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Jul. 11th, 2009 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafThanks to sir_guinglain and his car, I spent the afternoon at the Faringdon Arts Festival, which celebrates (mostly) local musicians, artists, craftspeople, etc., and a good time seemed to being had by all - it's free, so it really is a community thing, and the standard of music on offer seemed very high.
The main attraction, however, as far as I was concerned, was fannish: Phil Ford, the chief writer on the Sarah Jane Adventures providing a live commentary track for "The Last Sontaran", followed by Paul Cornell doing the same for "The Family of Blood." Both were interesting; I found Cornell more so, but that's probably down to the fact that while "The Last Sontaran" is a nice episode, it doesn't cut as deep as "FoB".
I was, however, intrigued to hear that RTD had originally been adamant that Chrissie could never find out about the existence of aliens, hence Maria and Alan's decision to drug her and convince her that her memories of the Sontaran was just a bad dream; the scene at the end when we realise that Chrissie remembers everything was a last minute change of plan. As PF observed, it's the saving of the character. I was very uneasy about it at the time - the last thing Who needs is another woman who thinks she's useless being deprived of her memory of saving the day - and I still think less of Alan and Maria for their unwillingness to trust her after she'd saved their necks (and everyone else's). There were various small details of the production which stood out in a way that they didn't the first time I watched the episode (especially as it was on iPlayer!), such as the visual echo between the hexagons on the computer war game Luke and Clyde are playing at the beginning of the episode, and the hexagons on the Sontaran-eye-view shots later in the episode; Kagh should have taken them more seriously as opponents.
"Human Nature/ Family of Blood" remains one of my favourite bits of Doctor Who ever - despite Paul Cornell's self-deprecating humour about it being eclipsed by "Blink" I think the two-parter has a lot more depth to it (though it's not quite as frightening, admittedly). PC was particularly interesting on the process of rewriting and script revision; it's odd to think that the very affecting 'Last Temptation of John Smith' sequence, where we flash through the life John could have had was a relatively late addition. They had originally planned a montage of scenes in which John and Joan court (as Cornell pointed out, their relationship moves far faster than would expect for the time), but decided that it slowed things up. At which point, the idea of the possible future arose. It does give an added weight to John's choice to die, underlining what he's giving up. Actually, this is one of the few moments where New Who's playing with Christ parallels for the Doctor has really worked for me* (possibly because John is human, and the Doctor isn't? Or possibly because the audience is not being beaten to death with it...)
PC also discussed the ultimate fate of the Family; he defended it against the charge of excessive cruelty, saying that they've been given what they wanted most, and for which they were prepared to kill anyone who got in the way of them. He added that he thought the Doctor visited Daughter every year in order to see if she was sorry, and let her out if she was (putting a Purgatorial, rather than a damnatory interpretation on it...) Possibly the nicest thing about his commentary, though, was the obvious love for the show, and the enthusiasm with which he talked about the work of the design team, in particular. It is a beautiful looking episode. I hadn't realised that they had such problems with the rain, but I suppose it's appropriate for an episode haunted by WWI, and added verisimilitude to the trench scenes... I'd also forgotten quite how beautifully Tennant acts, throughout (it's particularly noticable when he's acting the Doctor-acting-Smith).
In conclusion: it was fun, and there were Daleks: but I can't (yet) put up pictures, because DW still refuses to let me upload them from disk... really rather odd).
Dalek in hotel! Help!
Mesrs Ford and Cornell, somewhat out of focus, because I forgot to turn the flash on.
WAAAAAAH!
Most of the crowd were children; and children who knew a lot about Who, too; it's rather charming to hear eight year olds asking earnest questions about the Dalek Invasion of Earth....
* There are a few other moments of Doctor-as-God-analogue that I think work brilliantly, but they're the ones in which the accent is on the Doctor as a powerful, mysterious entity - the "he's fire and ice and rage, and he's wonderful" speech in FoB, and the moment in "Rose" where the Doctor tells Rose he can feel the earth spinning through space (which I have to admit was an unconscious influence on my Bible-fic. What goes around comes around, I suppose...)
sir_guinglain and his car, I spent the afternoon at the Faringdon Arts Festival, which celebrates (mostly) local musicians, artists, craftspeople, etc., and a good time seemed to being had by all - it's free, so it really is a community thing, and the standard of music on offer seemed very high.The main attraction, however, as far as I was concerned, was fannish: Phil Ford, the chief writer on the Sarah Jane Adventures providing a live commentary track for "The Last Sontaran", followed by Paul Cornell doing the same for "The Family of Blood." Both were interesting; I found Cornell more so, but that's probably down to the fact that while "The Last Sontaran" is a nice episode, it doesn't cut as deep as "FoB".
