dweomeroflight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dweomeroflight) wrote2010-07-14 12:50 pm
dweomeroflight) wrote2010-07-14 12:50 pm
Entry tags:
- bbc,
- brb moffat stole my brain cells,
- doctor who,
- explosion on the internet,
- have you been moffucked?,
- i just got mind frakked by doctor who,
- karen and the babes,
- karen gillan,
- marry me eleven,
- matt smith,
- reviews,
- rory williams is cooler than you,
- team tardis is love,
- timey wimey and my head is broke,
- writing
The Big Bang Review and episode breakdown
I saw someone else do this as a poll at a Who comm and I figure now that I've seen the episodes I can attempt this. ok, so episodes broken down for your reading pleasure...
Excellent (I could watch these forever and never get bored): The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone, Vampires in Venice, Vincent and The Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang
Total: 8
Good: (Has the potential to be in excellent on rewatch): Amy's Choice, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
Total: 3
Ok: (wouldn't rewatch it unless I really had to): Victory of the Daleks, The Lodger
Total: Two
Basically most perfect New Who season ever? Yes, yes indeed.
Big Bang review under cutlink XD
I'm putting my stupid random thoughts up here first and then I have a rather long ramble about why I loved the overarching story arc and the solution to the finale so much.
Random dot points of win:
- Amelia Pond is back and very very awesome
- The solution to the cracks is not stupid. It makes sense. It was a good, planned story arc.
- The Doctor. With a fez. River shoots the fez. WIN. Also, The Doctor. with a mop. LOL. Also, also, The Doctor. DANCING. Oh Matt, the love I have for you...
- These dust covered Daleks are rather scary. So is mad River.
- I love that Matt Doctor goes to his death without a qualm. None of this emo whining bullshit. Just an attitude of "oh well, one last adventure. Death is a new one. GERONIMO"
- "Honey I'm home." Doctor puts arm around River. The many River/Doctor shippers hearts are happy. Including mine.
- Rory. The plastic man who waited 2000 years to get his girl. And Amy "The girl who waited." This was so beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
- "Come out you raggedy man." That was so beautiful too.
- If River still can remember The Doctor before Amy wills him back she must have a shitload of will power. This also makes my shipper heart happy.
- That line about "Nothing is ever truly forgotten" becomes even more awesome after this episode.
- River/Doctor scene. Even my Mum now admits to River love. She stated 'oh River. Shes really something isn't she." And look. Ok. I practically cried in that scene. It was so sweet. I really felt that both Matt and Alex were acting amazingly in that scene. I love the way that Alex delivered the simple words "Yes." She said it with alot of intensity and power I thought. And I loved Matt's comic awesome when he ties himself in knots.
- For some strange reason, Alex in this scene reminded me an awful lot of Helena Bonham Carter. Maybe this is because HBC is very good at doing emotional, yet sincere and tragic scenes.
- And then back to happy times. And everyone is grinning and it back to eccentric, silly, crazy, childlike wonderment Dr Who that we all love.
- If the Christmas special involves the Orient Express, does this mean we can expect a Hercule Poirot appearance. Oh please. Please. Moffat. Yes. Do it. Please.
Stupid rambly thoughts over. Now for my much more personal thoughts on the themes in the episode.
Back in the day when none of us knew where this season was going and the world was going gaga over TEH, some awesome fan made this fan based analogy between Amelia Pond and us as Who fans. This lady said, What makes Moffat great is that he gets it, and he gets it in a way that no other head writer has. Doctor Who isn't so much science fiction as it is a fairy tale. The Doctor is the mysterious prince who arrives to save the world from the monsters, and in the process he makes those around him more than they would have been if they had never met him.
I, for one, am an enchanted seven year-old girl sitting on a suitcase and gazing at the stars.
And really isn't this what the finale came down to in the end, coming full circle? It's about us, as viewers watching the fairytale unfold and remembering what it is like to be a child again, with a child's eyes of the world, and a child's imagination and wonder. I really liked the idea that The Doctor saves the universe with a story. He tells this beautiful, heartbreaking, fun filled, imaginative story about a girl who waits and the sacrifice that a person is willing to make for her to secure her happiness, even if that means death. When The Doctor says, "We're all stories in the end," i just thought in my head YES MOFFAT YES. YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS TO BE A WRITER. Because that's the truth. We are all stories, and sometimes, if we're lucky enough, someone gifted comes along and writes one down to share. There's a great quote of Philip Pullman's which sums this philosophy up. "Without stories we wouldn't be human beings at all." I absolutely believe that. And I loved the idea or the thought if you will, that even if The Doctor had died saving the universe, there would have been little seven year old Amy Pond waking up, with this amazing story that she could have told everyone about a "madman with a box."
