It’s been tough to be a Whovian in the past few years.
First there was the Clara denouement, in which show-runner Steven Moffat demonstrated he cannot write for women. Then, there was no Dr. Who in 2016, period, and we suffered through the rather uneven Series 10 and Bill the social justice warrior. Last, we’re in another break, as we wait for almost another year (October 2018) to see the first female doctor, Jodie Whittaker.
So, after the dirge that was series nine–Clara’s gone, yay!–we waited.
We waited since DECEMBER 25, 2015. We noticed there’d be a new companion and she’d be “cool and different”. We heard Moffat was leaving. We noted Capaldi was bowing-out. None of these were good signs.
This sounded much like Poochie had come to the Whoniverse
Thus far, it would seem that’s entirely wrong.
Bill’s a (slightly unintelligible) delight, and Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor is now….well….spry. Wiping his memory clean of dour Clara seems like it made him whole again, like he’s once again the madman in the box, with all of Time and Space.
SPOILERS!!
Dinosaurs in London.
Well, that was awkward. Capaldi off to a poor start, but honestly, so was Tennant in “Christmas Invasion”
New Opening looks like the opening to Amazing Stories in 1985…
“People are apes. MEN are monkeys.” Nice, Mdm Vastra
Clara dealing with the change. Not well. Metaphor for all relationships–people change. Are we big enough to see through the veil?
Parallels: Doctor and the Dinosaur, “I am alone…”
A couple of things hit me tonight: First, I’ve never written anything about my experience in Cebu last October, which is a travesty. Second, I’ve never written anything about Dr. Who, which is near an unforgivable sin.
(Above: Billie Piper and David Tennant, the 10th Doctor)
As I was about to leave for Cebu, October 2nd 2012, I noted my wife wasn’t speaking to me. I was about to fly halfway around the world (12 hour time difference) and leave her holding the bag: Three kids. New house with a mold problem. New middle schooler.
TV Cancellations thrill me. Stinker shows go circling the drain, and we all get to cheer.
First big one to go: My Own Worst Enemy. Terrible show, poorly executed–just painful to watch, really.
Sad thing is, most things on network TV these days aren’t that much better. Grey’s Anatomy jumped the shark years ago, as has every single reality show.
Overall, TV’s just ceasing to exist for me–I like House, though its formulaic nature and current shark sighting (House and Cuddy?! Hello Moonlighting!)
Joey: “I wish we had cable.”
* * *
LOST why do I care again?
Eli Stone actually made it through a whole episode and found some stuff to like. On the whole, I’d rather sleep, but eh. This one gets the biggest award for “Zero chemistry between main character and his ice queen fiancee.”
Oh, and Sydney’s dad from Alias is a co-star. He pretty-much plays the same character. And ‘Ed’ shows up in flashbacks as his Dad.
Okay, at this point in my life, there’s only one show I watch religiously: Grey’s Anatomy.
The last two episodes have caused me physical pain. You see, the main characters, the swooping eagles of the show–Merideth, Derek, Christina, and Burke–mean nothing to me. They’re interesting in a surreal sort of way.
There are two characters I DO care about–Izzie and George. They seem very real to me…they’re best friends and confidants, and they’re flawed. They don’t soar quite as high as the rest, but they do have a depth of emotion that is the anchor of this show – when George’s dad died, I had to consider what my own response will be to my father’s passing. When Izzie lost Denny, the man for whom she threw away her career, I had to examine just what I would do if my own beloved were dying and there was precious little I could do about it.
I love “Grey’s Anatomy”, but they Jumped the Shark many different ways last night.
A very special…: On tonight’s very special introduction to the three-episode story-arc from Hell, we concoct a ferry-boat hitting a container ship, turn thousands of characters you don’t care about into hamburger so that we can beleaguer a metaphor for a central character who feels lost. Yay.
Hair care…: We will have an entire, poorly shot elevator scene of uncomfortable actors trying to do material about an aging, balding black man’s hair. The only female will cluck her hen-like, “Leave him Be!” Four more times that should be allowed by the Screen Actor’s Guild.
