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shadowkatHappy Easter, Passover, or Rite of Spring...whichever you celebrate (as a UU, I celebrate all three and at the same time, equal opportunity and all that.) Personally, I like it as the metaphor of letting go of the old self, the fears, and demons of yesteryear, and being reborn into a new self for a new year. I think many of our religious rituals are mainly about renewal of hope.
Between reading The Captive Prince by SU Paget (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
freece) and tv shows, been having a relaxing three day holiday. Went out for Easter Brunch with MD and friends.
One of the friends, a bass player and paralegal, asked me what the definition of "meta" was, which I explained was a commentary on your own work. It's basically when a work comments on itself. Or comments on other related works within the genre or that the writer has done before. Very popular right now. Example - writing a song that comments on itself is meta.
On the net the definition has been broadened to include commenting on other works, and media essays.
The tv shows have been ranging from admittedly more pedesterian fare such as General Hospital and Dallas to far better written yet gritty fare such as Justified, Walking Dead, and Doctor Who. Why is it that the better fare is more violent? There's quite a few tv shows on right now that are extremely violent - which I can't rec to people - because their tolerance threshhold for fictional violence is not as high as mine. This is not a gender thing - by the way, since my father recently turned to my mother while watching an episode of Justified, and said "You like really violent tv shows." I found this sort of amusing coming from a guy whose favorite tv shows back in the day were MASH and The A Team and is currently NCIS. But whatever.
Here's a brief run-down of the one's worth mentioning:
1) Vampire Diaries - enjoying the brother dynamic, which appears to be the writers current obsession. Making me wonder if they have the same issues that I have with my brother?
Writers always have their favorite story kinks, tropes, which they feel an odd need to keep revisiting. If the kinks/tropes fit the audience's - it's basically golden. If they don't, well you are dead in the water. And audience's are fickle creatures - so there is no knowing what will turn them on. That said - safe story kinks tend to be family, sibiling rivalries, and unrequited love triangles. Also anything regarding redemption. Depending of course on how it is written.
Vamp Diaries does the brother bit pretty well. Actually they are better are that relationship than the romantic ones - which appear to hit a dead end once the two characters have sex. That's when in typical soap opera form, they decide to break the two lovers up.
Apparently there's a television taboo somewhere that no one can have a happy sexual relationship. I know there is a taboo regarding healthy/happy sexual relationships in the horror genre, the moment you have sex with someone (doesn't matter who) in the horror genre, you are basically dead. Both Joss Whedon and Kevin Williamson have done meta horror flicks that made fun of this particular trope.
Anyhow...this week's Vamp Diaries focused on two brother relationships, which were sort of splintered due to the love of a woman or obsession with one. The conflict was between power and love. Or power over someone else and love. Rather like the direction they are going with Elena, which I hadn't expected. They are taking that character down a rather dark place.
It's also about brotherly love.
Elena lost Jeremy, her brother, and to help her handle it - Damon advised her to turn off her emotions. Stefan/Damon thought this would help and hey, if it didn't work, Damon could always turn them on again. Not so much. The sire bond was based on emotion. Turns out they don't understand the sire bond. Now Elena could care less, well about everything but Jeremy's death and losing her family. It's a nice metaphor for grief - which can paralyze you and block out everything but the loss until you turn it all off and just go on a self-destructive rampage.
Also the strongest and most binding relationship Elena had was with Jeremy. This may explain why Elijah was upset with Katherine for killing Jeremy. Katherine destroyed her own blood, to get ahead. But Katherine does show regret and tells Elijah she has changed, apparently the one person she still cares for now is Elijah. Who still carries a torch for Katherine.
One that makes him a bit stupid.
Meanwhile Niclaus is developing his own torch for Caroline, who he is falling for. And he's made the point that Caroline isn't all that much better than he is - she after-all killed twelve witches to save Bonnie. Although to be fair, that was more accidental than deliberate and hardly compares to what he did to Jenna. Or the hybrids. Can love redeem Nicklaus, I guess a better question is can Nicklaus love?