Amelia Pond is a lovely character. She reminds me of my younger self, and I wonder if that is Moffat's intention? How many children play their little imaginary games and are told what they imagine can never be real? And how shattered do we feel when we finally realise that the cakes that we leave in the garden for the fairies can never really be eaten, because the fairies can never come in reality. And then, how nice is it, once in a blue moon, to have a a moment of escapism, back to that feeling of thinking "if there was nothing out there, than what was that noise?" where you can say to yourself "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, I do."
For me, this Dr Who finale has achieved what Tim Burton achieves in films like Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish. The feeling that being different does not mean you are wrong, the feeling that sometimes imagination is beautiful, the idea that memories are important, the idea that storytelling is something essential, that every human being shares the same basic desires if we dig deep enough, the idea that being the Eternal Child is sometimes the thing that is most sought after.
And Moffat really does get all of this. He really, really does. He nods to fandom, but he does so in a way that is not so much pandering, as acknowledging that, "Hey, I believe these things are important too." And perhaps that is why I love this series so much, no I know this is why I love the series so much. Because from the very beginning, this was a series about madman in boxes having fun adventures, a fairy story that has spanned for over 40 years and that is also why I love the River quote at the end of Flesh and Stone where The Doctor says "Ha. The Pandorica. That's just a fairystory, and River laughs and says "Arn't we all?" This series recreated for me what it felt like to be a little seven year old girl, running through the national park talking to trees in the frantic hope that one day, a tree might reply. It reminded me of the little me whose favourite toy was a dog called Snoopy; a toy which would talk to me, share things with me. A toy that I loved alot, that I made clothes for, houses for, even friends for. It reminded me of the little girl who drew pictures on regular hospital visits for the first four years of my brother's life; pictures of beanstalks and princesses and princes and aliens and monstors and fairies and elves.
And as a writer, as someone trying to make it as a fantasy writer, these themes are so very, very important. Storytelling is important, having an imagination is important, holding on to a little bit of the inner child inside, that's so very, very important.
And that is why I love The Big Bang. Because it was a fun adventure romp that reminded me that I do believe in fairy stories, that I still believe that there is a somewhere over the rainbow left to explore, and that I havn't yet put away childish things. I am eager to grow as an adult, but as long as I live, I hope I never loose that capacity to imagine and tell a story like I did as a seven year old child. Not ever.
Excellent (I could watch these forever and never get bored): The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone, Vampires in Venice, Vincent and The Doctor, The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang
Total: 8
Good: (Has the potential to be in excellent on rewatch): Amy's Choice, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
Total: 3
Ok: (wouldn't rewatch it unless I really had to): Victory of the Daleks, The Lodger
Total: Two
Basically most perfect New Who season ever? Yes, yes indeed.
Big Bang review under cutlink XD
I'm putting my stupid random thoughts up here first and then I have a rather long ramble about why I loved the overarching story arc and the solution to the finale so much.
Random dot points of win:
- Amelia Pond is back and very very awesome
- The solution to the cracks is not stupid. It makes sense. It was a good, planned story arc.
- The Doctor. With a fez. River shoots the fez. WIN. Also, The Doctor. with a mop. LOL. Also, also, The Doctor. DANCING. Oh Matt, the love I have for you...
- These dust covered Daleks are rather scary. So is mad River.
- I love that Matt Doctor goes to his death without a qualm. None of this emo whining bullshit. Just an attitude of "oh well, one last adventure. Death is a new one. GERONIMO"
- "Honey I'm home." Doctor puts arm around River. The many River/Doctor shippers hearts are happy. Including mine.
- Rory. The plastic man who waited 2000 years to get his girl. And Amy "The girl who waited." This was so beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
- "Come out you raggedy man." That was so beautiful too.
- If River still can remember The Doctor before Amy wills him back she must have a shitload of will power. This also makes my shipper heart happy.
- That line about "Nothing is ever truly forgotten" becomes even more awesome after this episode.
- River/Doctor scene. Even my Mum now admits to River love. She stated 'oh River. Shes really something isn't she." And look. Ok. I practically cried in that scene. It was so sweet. I really felt that both Matt and Alex were acting amazingly in that scene. I love the way that Alex delivered the simple words "Yes." She said it with alot of intensity and power I thought. And I loved Matt's comic awesome when he ties himself in knots.
- For some strange reason, Alex in this scene reminded me an awful lot of Helena Bonham Carter. Maybe this is because HBC is very good at doing emotional, yet sincere and tragic scenes.
- And then back to happy times. And everyone is grinning and it back to eccentric, silly, crazy, childlike wonderment Dr Who that we all love.
- If the Christmas special involves the Orient Express, does this mean we can expect a Hercule Poirot appearance. Oh please. Please. Moffat. Yes. Do it. Please.
Stupid rambly thoughts over. Now for my much more personal thoughts on the themes in the episode.
