![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auroracloudUgh, it's been a terribly, terribly busy and exhausting week. And the weekend was terribly busy as well, though mostly for good reasons. Now I mainly want to lie down and eat chocolate and watch Doctor Who episodes for the next two days or so. Unfortunately that's not an option. But I'm really proud of myself that throughout this week, I managed to keep writing something every day. Wouldn't have managed it without Write Every Day to check in to.
Tonight I at least watched The Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel. I love that double episode, and damn, it felt good to sink into that world again. After such a week, it made me feel whole somehow. I probably need to just try to find time to watch more of it during the next week. Losing myself to stories and characters I love, it has this amazing power of restoration.
Funny, though, although I love most of the Doctor Who S2 episodes, I'm constantly thinking "I want to watch Utopia already". Is this normal, constantly wanting to watch Utopia? Or just me? Anyway, I'd say I'm going to go a little out of order, and when I'm done with S2, I'll watch Utopia and the rest of the S3 ending before I start on Torchwood. Because I have no patience to wait for as long as it'll take me to get through two more seasons, at this rate, and I've been wanting to re-watch Utopia for ages. (I've only watched it once, for goodness's sake! At first I wasn't quite ready to watch it again, and then I had moved onto the next season and it felt weird to go back.)
Anyway, a few thoughts about The Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel.
Damn, Mickey's just so wonderful in this. I love his character arc in the show, the way he starts out as someone very ordinary and scared and un-heroic, then occasionally finds it in himself to do a heroic act after all, but he still doesn't change into a big damn hero immediately. He only gradually grows and starts to want to see more, do more, find something more in himself. And then he does, he saves the day and makes a choice of a new life for himself, while still staying himself. (At least up to this point. I don't like the later episodes with him as much anymore, he feels a bit too heroic, no longer the Mickey I got to know and love.)
And the minor characters in this one are so great. I love Jake. (And it's interesting, I remember I picked up there was something between him and Ricky the first time I watched this, then discovered there had been a line of dialogue cut that said it indeed was so.) I adore Mrs Moore - there need to be more middle-aged female badass rebel mad-gadget inventors! The Cybermen rank among the scariest of Doctor Who monsters for me, especially because it's so possible something like that could exist in the future. And I love parallel universes. One of the fanfic possibilities that intrigues me is everything that could go on in the parallel world. Who else out of the whole show's cast is there, in parallel version? How are they different and similar to the ones we know?
By the way, one of the things that annoys me about S2 Rose is the way she goes madly jealous every time the Doctor as much as speaks to any young and nice-looking female. S1 Rose would usually connect with the other women she met, she generally cared about people and would especially seek contact with the other girls and try to understand what's going on with them, and I loved that. But with S2 the jealousy thing, it's such a trope. I know they're underlining her romantic feelings for the Doctor, but could they possibly come up with a slightly less clichéd way of doing it?
Well, other than that, there isn't anything about this episode I don't love. And it's one of those where I actually cry at the ending. Did the first time, did again.
Tonight I at least watched The Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel. I love that double episode, and damn, it felt good to sink into that world again. After such a week, it made me feel whole somehow. I probably need to just try to find time to watch more of it during the next week. Losing myself to stories and characters I love, it has this amazing power of restoration.
Funny, though, although I love most of the Doctor Who S2 episodes, I'm constantly thinking "I want to watch Utopia already". Is this normal, constantly wanting to watch Utopia? Or just me? Anyway, I'd say I'm going to go a little out of order, and when I'm done with S2, I'll watch Utopia and the rest of the S3 ending before I start on Torchwood. Because I have no patience to wait for as long as it'll take me to get through two more seasons, at this rate, and I've been wanting to re-watch Utopia for ages. (I've only watched it once, for goodness's sake! At first I wasn't quite ready to watch it again, and then I had moved onto the next season and it felt weird to go back.)
Anyway, a few thoughts about The Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel.
Damn, Mickey's just so wonderful in this. I love his character arc in the show, the way he starts out as someone very ordinary and scared and un-heroic, then occasionally finds it in himself to do a heroic act after all, but he still doesn't change into a big damn hero immediately. He only gradually grows and starts to want to see more, do more, find something more in himself. And then he does, he saves the day and makes a choice of a new life for himself, while still staying himself. (At least up to this point. I don't like the later episodes with him as much anymore, he feels a bit too heroic, no longer the Mickey I got to know and love.)
And the minor characters in this one are so great. I love Jake. (And it's interesting, I remember I picked up there was something between him and Ricky the first time I watched this, then discovered there had been a line of dialogue cut that said it indeed was so.) I adore Mrs Moore - there need to be more middle-aged female badass rebel mad-gadget inventors! The Cybermen rank among the scariest of Doctor Who monsters for me, especially because it's so possible something like that could exist in the future. And I love parallel universes. One of the fanfic possibilities that intrigues me is everything that could go on in the parallel world. Who else out of the whole show's cast is there, in parallel version? How are they different and similar to the ones we know?
By the way, one of the things that annoys me about S2 Rose is the way she goes madly jealous every time the Doctor as much as speaks to any young and nice-looking female. S1 Rose would usually connect with the other women she met, she generally cared about people and would especially seek contact with the other girls and try to understand what's going on with them, and I loved that. But with S2 the jealousy thing, it's such a trope. I know they're underlining her romantic feelings for the Doctor, but could they possibly come up with a slightly less clichéd way of doing it?
Well, other than that, there isn't anything about this episode I don't love. And it's one of those where I actually cry at the ending. Did the first time, did again.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-04 04:51 pm (UTC)I am not one for scary at all, so you're safe from scary recs from me. :D
Hmmm, let's see.
By far my favorite SF series is Farscape.
It comes with the caveat that the first series is very popcorn-cracky. I gave up on it after only six episodes the first time I tried. But the closer you get to the end of the first series, the more the story arc is starting to develop. If you don't like violence, you may have a hard time with some of the episodes, since one of the evil (and later not so evil... it's a long story) characters sometimes tortures people. There are two eps in the first season I remember were hard for me, too. But it's not a permanent feature. I think they just wanted to introduce him as evil as possible.
But the main tone of the show is very funny. Cracky, even. They really know how to make fun of themselves. They have a different tone of humor than most US shows - it is a US show, but was produced in Australia. Crichton is constantly making pop culture references nobody understands, and often the aliens make jokes at his (and Humans' in general) expense. One of the funniest eps is the one where all the protagonists swap bodies. It's fanfic come to life. :D
At the same time, it's emotionally very intense - in the same way Doctor Who is: Crichton is transported to the other end of the galaxy, and can't get home. Dangerous alien races are fighting a war and at some point Earth is threatened, too. So the stakes are really high, and you can feel with him. All the characters routinely have to make great sacrifices.
It is often a showcase for Henson's muppets, thus a lot of the aliens are prosthetics, and very out-there ones, too. You have to go into it with a little suspension of disbelief at first. It took me quite a while to get used to Rygel, one of the puppet aliens who is part of the main cast. Once you have accepted that these are real beings with real feelings, it gets better.
Last but not least: they have the best and most intense OTP ever. My favorite pairing of all time.
Long story short: my #1 recommendation.
I can rec you more stuff any time. :D
no subject
Date: 2016-09-04 06:49 pm (UTC)If you ever do start on OUAT, I recommend just the first season and maybe first half of second season. Then it hits a bog of bad writing and only occasionally rises above it. That was my impression of it, at least. I went on quite long because I loved some of the characters and their relationships to each other, but eventually I just couldn't.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-04 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-05 04:21 am (UTC)