Then there's the bro duo of Stefan/Damon. Stefan is bit moralistic and self-righteous, while Damon is snarky. That stated Stefan is getting better lines. He's actually more interesting when he's not paired with Elena. And I'm guessing the actor agrees with me. He reminds me a bit of Angel in that regard. OTP can be deathly boring in shows like this and crippling to characters. At any rate - I rather liked what he told Damon, which is that they need to stop repeating themselves, each time they fall in love with the same woman, try to destroy each other competing for her affections, until she turns on them and they both lose out - neither get the woman, and end up alone and miserable. Stefan's thinking - maybe they should just give Elena the cure and then wander out of her life. Or just wander out anyway.
They won't. If they did, we wouldn't have a show. I predict she'll be human again before the end of the season and devastated with guilt.
* The Walking Dead - much better written this year than in previous years, and better filmed. Very haunting and creepy in places. Also the parallel structure of Woodbury/Governor with Rick/Prison is effective. They are almost weird mirror images of each other.
The series is also admittedly amongst the best written on television at the moment, not to mention best acted and cast - unlike most series, they didn't cast pretty people, but good character actors in the roles. The characters of Grace, Darryl, Glenn, Andrea, and Michonne are amongst my favorites. I also have an odd fondness for red-neck asswipe Merl (Darryl's brother). And David Morrissey's Governor is work of genius - understated, and creepy, while even-handed and realistic. A perfect foil for Rick.
Sort of takes the zombie genre to a whole new level, that is if you can handle the grimness and unrelenting violence. Although, if you can watch Game of Thrones or Justified, you can watch this. They are about even. Right now the critically acclaimed, violent, gritty, anti-hero tv series are:
* Breaking Bad (hyper-realism - sort of the Sopranos by way of New Mexico, but more violent and a darker sense of humor. I actually think it is better written than the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. Less atmospheric, soap operish, and more plot-character driven. What it reminds me of is a modern day version of MacBeth. Can't rec it to anyone in my life though, too bloody violent - you have to have a really high violence threshold, plus like anti-heroes, to watch this.)
* Walking Dead (zombie disaster flick, with humans being the worst)
* Justified ( a modern day western...with an Elmore Leonard twist)
* Game of Thrones (a complex hyper-realistic AU medieval fantasy war epic based on the War of the Roses with well zombies and dragons)
* Boardwalk Empire (which is basically the Sopranoes but back in time...I've tried to watch it, but it puts me to sleep - too atmospheric)
* Copper (Justified in 1800 NYC by way of Homicide Life in the Streets - also overly atmospheric).
Haven't made it through the whole season yet. Still have three episodes to go before I catch up. But so far, am rather impressed. Andrea (Laurie Holder) gets across the conflict she feels - she cares for the Governor (Philip) and can't quite kill him. She sort of understands what drives him - that type of grief. After-all her sister's death drove her a bit off the deep end as well. Plus, it's not like Rick is much better - he's also gone of the rails over the death of his wife and best friend...both of which he feels ultimately responsible for. Now he's stuck raising a daughter that isn't really is, and whose parents are dead. And he's seeing Laurie's ghost everywhere. To the point that he makes the colossal mistake of kicking out four poor people who just want a place to stay and could have helped them - and have now joined the Woodbury group and are more than willing to help Woodbury oust Rick's group.
The writers have done a decent job of not painting either group as good or bad necessarily. Both leaders are a bit nutty in their own ways. There's really no clear cut good guys or bad guys in this tale - instead there are good and bad deeds...often the result of fear or the situation presented. Also the writers aren't preaching or moralizing...they let you make up your own mind.
Should Andrea take Grace's advice and kill Philip, the Governor, who she clearly has fallen for on some level? The Governor is admittedly horrible - he attacked the prison, and had Maggie prostitute herself to protect Glenn. It felt like rape to me, but Maggie denies it.
