Vampires! In Venice!
May. 9th, 2010 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaDoctor Who S05E06: kind of like the Daleks ep in that I giggled my way from moment to moment but when I look back on it I'm like, yeah, that felt rushed. Working theory right now is that the pacing is weird due to all the banter - quick-fire one-liners add up when there are lots of them. The banter is probably what makes the series feel like the Fourth Doctor stuff, too (Amy still hasn't threatened to cut a bitch, so it's not that), except eg. Image of the Fendahl was what, four episodes? Which is 80 minutes and a bit? ...Which is about the length of a NuWho two-parter. Arguably the Standard Doctor Who Plot(tm) is the same amount of plot no matter what, and shouldn't be skimped on in favour of an excess of vermouth or olive juice.
The only pie-chart-making tool I have on this computer is Old Excel. How sad! I'm used to better.
(Speaking generally, as a writer, I'm always kind of wary of banter. It seems to me to be a seasoning, and as seasonings go much like soy sauce - goes with everything, but everything will taste like it if you add too much - and no dish is meant to taste primarily of it, so that's an automatic fail. *Very* difficult to cut down on, once one's gotten into the habit.)
I don't fuck with squee harshers so I'd like to specify in advance (in case this wasn't clear) that I'm enjoying S5: if I weren't I wouldn't be watching it, point final, let alone looking forward to my illegal weekend torrenting. XD; That being said, halfway through my issues with the show have resolved (in the optical sense) into better-focussed issues with Amy's character. Of all the ways I imagined the writers might develop her at first, they really haven't gone anywhere except make her more self-centred. There're a long series of moments but I'll go with two, randomly:
1) The girl in "Victory of the Daleks" whose sweetheart was killed. In total Doyleist speculative mode, if this script had been handed up to Davies for rewrite he would have inserted an earlier scene in which Amy has a real, possibly even Bechdel-busting get-to-know-you conversation with her, a la Rose/not!Gwen or Martha/Chantho or Donna/that girl in Pompeii, which would then have set up Amy being sympathetically upset at her loss afterward, with concomitant realization that people in the past are also real people, see, kids? history isn't just dates of battles and celebrity spotting (yadda yadda). Without that it's like, "What happened to her over there? Oh, well, that sucks." And Amy doesn't get a chance to learn anything.
Basically Davies had a neat division of labour in this type of storyline whereby the Doctor's role was mostly to cleverly figure out Plot, and the Companion's role was mostly to relate to others so that the resolution of Plot generates emotional response (in the characters and in the viewer). You can argue the gender connotations of this, but you can't fix it by having the Companion's contribution be to cleverly figure out Plot - as per, well, "Victory of the Daleks" - if the Doctor doesn't then do a better job of relating to others. That's a net loss of emotional resonance. ...Suspect a lot of the knee-jerk reaction that Amy was somehow "infringing on the Doctor's turf" when eg. Donna's awesome insights do not comes from this subconsciously subverted expectation; when will I learn that the words "Mary Sue" short-circuit the mind and the temptation to reach for them is a sign that one should stop being intellectually lazy and apply oneself to figuring out what is really going on (Ans: I have already learnt this, and it is the #1 reason why I am against the term "Mary Sue", but I fall prey to it anyway).
Actually, I'd like to see this dynamic happen. I'm an old-skool X-Phile, I dug it when Scully did the hard science and Mulder waswacky intuitive. But it can't happen with Eleven, quite the opposite, because he has way lower EQ than Ten. XD;
2) Roryyyy circa and post-broom fight. Lots of squinting at the Doctor-Amy-Rory dynamic trying to figure out how it matches up against the Doctor-Rose-Mickey dynamic. I'm on record as saying that Rose's treatment of Mickey over S1-S2 was ahh perhaps not her finest moment but if that had been Mickey he would have gotten a gasp and a big hug, not a telling-off followed by a smooch because I-wuvs-heroics, and this'll-shut-you-right-up-because-you-love-me... worse, because that's just how girls are, they run hot and cold to keep you on your toes? Oh, that might be harsh - but it's not unrealistic, in that women like that do exist. And Amy is written (no... precision pls: Gillan is directed to act, or decided to act) aware of her own sexiness as a thing in itself, to be wielded. Rose's neglect of Mickey was a fait accompli before she knew what she was doing. Mickey was the Boy Who Waited, for a year, and while the series didn't dwell hugely on that the consequences weren't played out with sitcom cynicism.
I like Rory a lot. One is meant to find Rory relatable. Rory hits hard at the Doctor with insight and gets through and the two of them come to an understated male understanding about Amy and what may or may not be best for her which by definition does not take her opinion into account. I can't get up in arms about the Doctor treating her as a child, because de facto she comes across as childishly egocentric. = =+ Much more so than grave, odd, ultimately trusting little Amelia Pond.
