number 1 - The Doctor always lies.
Melody is as much the Tardis' child as she is Rory and Amy's. She is a child of the Tardis.
Conceived on it, while it was in motion. A child of the timestream. A time lord like the Doctor.
Captured by the Silence and brainwashed to kill the Doctor. Because the Doctor's own actions have
lead his enemies to become a bit too frightened of him...enough to create a time lord of their own to fight him.
But Melody saves The Doctor here. At risk to her own life. And ends up in the hospital. Amy and Rory want to stay, but the Doctor says they can't - they have too much foreknowledge and foreknowledge can be a dangerous thing. The Doctor has found out when and how Melody kills him via The Justice - the secret that Rory, Amy and River are keeping from him. Ironically River also knows..and must know that she is the one who does it. She was put in prison for killing a good man, that good man was the Doctor.
The Doctor leaves Melody - now River with a journal.
And he tells Amy and Rory not to worry, River will be hunting them down, they'll see River again.
Or rather Melody.
Amy states - but how? You're hard to find.
Doctor: Oh no, I'm not. Haven't you figured out yet - how?
River decides to become an archaeologist. Why do you want to study archaeology, asks the Professor.
River - to find a good man.
We also learn more about the Silence - the Silence appears to have descended from the Headless Monks, they are a religious order that believes all will change when one question is answered.
What is the question - unknown. But it is the Silence that has captured Melody and wants to turn Melody into a weapon. The Silence that ironically River and The Doctor defeat in The Impossible Astronaut. The Silence who took Amy Pound captive in that episode or perhaps before.
This story is fun, once you figure out one piece, your mind goes - oh wait, that explains this piece of the puzzle, and this one, and that one. Moffat's Doctor Who is a gift for anyone who thinks a bit too analytically, and gets bored far too easily with traditional story telling.
But it probably confuses the hell out of everyone else. ;-)
Still...I don't know...feels like a lot of strum and drang signifying nothing. I took a shower. The water is fine. The power is still on. The cable is still on. Seriously, I've had worse things happen during the thunderstorms in the spring and in June.
The media is interesting...they are trying to justify all the strum and drang, stating it's worse than it really is. And not noticing that this is not all that different from other storms we've had.
We got 60 mph winds. So no window breakage.
I swear we should call this the age of MISINFORMATION.
2. Regarding Last Night's Episode of Doctor Who - "Let's Kill Hitler" - surprisingly AWESOME! I loved that episode. Everything about it. I was watching Dexter, realized Doctor Who was on - and was so not going to miss it, and glad I jumped over. Far more entertaining and a lot less predictable.
That's been my problem with Dexter this season, I sort of know what will happen next. So my attention wanders. It's my problem with Alphas too - which I kept trying to watch yesterday and kept losing interest during. Was so bored with the stock characters, stock responses, and stock
episode that metaphorically shows issues with the leads, but not directly. Formula tv at it's best.
Bored now.
Then I saw Stephen Moffat's twisty Doctor Who episode "Let's Kill Hitler" and for the first time all day, I was distracted by the show, and into it. It was so good. And not at all what I expected. So glad that I was NOT spoiled for that one. Being spoiled for Doctor Who, ruins Doctor Who.
This episode demonstrated how pov can be done effectively. We were throughout in the pov of four characters, the Justice workers, Doctor Who, Amy/Rory - who have become a unit of sorts. The title of the episode and the tease is a joke and a huge mislead. We're lead to believe they are off to kill Hilter, and we're about to get yet another of those somewhat cliche time travel series episodes where the lead characters have to deal with the difficult dilemma of choosing whether or not to kill Hilter - and the impact that would have on our history. (I wonder, has anyone written a book about what the world would have been like if Hitler had been killed early on?) But that's a huge mislead. First off, the Justice group realizes they've arrived too early, in 1938, several years before Hitler's death. They aren't here to kill Hitler and change history, they are here to give him hell before his ultimate execution. They are prevented from doing it by the crashing Tardis, which is crashing because of Mels. Mels pops up in a nifty red sports car that she's stolen.
The set up? Amy and Rory have down a crop burning in the Doctor's name. They are contacting him because they want news on their daughter. They need to find their child, while they know she becomes River Song, they want to raise her. The Doctor shows up in Tardis and says really. When all of a sudden - he sees a line bisecting the name of The Doctor in the newspaper. Mels changes the history - driving her car straight through his name, neatly bisecting it in two.