But from Andrea's pov, he's not. He's trying and she doesn't necessarily see a great deal of difference between him and Rick.
Then we have Darrly's dilemma with his brother, Merl, who he cares for but can't quite abide.
The human relationships in this series have evolved in an interesting and gritty manner.
* Doctor Who - The Bells of St. Marys.
I rather like the Moffat arcs of Doctor Who, but that's because what fascinates Moffat also fascinates me. The idea of time travel and how it can drive you a bit mad - the ability to always be on time, to be able to go to any time, and to run into someone at various moments in their life-time. To see someone die in multiple ways and multiple time threads - because if you change one thread, you create another one, and another one. The price of time travel - the cost. And ultimately...the loniliness of being able to live outside time and space,
while everyone else lives within it.
I'm not a fan of the time-travel genre, generally speaking, because too often people ignore...well the price and consequences.
This episode had the added bonus of playing with our fears of becoming lost in the internet. Moffat does a great job of playing with modern fears or rather post-modern fears.
* We meet Clara Oswald again, who I like a great deal. Particularly the name Clara, which is my mom's name. Too often people use the modern variation Claire. Nice to see the traditional version. She's witty, fiesty, and mysterious. She's the girl who the doctor saw die twice, once in the past, and once in the future. He can't figure her out.
I think it's another take on how time can affect people and their arcs. Amy's time arc was rewritten by the Doctor, to the point that he almost erased her and Rory. She was the girl who waited, while he darted in and out of her life, ocassionally taking her with him, so that she almost disappeared from her life and in doing so, time unraveled, because we all matter in our lives...it's like pulling a thread from a tapestry, the tapestry unravels.
Here, the Doctor's interaction may cause parallel time lines? I don't know. But I am admittedly curious. Also the repetitive pattern of the Doctor meeting his companion at different points in her time line, from little girl to adult, and finally death, doesn't bother me. That's realistic and what would most likely happen if you were a time travel attempting to reunite with someone you cared for and didn't always fly your time machine very well - it shows a necessary infallibility. RT Davies trope actually bugged me more - the whole lonely god who can do anything and handle anything, but is overwrought with guilt and abuses his power - so he must push all his female companions away from him - since they can't handle what he does, it's too much for them. (Can we say sexist? Yes, we can. So I didn't watch a lot of RT Davies Who Arc. YMMV). Doctor Who has been on for 50 years, it's impossible to like all of them. Each writer puts his/her own stamp on the verse and character.
* The B plot arc - which is about an alien intelligence feeding off of brain energy or minds downloaded onto the internet, was actually creepy and interesting. It reminded me of some genre fiction I've read - like a weird combo of Philip K Dick and William Gibson, with a touch of Neil Gaiman or Ron Moore. Also a little of Japanese horror flicks.
What was great about this arc:
- people unknowingly clicking a link and instead of downloading data, being downloaded as data onto the world-wide web - like flies caught in a spiders net, not knowing where they are. They've been warned not to click the link...but they do by accident. It's frightening because how often do we do that and get our system infected by a virus. Perfect use of an modern urban legend. Moffat's psychological horror tales scare and fascinate me more than anyone else's on tv. So twisty.
- Metaphor of being lost...or finding yourself somewhere but you don't no where - goes right to the core of Doctor Who, who has no name, is lost in time and space, and been running forever, half mad.
- The twist at the end where it is revealed that the people who were working for the alien entity were victims as well...molded by the entity - an on-going theme, from the Snowmen episode. Here - the main villain, the woman leader, we discover is a little girl wondering when her parents will return - inside the body of a 50-60 year old woman. That may be the creepiest scene in the whole episode and the most tragic.
She lost her parents...and got the alien, now that the alien is gone, she has nothing, for he has taken everything from her, all her knowledge, and her persona. Are we our memories?