Another Doyleist digression: I don't think Billie Piper gets enough credit for making Rose likeable. If one says this it doesn't seem to hold up because many ppl hate Rose, but I submit she'd be hated even more if it weren't for the actress. XD;; I thought a lot, watching NuWho, about the actress who played Janggeum in Jewel In The Palace, who was written as the most annoyingly perfect sanctimonious heroine adored by all except for her jealous rivals. But the actress broadcast an unaffected down-to-earth sweetness that made up for it. She was perfectly cast to play this type of shoujo heroine, in the old Frances Hodgson Burnett mold: you believed she was loved because she was loveable, extra the text. Billie Piper has something of that quality. She's not extraordinarily beautiful, but there's that smile. There's nothing in the story that explains why Rose, other than because she was there; but there's always some girl who's there; Rose's particular gift to heal the Doctor by presence was extra-textual.
(I also think this filmic quality of Billie Piper's is why she can believably play a callgirl XD; - or rather why she can play a character whom one believes is working successfully as a callgirl. That same vibe of approachability, centred generosity if you will. If you're paying for companionship you don't want someone who looks like a supermodel if that means getting self-conscious in bed, you want someone you'll be comfortable touching. A real girl, a giving girl.)
Anyway. Insofar as Moffat has gender issues they're actually well within my range of tolerance. XD; He's not one of the dudes who avoid writing women, or writes them just to fridge them, or can't characterize them at all. He is, I think, one of the dudes who can write awesome women, and women who are realistic, but not ones whose awesomeness spring from a well of realism (here I don't mean Rose, I mean Donna). This is not, Meet more awesome women in real life! But, Overlook less the awesome of women you meet in real life who are not hot 21-year-olds, who tend to have the same kinds of issues which, to be fair, you've portrayed pretty well as wall-driving-up-ish! Anyway, that is the advice-giving limb I'd go out on if this were one of my passive-aggro geeky dude friends, rather than someone I don't know and whose interviews I don't read. (Nor do I read Davies', because I am sure he does have a brain-to-page filter, and I may not survive finding out what did get caught in it if John Simm in a dog collar and/or pink dress made it through. XD;;)
All this and I haven't actually said anything about the episode. Man, I think I can safely promise less wankery next week. XD;
The only pie-chart-making tool I have on this computer is Old Excel. How sad! I'm used to better.
(Speaking generally, as a writer, I'm always kind of wary of banter. It seems to me to be a seasoning, and as seasonings go much like soy sauce - goes with everything, but everything will taste like it if you add too much - and no dish is meant to taste primarily of it, so that's an automatic fail. *Very* difficult to cut down on, once one's gotten into the habit.)
I don't fuck with squee harshers so I'd like to specify in advance (in case this wasn't clear) that I'm enjoying S5: if I weren't I wouldn't be watching it, point final, let alone looking forward to my illegal weekend torrenting. XD; That being said, halfway through my issues with the show have resolved (in the optical sense) into better-focussed issues with Amy's character. Of all the ways I imagined the writers might develop her at first, they really haven't gone anywhere except make her more self-centred. There're a long series of moments but I'll go with two, randomly:
1) The girl in "Victory of the Daleks" whose sweetheart was killed. In total Doyleist speculative mode, if this script had been handed up to Davies for rewrite he would have inserted an earlier scene in which Amy has a real, possibly even Bechdel-busting get-to-know-you conversation with her, a la Rose/not!Gwen or Martha/Chantho or Donna/that girl in Pompeii, which would then have set up Amy being sympathetically upset at her loss afterward, with concomitant realization that people in the past are also real people, see, kids? history isn't just dates of battles and celebrity spotting (yadda yadda). Without that it's like, "What happened to her over there? Oh, well, that sucks." And Amy doesn't get a chance to learn anything.
Basically Davies had a neat division of labour in this type of storyline whereby the Doctor's role was mostly to cleverly figure out Plot, and the Companion's role was mostly to relate to others so that the resolution of Plot generates emotional response (in the characters and in the viewer). You can argue the gender connotations of this, but you can't fix it by having the Companion's contribution be to cleverly figure out Plot - as per, well, "Victory of the Daleks" - if the Doctor doesn't then do a better job of relating to others. That's a net loss of emotional resonance. ...Suspect a lot of the knee-jerk reaction that Amy was somehow "infringing on the Doctor's turf" when eg. Donna's awesome insights do not comes from this subconsciously subverted expectation; when will I learn that the words "Mary Sue" short-circuit the mind and the temptation to reach for them is a sign that one should stop being intellectually lazy and apply oneself to figuring out what is really going on (Ans: I have already learnt this, and it is the #1 reason why I am against the term "Mary Sue", but I fall prey to it anyway).