I was, however, intrigued to hear that RTD had originally been adamant that Chrissie could never find out about the existence of aliens, hence Maria and Alan's decision to drug her and convince her that her memories of the Sontaran was just a bad dream; the scene at the end when we realise that Chrissie remembers everything was a last minute change of plan. As PF observed, it's the saving of the character. I was very uneasy about it at the time - the last thing Who needs is another woman who thinks she's useless being deprived of her memory of saving the day - and I still think less of Alan and Maria for their unwillingness to trust her after she'd saved their necks (and everyone else's). There were various small details of the production which stood out in a way that they didn't the first time I watched the episode (especially as it was on iPlayer!), such as the visual echo between the hexagons on the computer war game Luke and Clyde are playing at the beginning of the episode, and the hexagons on the Sontaran-eye-view shots later in the episode; Kagh should have taken them more seriously as opponents.
"Human Nature/ Family of Blood" remains one of my favourite bits of Doctor Who ever - despite Paul Cornell's self-deprecating humour about it being eclipsed by "Blink" I think the two-parter has a lot more depth to it (though it's not quite as frightening, admittedly). PC was particularly interesting on the process of rewriting and script revision; it's odd to think that the very affecting 'Last Temptation of John Smith' sequence, where we flash through the life John could have had was a relatively late addition. They had originally planned a montage of scenes in which John and Joan court (as Cornell pointed out, their relationship moves far faster than would expect for the time), but decided that it slowed things up. At which point, the idea of the possible future arose. It does give an added weight to John's choice to die, underlining what he's giving up. Actually, this is one of the few moments where New Who's playing with Christ parallels for the Doctor has really worked for me* (possibly because John is human, and the Doctor isn't? Or possibly because the audience is not being beaten to death with it...)
PC also discussed the ultimate fate of the Family; he defended it against the charge of excessive cruelty, saying that they've been given what they wanted most, and for which they were prepared to kill anyone who got in the way of them. He added that he thought the Doctor visited Daughter every year in order to see if she was sorry, and let her out if she was (putting a Purgatorial, rather than a damnatory interpretation on it...) Possibly the nicest thing about his commentary, though, was the obvious love for the show, and the enthusiasm with which he talked about the work of the design team, in particular. It is a beautiful looking episode. I hadn't realised that they had such problems with the rain, but I suppose it's appropriate for an episode haunted by WWI, and added verisimilitude to the trench scenes... I'd also forgotten quite how beautifully Tennant acts, throughout (it's particularly noticable when he's acting the Doctor-acting-Smith).
In conclusion: it was fun, and there were Daleks: but I can't (yet) put up pictures, because DW still refuses to let me upload them from disk... really rather odd).
Dalek in hotel! Help!
Mesrs Ford and Cornell, somewhat out of focus, because I forgot to turn the flash on.
WAAAAAAH!
Most of the crowd were children; and children who knew a lot about Who, too; it's rather charming to hear eight year olds asking earnest questions about the Dalek Invasion of Earth....
* There are a few other moments of Doctor-as-God-analogue that I think work brilliantly, but they're the ones in which the accent is on the Doctor as a powerful, mysterious entity - the "he's fire and ice and rage, and he's wonderful" speech in FoB, and the moment in "Rose" where the Doctor tells Rose he can feel the earth spinning through space (which I have to admit was an unconscious influence on my Bible-fic. What goes around comes around, I suppose...)
RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 07:16 am (UTC)Re: RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 07:45 am (UTC)Re: RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 04:12 pm (UTC)Re: RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 09:09 am (UTC)Mind you, I'm not convinced by RTD's atheism (not in an 'I don't believe in atheists' sense, but in that particular case) - he strikes me as the sort of atheist who is very, very angry with God for not existing. Which possibly also explains the slightly ambivalent attitude to the Doctor, who is irresistible, wonderful, unreliable, and will probably ruin your life if he doesn't get you killed. (At least, so the text keeps telling us, though personally I think that's more embittered post-cancellation fanon than actual canon).
Re: RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 09:26 am (UTC)And, in the case of Jack Harkness, specifically ruin your life by making it ng you immortal.
Re: RTD's theology
Date: 2009-07-12 04:09 pm (UTC)