What happens when they are removed?
What was not so great?
* Moffat loves having someone use the words Doctor Who in each episode - a sort of meta-narrative on the show. The modern over-usage of meta-narrative can get old at times and Moffat seems to enjoy it. It's something he has in common with Davies, Whedon, and Gaiman.
* Whole bit about the Tardis being so cool...yes, we know. Another meta-narrative.
Other than that, great episode.
* Captive Prince Vol 1 and Vol 2 - not a full review quite yet. Haven't finished. About 67% through. The writing is similar to what you tend to find online...which is a lot of summarization of action sequences, development of a couple of characters, and an undue focus on sensuality. There's lots of scenes of the characters getting dressed and undressed. Also breaking down camp and making camp. The writer seems obsessed with what they are wearing. What is it with female novelists and clothing?
That said, the characters and the story are compelling. Damen and Laurent, two princes from opposite sides of a war. Except Laurent doesn't know that Damen is a prince or that he is the prince Laurent is obsessed with, the one who killed his beloved brother Auguste on the Marlas battlefield, and was leading and commanding armies at 17. This is six years after that battle, Damen is about 25/26 now, and been stripped of his title, his name, gagged, bound, and sold as a pleasure slave to the opposition by his half-brother, Kastor, who has taken his throne and married his mistress/lover, Lady Jokaste. Betrayed by two people he trusted, Damen must pretend to be a solider, and hide his true identity from the prince he's been given to - as a treaty gift. Particularly since the prince in question, is Laurent, Auguste's younger brother - the man that Damen killed on the battlefield six years ago.
The story is an interesting one - it delves into the differences between sibling relationships. Laurent loved his older brother, worshipped him, and Auguste protected Laurent, treated Laurent with respect and loved him in return. While Damen loved Kastor, but Kastor resented Damen, hated him, saw him as a threat, as stealing the throne that was rightfully his - a rivalry that Damen's father inadvertently fostered by showing his pride in Damen - whenever Damen beat or outshone Kastor. That said, Laurent has his own issues - his Uncle is attempting to kill him in order to keep the throne.
Also there's a difference in cultures and in the personalities of the two men. Plus the gender switches. In this book, there are female warriors for example. And Laurent in many respects is very feminine in aspect or has traditional feminine traits, he manipulates, he uses words not fists, he is intellectual, and pretty, he uses sexuality and sensuality, yet is considered frigid, not viril. Slight of build. While Damen is a straight-forward hero. I like straight-forward heros - it depends on how they are written. Some writers screw up and make them holier than thou self-righteous jerks, which is just poor writing. If written well, they are rather interesting. This writer does a good job - Damen is sympathetic and we are in his pov the whole time.
While the first volume is a bit cracky in places, the second is rather good and compelling.
It's sloppy writing - you can tell it was written online first or self-published, without a professional editor. An editor would have probably told the writer to flesh out certain sections, and abbreviated or summarized others. But I don't hold that against the writer - editors, good editors, are really really hard to find in this day and age - in fact I'm not even sure they exist. There are a few, but not many. Considering this was self-published and just 3.99 - it's worth it. Or, you can read it at the writer's lj for free. Volume 3 is hopefully out soon. I will most likely finish Volume 2 - tonight or tomorrow. Tore through Volume 1 in less than three days. They are page-turners.
Between reading The Captive Prince by SU Paget (
freece) and tv shows, been having a relaxing three day holiday. Went out for Easter Brunch with MD and friends.One of the friends, a bass player and paralegal, asked me what the definition of "meta" was, which I explained was a commentary on your own work. It's basically when a work comments on itself. Or comments on other related works within the genre or that the writer has done before. Very popular right now. Example - writing a song that comments on itself is meta.
On the net the definition has been broadened to include commenting on other works, and media essays.