Actually, I'd like to see this dynamic happen. I'm an old-skool X-Phile, I dug it when Scully did the hard science and Mulder was
2) Roryyyy circa and post-broom fight. Lots of squinting at the Doctor-Amy-Rory dynamic trying to figure out how it matches up against the Doctor-Rose-Mickey dynamic. I'm on record as saying that Rose's treatment of Mickey over S1-S2 was ahh perhaps not her finest moment but if that had been Mickey he would have gotten a gasp and a big hug, not a telling-off followed by a smooch because I-wuvs-heroics, and this'll-shut-you-right-up-because-you-love-me... worse, because that's just how girls are, they run hot and cold to keep you on your toes? Oh, that might be harsh - but it's not unrealistic, in that women like that do exist. And Amy is written (no... precision pls: Gillan is directed to act, or decided to act) aware of her own sexiness as a thing in itself, to be wielded. Rose's neglect of Mickey was a fait accompli before she knew what she was doing. Mickey was the Boy Who Waited, for a year, and while the series didn't dwell hugely on that the consequences weren't played out with sitcom cynicism.
I like Rory a lot. One is meant to find Rory relatable. Rory hits hard at the Doctor with insight and gets through and the two of them come to an understated male understanding about Amy and what may or may not be best for her which by definition does not take her opinion into account. I can't get up in arms about the Doctor treating her as a child, because de facto she comes across as childishly egocentric. = =+ Much more so than grave, odd, ultimately trusting little Amelia Pond.
Another Doyleist digression: I don't think Billie Piper gets enough credit for making Rose likeable. If one says this it doesn't seem to hold up because many ppl hate Rose, but I submit she'd be hated even more if it weren't for the actress. XD;; I thought a lot, watching NuWho, about the actress who played Janggeum in Jewel In The Palace, who was written as the most annoyingly perfect sanctimonious heroine adored by all except for her jealous rivals. But the actress broadcast an unaffected down-to-earth sweetness that made up for it. She was perfectly cast to play this type of shoujo heroine, in the old Frances Hodgson Burnett mold: you believed she was loved because she was loveable, extra the text. Billie Piper has something of that quality. She's not extraordinarily beautiful, but there's that smile. There's nothing in the story that explains why Rose, other than because she was there; but there's always some girl who's there; Rose's particular gift to heal the Doctor by presence was extra-textual.
(I also think this filmic quality of Billie Piper's is why she can believably play a callgirl XD; - or rather why she can play a character whom one believes is working successfully as a callgirl. That same vibe of approachability, centred generosity if you will. If you're paying for companionship you don't want someone who looks like a supermodel if that means getting self-conscious in bed, you want someone you'll be comfortable touching. A real girl, a giving girl.)
Anyway. Insofar as Moffat has gender issues they're actually well within my range of tolerance. XD; He's not one of the dudes who avoid writing women, or writes them just to fridge them, or can't characterize them at all. He is, I think, one of the dudes who can write awesome women, and women who are realistic, but not ones whose awesomeness spring from a well of realism (here I don't mean Rose, I mean Donna). This is not, Meet more awesome women in real life! But, Overlook less the awesome of women you meet in real life who are not hot 21-year-olds, who tend to have the same kinds of issues which, to be fair, you've portrayed pretty well as wall-driving-up-ish! Anyway, that is the advice-giving limb I'd go out on if this were one of my passive-aggro geeky dude friends, rather than someone I don't know and whose interviews I don't read. (Nor do I read Davies', because I am sure he does have a brain-to-page filter, and I may not survive finding out what did get caught in it if John Simm in a dog collar and/or pink dress made it through. XD;;)
All this and I haven't actually said anything about the episode. Man, I think I can safely promise less wankery next week. XD;
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 06:20 am (UTC)(ok, so I'm a 90s teenybopper whose love for Billie Pipper the pop starlet will never diiiiieeee....)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 06:02 am (UTC)(tho talking-cat!Master would go quite well with the Eleventh Doctor, without Tenth's emo getting in the way. :D)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 03:30 pm (UTC)I'm not a fan of Rose, but she WAS a likeable character, which I certainly attribute to the writing AND performance. I've been wondering if some of the reasons I dislike Amy are to do with her age (I'm... er much older than 22!) but then I remember that Rose was supposed to be 19, and she didn't grate on my nerves so much. Billie is also a much more capable actress than Gillan, who so far seems to have a repertoire of about 3 expressions. Amy is, in many ways, a typical 22-year-old - self-obsessed and thinks she knows it all (I really, really hope you're not 22!) - but the Doctor deserves more than 'typical', I think.