Jeff Roberts - Dec 6, 2006
Yeah, pretty lame. The first season, everyone was especially two-dimensional, but then I thought that of TNG at first. For some reason the girls and I got hooked on Voyager, though and I’ve seen all but one episode…and now that we have NetFlix I’ll have to check for it :-)
I’ve spent the better part of three dull, lifeless days watching a marathon of Star Trek: Voyager and wanted to comment on it.
LAME!
I’ve listened to Jeff complain about the “venting plasma from the port nacelle” problem, and it seems every episode I’ve seen has something to do with time travel or the hollo-deck.
I’ve commented several times watching these episodes how these idea were great–the first time I saw them on “Next Generation”.
“Jumping the Shark” v. To achieve a moment where people realize “it’s all downhill from here”.
On ER two weeks ago, they treated a chimp. A CHIMP. ugh. John Leguizamo’s character is awful, and Kristen Johnson is trying hard, but her character makes the show suck. Luca and Abbey are the only decent characters remaining.
For more details Jump The Shark
I now have 72 channels, ranging from news, sports, human interest, travel, cooking, learning, and not-too-recent movies. It takes me 20 minutes to flip through them all, comprehend which channel I’m watching, and discern why I really don’t want to watch that channel at that second. I just spent the last two hours trying to reaclimate myself to cable.
I have a headache.
I can feel my attention span shortening, my life wasting away, and a strange desire to buy airwick air freshener. Things have changed somewhat in the time I’ve been away from cable. News is now NEWS, DAMNIT! “News” is the presentation of current goings-on, possibly with human interest stories and some weird stuff to give flavor. NEWS, DAMNIT involves 3-4 blonde anchorpersons, a crawl going across the bottom of the screen, a rotating “FOX NEWS” banner in the lower corner, and snazzy graphics proclaiming the latest UPDATE regarding the president’s digestion or Alan Greenspan’s incontinence.
Had an epiphany about why I like Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen” and NBC’s “Apprentice”: People get fired. In today’s professional world, mediocre performers remain year after year, bringing down the average productivity of the group. Because there’s no turn-over, there’s no real incentive to replace those people who’ve lost their edge with fresh faces with new ideas.
There’s a very real thrill associated with seeing white-collared folks dealing with the same crap (job insecurity, performance requirements) that blue-collar folks deal with every day.
Lost tonight was an immense waste of time…we learned nothing about what’s really going on, and I’m really ceasing to care about most of these characters.
Requiem for Alex Kingston, who’s leaving ER after 7 seasons.
She’s never been one of my favorite characters, but seems she’s leaving the show on bad terms, the suits at NBC deciding her character was getting too old and dowdy to attract the 18-35 demographic.
So now, we have the new rock-star wannabe resident. Lovely.
Random “Apprentice” complaint:
Okay, so you set-up the only woman with a molecule of leadership skill to fail, then you FIRE HER!?
Disgusting.
Moved to wretch about the latest TV disaster, LAX
It’s AWFUL!
It’d be one thing if they played it kitschy like they do on “Las Vegas” (Baywatch in a Casino, table for one?), but they’re playing this “drama” like it’s CSI or something…
Okay, let’s look at the facts:
- Heather Locklear is past her prime, and couldn’t act when she was in her prime. And this material is just a bit heavier than “Melrose Place”
The second day of olympics coverage and an interesting conversation with my beloved kept me up WAY past my bedtime, and caused me to be very tardy to work today–9:45.
The olympics coverage has been excellent, though for once, I wish I had cable (MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo) so that I could watch some of the other events. I’d really like to see some of the equestrian stuff, and I’ve heard good things about fencing this year. Matt Fagenbush (sp?), one of my autocross buddies, is a competitive fencer, and after he explained the sport to me (3 blades–foil, epée, and saber), seems like it’d be amazing to watch.
Well, looks like the Buffyverse is finally dead, that creation of Joss Whedon’s mind that spawned nerd-heaven “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” will at least go into dormancy with the end of “Angel”, Los Angeles-based spinoff from the earlier “Buffy” series.
These shows represented consistent creative writing, acting, and characterization in an increasingly homogenized television landscape. Though not an “Angel” fan myself, I’ll mark its passing with respect.