The tv shows have been ranging from admittedly more pedesterian fare such as General Hospital and Dallas to far better written yet gritty fare such as Justified, Walking Dead, and Doctor Who. Why is it that the better fare is more violent? There's quite a few tv shows on right now that are extremely violent - which I can't rec to people - because their tolerance threshhold for fictional violence is not as high as mine. This is not a gender thing - by the way, since my father recently turned to my mother while watching an episode of Justified, and said "You like really violent tv shows." I found this sort of amusing coming from a guy whose favorite tv shows back in the day were MASH and The A Team and is currently NCIS. But whatever.
Here's a brief run-down of the one's worth mentioning:
1) Vampire Diaries - enjoying the brother dynamic, which appears to be the writers current obsession. Making me wonder if they have the same issues that I have with my brother?
Writers always have their favorite story kinks, tropes, which they feel an odd need to keep revisiting. If the kinks/tropes fit the audience's - it's basically golden. If they don't, well you are dead in the water. And audience's are fickle creatures - so there is no knowing what will turn them on. That said - safe story kinks tend to be family, sibiling rivalries, and unrequited love triangles. Also anything regarding redemption. Depending of course on how it is written.
Vamp Diaries does the brother bit pretty well. Actually they are better are that relationship than the romantic ones - which appear to hit a dead end once the two characters have sex. That's when in typical soap opera form, they decide to break the two lovers up.
Apparently there's a television taboo somewhere that no one can have a happy sexual relationship. I know there is a taboo regarding healthy/happy sexual relationships in the horror genre, the moment you have sex with someone (doesn't matter who) in the horror genre, you are basically dead. Both Joss Whedon and Kevin Williamson have done meta horror flicks that made fun of this particular trope.
Anyhow...this week's Vamp Diaries focused on two brother relationships, which were sort of splintered due to the love of a woman or obsession with one. The conflict was between power and love. Or power over someone else and love. Rather like the direction they are going with Elena, which I hadn't expected. They are taking that character down a rather dark place.
It's also about brotherly love.
Elena lost Jeremy, her brother, and to help her handle it - Damon advised her to turn off her emotions. Stefan/Damon thought this would help and hey, if it didn't work, Damon could always turn them on again. Not so much. The sire bond was based on emotion. Turns out they don't understand the sire bond. Now Elena could care less, well about everything but Jeremy's death and losing her family. It's a nice metaphor for grief - which can paralyze you and block out everything but the loss until you turn it all off and just go on a self-destructive rampage.
Also the strongest and most binding relationship Elena had was with Jeremy. This may explain why Elijah was upset with Katherine for killing Jeremy. Katherine destroyed her own blood, to get ahead. But Katherine does show regret and tells Elijah she has changed, apparently the one person she still cares for now is Elijah. Who still carries a torch for Katherine.
One that makes him a bit stupid.
Meanwhile Niclaus is developing his own torch for Caroline, who he is falling for. And he's made the point that Caroline isn't all that much better than he is - she after-all killed twelve witches to save Bonnie. Although to be fair, that was more accidental than deliberate and hardly compares to what he did to Jenna. Or the hybrids. Can love redeem Nicklaus, I guess a better question is can Nicklaus love?
Then there's the bro duo of Stefan/Damon. Stefan is bit moralistic and self-righteous, while Damon is snarky. That stated Stefan is getting better lines. He's actually more interesting when he's not paired with Elena. And I'm guessing the actor agrees with me. He reminds me a bit of Angel in that regard. OTP can be deathly boring in shows like this and crippling to characters. At any rate - I rather liked what he told Damon, which is that they need to stop repeating themselves, each time they fall in love with the same woman, try to destroy each other competing for her affections, until she turns on them and they both lose out - neither get the woman, and end up alone and miserable. Stefan's thinking - maybe they should just give Elena the cure and then wander out of her life. Or just wander out anyway.
They won't. If they did, we wouldn't have a show. I predict she'll be human again before the end of the season and devastated with guilt.