What you've said about what Rusty would have done in VoD is spot on. I've not seen anyone put it that way before, but that is absolutely one of the problems I'm having both with Amy and with the show as a whole. Like you, I'm enjoying it and wouldn't watch otherwise (although I'm in the UK, so I watch 'live'), but I still feel there's a big hole where the heart(s) used to be. And I guess two hearts is right, because I'm talking about both Rusty and DT.
Anyway, long live the wankery when it's as accurate as this!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 04:57 am (UTC)I really do think these moments where Davies makes his characters show compassion or curiosity are key to their likeability - I think I wasn't completely sold on Rose until the not!Gwen conversation, for instance. (It actually happened again this ep: Amy meets Isabella, but you don't get to see her say "Look, we're going to get you out of here, I promise," as Rose/Martha/Donna would have regardless of whether that was planned or feasible, or act particularly upset when they're not able to do so. It's all plot.) I don't have as much of a problem with the Doctor hisself because he's supposed to be more withholding, and I can run with that.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 05:57 pm (UTC)the pie charts kind of confuse me, but the text that accompanies them is very interesting and insightful. i don't really have anything to add, but what you say about russell building in moments where the companion bonded with people from history seems now shockingly true (that bit with the dead sweetheart really feels odd, abandoned as it is in at the end of a silly story about shiny daleks). amelia would have been a very different companion, and perhaps the spikiness of amy is what makes her an interesting companion, but not one you can instantly warm too.
the idea of eleven being less emotionally aware than ten is also something i've kind of thought about without actually being able to articulate - he's very touchy (not like the last young doctor), but his kisses are on-the-forehead kisses and he isn't really a hugger of strangers.
tis all very interesting. thanks.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:25 am (UTC)I want to like Amy so it's kind of meh that they seem to be making her into the type of girl that, baldly speaking, I wouldn't really get along with in real life. I'm willing to withhold judgment until season's end, though, which isn't that far off. (Although I do wonder - if Amy gets married at the end of this season, and Gillan's signed for the next, does that mean she continues to travel with the Doctor as a married woman? That could be interesting, mind you, but I'm not sure I want Moffat to be the guy handling it. XD ...I should mention that I have seen a certain amount of Coupling, and it stands out in my mind not as sexist but as a sterling sum-up of everything that depresses and alienates me about heterosexuality in real life.)
I'm actually quite fond of Eleven's awkwardness XD - it comes off as autistic-spectrum, as I saw someone else say somewhere, and a lot of that is in the physical performance. His touchiness is part everyone-else-is-a-small-child-to-me, part I-never-fully-mastered-personal-space, and he often seems to be looking at not quite the "right" spot, particularly when walking.
repost, missing word (in bold)
Date: 2010-05-10 06:43 pm (UTC)(She says, still stuck on NuWho season 4.)
Re: repost, missing word (in bold)
Date: 2010-05-12 05:32 am (UTC)I actually forgot to mention up to this point that I have seen some of Coupling (sororial unit had a thing for Jack Davenport), and to be honest it seemed to me to be really perceptive - it just pinpointed everything that alienates and depresses me about heterosexual relationships as they are practiced in real life. XD;; Watching it makes me want to opt out of breeder-dom big time. But there is more to het relationships than are dreamt of in Moffat's philosophy, so I'm kinda resistant to him importing this stuff into DW (where it is not the main thing, of course).
Re: repost, missing word (in bold)
Date: 2010-05-12 04:51 pm (UTC)Re: repost, missing word (in bold)
Date: 2010-05-12 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 02:08 am (UTC)is self-absorbedhasn't shown (hasn't been written to show) the high EQ/empathy/whatever that an RTD companion would, not in any sort of consistent way--and yet they get assigned to her apparently on the grounds that she's the girl? Or something.aware of her own sexiness as a thing in itself, to be wielded + childishly egocentric
This combo continues to bother me. Sexualized and infantilized by turns. "Infantilized" isn't quite the right word but I am tired and feeling about as coherent as Amy's characterization. Which, come to that, might strike me as more reasonable if she were supposed to be 16 not 22, maybe. Or maybe not.
As for handwavium, I have not noticed a marked decrease in it; what part of "If the bomb just believes hard enough that he's human, he'll become a Real Boy!" = Real Science? Or is that what you mean by "fridge logic." To me the diff is not less BS, but the fact that the BS is no longer being vocalized by David Tennant spouting it a mile a minute. Alas.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:45 am (UTC)vampirespace fish in period gear. -_-I don't necessarily think she gets assigned the role because she's a girl, though, but because she's the Companion (in practice it comes to the same... I mean in the same way I don't think Davies made the Companions do the relational work because they were female, but because they were the sidekicks written to complement the Doctor's apartness).
"Technobabble", perhaps - or I should've just written "Tennant manic gurn". XD Definitely it is still as much BS as ever, I just think "fridge logic" is a more specifically telling characteristic of Moffat's writing.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 01:50 pm (UTC)