Who is Mels? The Doctor wants to know. Amy and Rory seem to know her. She's a sexy, person of color sort of gal, with braids, and a devilish attitude. Doesn't look like Rory or Amy or River. Her reaction to the Doctor is - "You said he was funny, but you Never said he was 'hot'." She tells the Doctor that she's Amy's best mate. Funny, the Doctor responds, I don't remember you at the wedding. And Mels responds that she's not a fan of marriage...so skipped it.
Then we get a flashback - with Mels inserted in all the young Amy/Rory scenes. From Mels pov.
It feels like a huge retcon. But that's mislead number two. And Moffat gives you clues - 1) the line bisecting the Doctor's name, 2)in their childhood, Mel's constantly talking about the Doctor, and does not see the Doctor as perfect. Rory is perfect but not in a romantic sense. And she knows that he's not gay, like Amy thinks, and totally into Amy. Also Amy is always pulling Mels out of the slammer. A BFF who is also a bit of a mom.
Mels pulls a gun on the Doctor, once the sirens arrive and tells him - I got a gun and you got a time machine, let's kill Hitler. (In the flashbacks she gets in trouble for stating that the only reason Hitler rose to power is the Doctor didn't stop him. Or the Titantic Sank - because of the Doctor.)
In a nice twist, Hitler shoots Mel's when the Doctor attempts to stop him from shooting the Justice Guy (which is also an imaginative device - a robot run by lots of little people inside. And antibodies that take care of unauthorized personnel.) The Doctor tells Mels she needs to stick around so he can marry her. And Mels shocks everyone by stating you need to ask my parents first, who are standing next to you. And that it had taken her a while to hunt them both down, but she had. Which explains the retcon. Best use of a retcon ever. It also shows how time travel can incrementally change events, without quite realizing it. Mels exists because Mels found her parents as children - he interaction with them, along with the Doctor's created Mels.)
Amy apparently named her daughter after Mels - short for Melody.
The Doctor: You named your daughter after your daughter.
Then twist number 2 - happens, The Justice realizes they've found a war criminal more interesting and harder to catch than Hitler, at first we think - the Tardis, the Doctor? No, it is Melody Pound.
And Melody Pound regenerates into River Song. But she doesn't know she is River yet, she's going by the name Melody Pound. The Doctor ironically gives her the name River Song, which River gave to him. River is who she becomes. She's not there yet.
The story isn't being told in any sort of linear fashion, neither backwards or forwards - it's being told in a twisty out of sequence fashion, because here's the thing - the human mind is linear. But time is NOT. Time and light bend. Moffat seems to have figured that out, and is telling a tale in a completely new way. As a result - it's unpredictable. The variables make it difficult to predict where it will go, which makes the narrative more realistic in some ways than most tv shows.
What is the first thing she does? Try to kill the Doctor. And we know she eventually succeeds, because - the Justice tells us, and we literally saw it in The Impossible Astronaut. Melody Pound kills the Doctor in Impossible Astronaut. And Amy ironically tries to kill her own daughter in the same episode, but she doesn't know it's her daughter, and it's her daughter who calls out to her and the Doctor to go back in time and rescue her from The Silence. The astronaut that Amy tries to kill in The Impossible Astronaut is not the one who killed the Doctor, it's Melody Pound, before she escaped from the Silence.
The Doctor explains Melody Pound - when he tells her that she is a child of the Tardis. He figures it out, when the voice interface in the guise of Ameila Pound reminds him as he lies dying, unable to regenerate, that when he last regenerated he ate everything, hunting what he liked. Which is what Melody Pound is now doing - hunting what clothes she'd like to wear. He remembers something - she still is regenerating. Still has that power. He also realizes that the Tardis can show Melody how to save her parents.
He tells Melody: Rule number 3 or 5, Never Run when you're scared. (which is the opposite of what he did.) and Rule number 1 - The Doctor always lies.
Melody is as much the Tardis' child as she is Rory and Amy's. She is a child of the Tardis.
Conceived on it, while it was in motion. A child of the timestream. A time lord like the Doctor.
Captured by the Silence and brainwashed to kill the Doctor. Because the Doctor's own actions have
lead his enemies to become a bit too frightened of him...enough to create a time lord of their own to fight him.
But Melody saves The Doctor here. At risk to her own life. And ends up in the hospital. Amy and Rory want to stay, but the Doctor says they can't - they have too much foreknowledge and foreknowledge can be a dangerous thing. The Doctor has found out when and how Melody kills him via The Justice - the secret that Rory, Amy and River are keeping from him. Ironically River also knows..and must know that she is the one who does it. She was put in prison for killing a good man, that good man was the Doctor.
The Doctor leaves Melody - now River with a journal.
And he tells Amy and Rory not to worry, River will be hunting them down, they'll see River again.
Or rather Melody.