* The Walking Dead - much better written this year than in previous years, and better filmed. Very haunting and creepy in places. Also the parallel structure of Woodbury/Governor with Rick/Prison is effective. They are almost weird mirror images of each other.
The series is also admittedly amongst the best written on television at the moment, not to mention best acted and cast - unlike most series, they didn't cast pretty people, but good character actors in the roles. The characters of Grace, Darryl, Glenn, Andrea, and Michonne are amongst my favorites. I also have an odd fondness for red-neck asswipe Merl (Darryl's brother). And David Morrissey's Governor is work of genius - understated, and creepy, while even-handed and realistic. A perfect foil for Rick.
Sort of takes the zombie genre to a whole new level, that is if you can handle the grimness and unrelenting violence. Although, if you can watch Game of Thrones or Justified, you can watch this. They are about even. Right now the critically acclaimed, violent, gritty, anti-hero tv series are:
* Breaking Bad (hyper-realism - sort of the Sopranos by way of New Mexico, but more violent and a darker sense of humor. I actually think it is better written than the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire. Less atmospheric, soap operish, and more plot-character driven. What it reminds me of is a modern day version of MacBeth. Can't rec it to anyone in my life though, too bloody violent - you have to have a really high violence threshold, plus like anti-heroes, to watch this.)
* Walking Dead (zombie disaster flick, with humans being the worst)
* Justified ( a modern day western...with an Elmore Leonard twist)
* Game of Thrones (a complex hyper-realistic AU medieval fantasy war epic based on the War of the Roses with well zombies and dragons)
* Boardwalk Empire (which is basically the Sopranoes but back in time...I've tried to watch it, but it puts me to sleep - too atmospheric)
* Copper (Justified in 1800 NYC by way of Homicide Life in the Streets - also overly atmospheric).
Haven't made it through the whole season yet. Still have three episodes to go before I catch up. But so far, am rather impressed. Andrea (Laurie Holder) gets across the conflict she feels - she cares for the Governor (Philip) and can't quite kill him. She sort of understands what drives him - that type of grief. After-all her sister's death drove her a bit off the deep end as well. Plus, it's not like Rick is much better - he's also gone of the rails over the death of his wife and best friend...both of which he feels ultimately responsible for. Now he's stuck raising a daughter that isn't really is, and whose parents are dead. And he's seeing Laurie's ghost everywhere. To the point that he makes the colossal mistake of kicking out four poor people who just want a place to stay and could have helped them - and have now joined the Woodbury group and are more than willing to help Woodbury oust Rick's group.
The writers have done a decent job of not painting either group as good or bad necessarily. Both leaders are a bit nutty in their own ways. There's really no clear cut good guys or bad guys in this tale - instead there are good and bad deeds...often the result of fear or the situation presented. Also the writers aren't preaching or moralizing...they let you make up your own mind.
Should Andrea take Grace's advice and kill Philip, the Governor, who she clearly has fallen for on some level? The Governor is admittedly horrible - he attacked the prison, and had Maggie prostitute herself to protect Glenn. It felt like rape to me, but Maggie denies it.
But from Andrea's pov, he's not. He's trying and she doesn't necessarily see a great deal of difference between him and Rick.
Then we have Darrly's dilemma with his brother, Merl, who he cares for but can't quite abide.
The human relationships in this series have evolved in an interesting and gritty manner.
* Doctor Who - The Bells of St. Marys.
I rather like the Moffat arcs of Doctor Who, but that's because what fascinates Moffat also fascinates me. The idea of time travel and how it can drive you a bit mad - the ability to always be on time, to be able to go to any time, and to run into someone at various moments in their life-time. To see someone die in multiple ways and multiple time threads - because if you change one thread, you create another one, and another one. The price of time travel - the cost. And ultimately...the loniliness of being able to live outside time and space,
while everyone else lives within it.
I'm not a fan of the time-travel genre, generally speaking, because too often people ignore...well the price and consequences.
