Love, Blood and Rhetoric

I’ve been dipping out of Nu Who recently, skipping randomly between Eccleston, Tennant and Smith. It’s quite interesting to pit them against one another and one thing that’s apparent is how much fonder I’ve grown of Matt Smith and Chris Eccleston’s depictions, at the expense of Tennant. In fact, the more I rewatch Nine, the more love I feel. Eccleston’s Doctor is endearing, but he’s got that intensity as an actor that’s missing from Tennant’s run. (Of course, John Barrowman complained that he was too intense, but, well, fuck you Barrowman. It’s an acting gig, not a social club.) When Tennant’s called on to be intense and angry, he does that whole “Oh nonononono,” head-shakey thing and then gets all SHOUTY, like a puffer fish. But when Nine goes that route I really believe he’s going to kick some bottom.

It’s not entirely Tennant’s performance though. Eccleston had some stronger material to work with, the first series of rebooted Who didn’t rely on SUPER-DOCTOR! so often, with the character pulling new abilities out of his bum every other week and he was paired with a likable version of Rose, as opposed to the rather smug and selfish character she later became.

But, yeah, Eccleston. He’s still not my favourite Doctor by some margin, but he’s definitely overtaken Tennant on rewatches, who’s slipping down into the Colin Baker and John Pertwee zone the more I rewatch his episodes. Nine, on the other hand, has been growing on me over time. He’s endearingly goofy a lot of the time - proving that Eccleston could do silly and fun, which is why he apparently took the role - but when he does get serious, he’s superb.

Also, I may never forgive Ten for what he did to Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, Prime Minister and Former Prime Minister.

You know who she is.

There's seriously not enough hours in the day for me to watch all the TV I want to watch.

See, back in the day, when there were only four TV channels (shocking, I know) US imports were a rare breed. Occasionally one would flit across the Atlantic and become a big deal - the LA Laws or the Babylon 5s or the Due Souths or the Buffys or the Northern Exposures or the or the X-Files or the ERs or the Sienfelds or the NYPD Blues. Or even American Gothic. Anyone remember that one? Channel 4 was pretty much the only channel to make a song and dance about imports and put them on at a reasonable hour (mostly. Babylon 5 and Angel got relegated to graveyard slots pretty early on), while the BBC had a tendency to buy critically acclaimed shows like Sienfeld and put them out in the early hours of the morning. But sitting down and watching ER and X-Files one after another was an event in our house.

Now imports are the easy and cheap way to fill the schedules for the countless digital TV channels that have sprung up in advance of TV here switching over to digital. With set-top boxes beaming more and more channels into people's homes, there's only so many repeats that can be shown. So, buying US programming's the easy option. Coupled with the internet and hearing about US series that much earlier, my "To watch" list's grown to unmanagable proportions.

Because the US produces so much TV I could never keep up with all the TV I want to see. Oh, it's not so bad if you're able to jump in on a ground floor level, but all too often I only pick up on series after they've one or two seasons under their belt. Often more. And who has time to go back and watch the five seasons of a show you want to watch, but have missed? And that happens to me a lot.

Let's see... currently in my "To watch" pile of DVDs, imported series I was interested enough to buy, often from recommendations from friends, but just haven't found time to watch yet are:

Johnny Deep's apparently pulled out of Terry Gilliam's famously cursed version of Don Quixote. After ten years since the last attempt, a scheduling clash means that when (if) if starts shooting again, Depp's not available. Cue Terry Gilliam:
 

"I wanted to shoot Don Quixote next spring. He said he's not available and we have both agreed that I'm going to die soon, so it would be nice to get this film under my belt."

"But Michael Medved, a former Post movie critic, says Downey and Law must be joking. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals," Medved told us. "I think they're just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office. Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Jude Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women."

This might sound ridiculous, but Michael Bay movies take themselves very, very seriously. That's right, Michael Bay movies. (And, yes, we're counting Bad Boys 2.) Even with their ridiculous premises, there is an arrogance, a pomp, a slick, pre-packaged, out-of-the-box desire to be EPIC to Bay's movies that can be entertaining, but also can occasionally suck all of the fun out of a movie theatre thanks to their painful efforts to be either cool or profound in every second of every frame. On the other side of the spectrum, there's Stephen Sommers, and let's be honest, there is NOTHING cool about Stephen Sommers. If Bay was the high school kid who spent all of his energy being cool, Sommers is the class clown, the class speed freak, the kid in your class who'd skateboard off the roof just to make his friends laugh. This doesn't mean that Sommers makes great movies - he doesn't. Deep Rising is a hysterical B-movie, The Mummy is a fairly solid popcorn flick, The Mummy Returns is bat-s*** insane, and Van Helsing is so over-the-top it's almost Kabuki. However, all four of those movies are never boring and were obviously made by a guy who was trying to make every second of every frame pure sugar-sweet FUN. 

"Watching Superman movies as a kid I would pretend I could fly. I wonder if kids that watch Smallville pretend they can mope around & whine?"

So it's now all over. Five days of hour long specials culminating in this.

Many's the time RTD has written great stories and then blown everything in the final act. For me, at least, that didn't happen here. There were a few glimpses of deus ex machinas being plucked from nowhere, but for the most part he avoided the excesses of his Doctor Who work. This was dark stuff.

Torchwood has finally become what it first claimed to be - sci-fi for adults. In the first series it was a fifteen year old boy's idea of what adult is - swearing, nudity, sex, graphic violence. In Children of the Earth it built on the sudden maturity of Series Two and went even further. After last episode's chilling moments, this went even further with scenes that were truly adult.

Hard to single out any member of the cast (although, frankly, John Barrowman was the weakest link) but the scenes with Peter Capaldi and Susan Brown as Frobisher and ever loyal assistant Bridget Spears were incredibly well performed and well judged.

It's impossible to say any more without spoilers. I'll just sit here thinking about the episode and think "Wow, Russell T. Davis finally pulled it off."

Powerful TV.

And from the first series of the show, almost unrecognizable. How do you go from metal bikinied Cyberwomen in high heels to this? Although they did keep tradition alive by including at least one moment to make us all want to slap Gwen.