Amy states - but how? You're hard to find.
Doctor: Oh no, I'm not. Haven't you figured out yet - how?
River decides to become an archaeologist. Why do you want to study archaeology, asks the Professor.
River - to find a good man.
We also learn more about the Silence - the Silence appears to have descended from the Headless Monks, they are a religious order that believes all will change when one question is answered.
What is the question - unknown. But it is the Silence that has captured Melody and wants to turn Melody into a weapon. The Silence that ironically River and The Doctor defeat in The Impossible Astronaut. The Silence who took Amy Pound captive in that episode or perhaps before.
This story is fun, once you figure out one piece, your mind goes - oh wait, that explains this piece of the puzzle, and this one, and that one. Moffat's Doctor Who is a gift for anyone who thinks a bit too analytically, and gets bored far too easily with traditional story telling.
But it probably confuses the hell out of everyone else. ;-)
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 03:57 pm (UTC)At least, now you'll know what to do if a stronger storm does come your way some day.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 08:21 pm (UTC)It wasn't clear it was a tropical storm from a couple of days ago. I don't know who your source is? But The place where I work gets frequent weather updates, and on Friday night they said Category 1.
You want to know why I freaked? THEY SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRE MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM AND EVACUATED OVER 250,000 people from the city!!!
It costs a lot of money to shut down an entire transit system. It's hard to wrap your brain around it, unless you live here because most of America doesn't have a public transit and just drives everywhere - but the Mass Transit System in NYC serves on a daily basis, 24/7, over 5 million. It never stops. It is 24/7. To shut it down takes at least 8 hours of hard work and a lot of money. To start it up takes just as much if not more. Also keep in mind, at least 65% of the population of NYC doesn't drive or rarely drives or only drives elsewhere. Their sole mode of transportation is public transit. And they shut that down at 12 noon yesterday. They've NEVER done that before a storm before. Add to this? They literally evacuated over 250,000 people from the city. (That doesn't include the number of people evacuated from Long Island).
Now, you might think shutting mass transit down is hoo-hum akin to shutting down an airport or cancelling events. But it really isn't. It cost the state in the middle of a recession tons of money.
What happened - which they couldn't predict and did not know about until 8pm Saturday night...was that the storm lost most of its power over North Carolina. It packed a lot of power - and had a lot of potential to do a lot of harm. But it stayed over North Carolina too long and the pressure system from the north pushed it out, so as a result the eye broke apart and when it hit Coney Island, it had no eye. We got the front end but not the back.
There is a lot of damage in NYC, just not near me. Lots of streets under water. It's still a mess.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 10:42 pm (UTC)You can't blame the authorities for shutting down the mass transit. The storm was going to bring a lot of rain and flooding, no matter what. The evacuations had to be ordered early, or not at all, so that's not really a problem either.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 11:02 pm (UTC)Hurricanes aren't predictable. And they weren't sure if it would be a tropical or a category one. The one variable they couldn't quite predict was if it would be pushed out to the Atlantic again after North Carolina and gain volume, or would just hug the coast. That Atlantic pressure system could go either way.
It was a toss of a coin.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 02:03 pm (UTC)I didn't suggest you go to the NOAA site the day before the storm hit NYC for the same reason the government didn't announce to the city that all was well that day. It was still going to be a serious storm.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:14 pm (UTC)I agree the news media did blow it out of proportion. But don't they always? CNN certainly has. The Arizona Wild Fires, the California Mud-Slides, the recent earthquake....doesn't matter where it is. (Although North Carolina was really badly hit - slamned in fact, many people lost homes. It took the brunt of the storm for the rest of us.)
It's why I rarely watch the news outside of NY1 any longer. The news frankly is frightening. Even the weather channel blew things out of proportion. LOL!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 08:03 pm (UTC)I admittedly haven't been watching Torchwood - can't get it. But am quite happy didn't spend the extra for Starz, it doesn't sound like I'd enjoy it. 24 meets the X-Files, so not my cup of tea.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 10:25 pm (UTC)I really liked the episode, though I thought Melody's turnaround from determined to kill the Doctor to saving his life came a little quickly - perhaps not within the episode, but we only barely had time to see her as an assassin before she was cured of it. But hey, Moffat's earned my trust and I'll wait and see where this is going.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 10:58 pm (UTC)True. Although Alex Kingston did a good job of getting across her
uncertainty of what to do - someone fighting brainwashing. I think that's part of the key - she's been conditioned and brainwashed, so is struggling with what she knows is true and what she has been taught she is.
But hey, Moffat's earned my trust and I'll wait and see where this is going.
Oh definitely! Great start.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 07:53 pm (UTC)