This episode had the added bonus of playing with our fears of becoming lost in the internet. Moffat does a great job of playing with modern fears or rather post-modern fears.
* We meet Clara Oswald again, who I like a great deal. Particularly the name Clara, which is my mom's name. Too often people use the modern variation Claire. Nice to see the traditional version. She's witty, fiesty, and mysterious. She's the girl who the doctor saw die twice, once in the past, and once in the future. He can't figure her out.
I think it's another take on how time can affect people and their arcs. Amy's time arc was rewritten by the Doctor, to the point that he almost erased her and Rory. She was the girl who waited, while he darted in and out of her life, ocassionally taking her with him, so that she almost disappeared from her life and in doing so, time unraveled, because we all matter in our lives...it's like pulling a thread from a tapestry, the tapestry unravels.
Here, the Doctor's interaction may cause parallel time lines? I don't know. But I am admittedly curious. Also the repetitive pattern of the Doctor meeting his companion at different points in her time line, from little girl to adult, and finally death, doesn't bother me. That's realistic and what would most likely happen if you were a time travel attempting to reunite with someone you cared for and didn't always fly your time machine very well - it shows a necessary infallibility. RT Davies trope actually bugged me more - the whole lonely god who can do anything and handle anything, but is overwrought with guilt and abuses his power - so he must push all his female companions away from him - since they can't handle what he does, it's too much for them. (Can we say sexist? Yes, we can. So I didn't watch a lot of RT Davies Who Arc. YMMV). Doctor Who has been on for 50 years, it's impossible to like all of them. Each writer puts his/her own stamp on the verse and character.
* The B plot arc - which is about an alien intelligence feeding off of brain energy or minds downloaded onto the internet, was actually creepy and interesting. It reminded me of some genre fiction I've read - like a weird combo of Philip K Dick and William Gibson, with a touch of Neil Gaiman or Ron Moore. Also a little of Japanese horror flicks.
What was great about this arc:
- people unknowingly clicking a link and instead of downloading data, being downloaded as data onto the world-wide web - like flies caught in a spiders net, not knowing where they are. They've been warned not to click the link...but they do by accident. It's frightening because how often do we do that and get our system infected by a virus. Perfect use of an modern urban legend. Moffat's psychological horror tales scare and fascinate me more than anyone else's on tv. So twisty.
- Metaphor of being lost...or finding yourself somewhere but you don't no where - goes right to the core of Doctor Who, who has no name, is lost in time and space, and been running forever, half mad.
- The twist at the end where it is revealed that the people who were working for the alien entity were victims as well...molded by the entity - an on-going theme, from the Snowmen episode. Here - the main villain, the woman leader, we discover is a little girl wondering when her parents will return - inside the body of a 50-60 year old woman. That may be the creepiest scene in the whole episode and the most tragic.
She lost her parents...and got the alien, now that the alien is gone, she has nothing, for he has taken everything from her, all her knowledge, and her persona. Are we our memories?
What happens when they are removed?
What was not so great?
* Moffat loves having someone use the words Doctor Who in each episode - a sort of meta-narrative on the show. The modern over-usage of meta-narrative can get old at times and Moffat seems to enjoy it. It's something he has in common with Davies, Whedon, and Gaiman.
* Whole bit about the Tardis being so cool...yes, we know. Another meta-narrative.
Other than that, great episode.
* Captive Prince Vol 1 and Vol 2 - not a full review quite yet. Haven't finished. About 67% through. The writing is similar to what you tend to find online...which is a lot of summarization of action sequences, development of a couple of characters, and an undue focus on sensuality. There's lots of scenes of the characters getting dressed and undressed. Also breaking down camp and making camp. The writer seems obsessed with what they are wearing. What is it with female novelists and clothing?
That said, the characters and the story are compelling. Damen and Laurent, two princes from opposite sides of a war. Except Laurent doesn't know that Damen is a prince or that he is the prince Laurent is obsessed with, the one who killed his beloved brother Auguste on the Marlas battlefield, and was leading and commanding armies at 17. This is six years after that battle, Damen is about 25/26 now, and been stripped of his title, his name, gagged, bound, and sold as a pleasure slave to the opposition by his half-brother, Kastor, who has taken his throne and married his mistress/lover, Lady Jokaste. Betrayed by two people he trusted, Damen must pretend to be a solider, and hide his true identity from the prince he's been given to - as a treaty gift. Particularly since the prince in question, is Laurent, Auguste's younger brother - the man that Damen killed on the battlefield six years ago.
The story is an interesting one - it delves into the differences between sibling relationships. Laurent loved his older brother, worshipped him, and Auguste protected Laurent, treated Laurent with respect and loved him in return. While Damen loved Kastor, but Kastor resented Damen, hated him, saw him as a threat, as stealing the throne that was rightfully his - a rivalry that Damen's father inadvertently fostered by showing his pride in Damen - whenever Damen beat or outshone Kastor. That said, Laurent has his own issues - his Uncle is attempting to kill him in order to keep the throne.
Also there's a difference in cultures and in the personalities of the two men. Plus the gender switches. In this book, there are female warriors for example. And Laurent in many respects is very feminine in aspect or has traditional feminine traits, he manipulates, he uses words not fists, he is intellectual, and pretty, he uses sexuality and sensuality, yet is considered frigid, not viril. Slight of build. While Damen is a straight-forward hero. I like straight-forward heros - it depends on how they are written. Some writers screw up and make them holier than thou self-righteous jerks, which is just poor writing. If written well, they are rather interesting. This writer does a good job - Damen is sympathetic and we are in his pov the whole time.
While the first volume is a bit cracky in places, the second is rather good and compelling.
It's sloppy writing - you can tell it was written online first or self-published, without a professional editor. An editor would have probably told the writer to flesh out certain sections, and abbreviated or summarized others. But I don't hold that against the writer - editors, good editors, are really really hard to find in this day and age - in fact I'm not even sure they exist. There are a few, but not many. Considering this was self-published and just 3.99 - it's worth it. Or, you can read it at the writer's lj for free. Volume 3 is hopefully out soon. I will most likely finish Volume 2 - tonight or tomorrow. Tore through Volume 1 in less than three days. They are page-turners.
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Date: 2013-04-01 12:06 pm (UTC)I really like Clara, I think she'll make a wonderful Doctor Who companion... she has shown real range in acting from computer girl in the Dalek Asylum to her governess/investigator in Snowmen and now her reluctant companion.... I'm really looking forward to see where Doctor Who will go with her this year!
And last night getting both the season premier of Game of Thrones AND the season finale of Walking Dead! ACK! It is so wonderful (and AMC was running ads for Breaking Bad, so hopefully that is returning soon).
I guess I'm on board with the violence... but of course it isn't the violence itself that attracts me: seasons 1 and 2 of Walking Dead had plenty of violence but it didn't really seem to mean anything. But season 3 has been knocking my socks off! No spoilers...
but it has been blowing my mind on a weekly basis.
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Date: 2013-04-02 08:16 am (UTC)I don't think it's just self-indulgence. We now know that 'Doctor Who?' is The First Question (the question that must never be answered!), and that the answer will cause Silence to fall... It's a giant flashing reminder of DANGER, and the story to come.
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Date: 2013-04-02 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 10:19 pm (UTC)Her critiques are seeping into my brain.
There's a faction on my flist that prefers RT Davies to Moffat apparently. I don't understand this...but it is what it is.
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Date: 2013-04-02 10:26 pm (UTC)Indeed. And RTD and Moffat operate in completely different ways. If you analyse one with the framework of the other, you will always come out unhappy.
ETA: Marvellous meta here if you want to delve into Moffat's layers & meanings.