Back in the day when none of us knew where this season was going and the world was going gaga over TEH, some awesome fan made this fan based analogy between Amelia Pond and us as Who fans. This lady said, What makes Moffat great is that he gets it, and he gets it in a way that no other head writer has. Doctor Who isn't so much science fiction as it is a fairy tale. The Doctor is the mysterious prince who arrives to save the world from the monsters, and in the process he makes those around him more than they would have been if they had never met him.
I, for one, am an enchanted seven year-old girl sitting on a suitcase and gazing at the stars.
And really isn't this what the finale came down to in the end, coming full circle? It's about us, as viewers watching the fairytale unfold and remembering what it is like to be a child again, with a child's eyes of the world, and a child's imagination and wonder. I really liked the idea that The Doctor saves the universe with a story. He tells this beautiful, heartbreaking, fun filled, imaginative story about a girl who waits and the sacrifice that a person is willing to make for her to secure her happiness, even if that means death. When The Doctor says, "We're all stories in the end," i just thought in my head YES MOFFAT YES. YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS TO BE A WRITER. Because that's the truth. We are all stories, and sometimes, if we're lucky enough, someone gifted comes along and writes one down to share. There's a great quote of Philip Pullman's which sums this philosophy up. "Without stories we wouldn't be human beings at all." I absolutely believe that. And I loved the idea or the thought if you will, that even if The Doctor had died saving the universe, there would have been little seven year old Amy Pond waking up, with this amazing story that she could have told everyone about a "madman with a box."
Amelia Pond is a lovely character. She reminds me of my younger self, and I wonder if that is Moffat's intention? How many children play their little imaginary games and are told what they imagine can never be real? And how shattered do we feel when we finally realise that the cakes that we leave in the garden for the fairies can never really be eaten, because the fairies can never come in reality. And then, how nice is it, once in a blue moon, to have a a moment of escapism, back to that feeling of thinking "if there was nothing out there, than what was that noise?" where you can say to yourself "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, I do."
For me, this Dr Who finale has achieved what Tim Burton achieves in films like Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish. The feeling that being different does not mean you are wrong, the feeling that sometimes imagination is beautiful, the idea that memories are important, the idea that storytelling is something essential, that every human being shares the same basic desires if we dig deep enough, the idea that being the Eternal Child is sometimes the thing that is most sought after.
And Moffat really does get all of this. He really, really does. He nods to fandom, but he does so in a way that is not so much pandering, as acknowledging that, "Hey, I believe these things are important too." And perhaps that is why I love this series so much, no I know this is why I love the series so much. Because from the very beginning, this was a series about madman in boxes having fun adventures, a fairy story that has spanned for over 40 years and that is also why I love the River quote at the end of Flesh and Stone where The Doctor says "Ha. The Pandorica. That's just a fairystory, and River laughs and says "Arn't we all?" This series recreated for me what it felt like to be a little seven year old girl, running through the national park talking to trees in the frantic hope that one day, a tree might reply. It reminded me of the little me whose favourite toy was a dog called Snoopy; a toy which would talk to me, share things with me. A toy that I loved alot, that I made clothes for, houses for, even friends for. It reminded me of the little girl who drew pictures on regular hospital visits for the first four years of my brother's life; pictures of beanstalks and princesses and princes and aliens and monstors and fairies and elves.
And as a writer, as someone trying to make it as a fantasy writer, these themes are so very, very important. Storytelling is important, having an imagination is important, holding on to a little bit of the inner child inside, that's so very, very important.
And that is why I love The Big Bang. Because it was a fun adventure romp that reminded me that I do believe in fairy stories, that I still believe that there is a somewhere over the rainbow left to explore, and that I havn't yet put away childish things. I am eager to grow as an adult, but as long as I live, I hope I never loose that capacity to imagine and tell a story like I did as a seven year old child. Not ever.
no subject
THIS!!!! SO MUCH OF THIS!!!!
I DO BELIEVE IN MAGIC AGAIN SANTA MOFF! I DO!! I DO BELIEVE!!!!
And all because of this absolutely wonderful season!
Also seconding the need for Hercule Poirot!!!!
no subject
There must be at least a reference XD
no subject
There's a great quote of Philip Pullman's which sums this philosophy up. "Without stories we wouldn't be human beings at all."
I knew I liked him.
I kind of expended most of my poetics for this season months ago, but I dug up a reaction I posted in a friend's journal back after the finale, which I think pretty much sums it all up for me:
This is what I hear from Steven Moffat over and over and over: Think deeper. Imagine wilder. Believe good things are possible. It's ok to forgive. It's ok to trust. Be good to each other. Remember. Keep trying. And keep telling stories, because the stories are where we keep the meanings.
That isn't trite, and that isn't naive. That's humanism. And we need to hear it, over and over. We need to hear it all the damn time.
He really is a magnificent bastard.
no subject
That is the greatest series five quote ever and it is so true! The thing that's so great about series five of Dr Who is that yes there are terrible moments, yes there are sad moments, yes there are moments where things don't work out, but all that angst and pain always loses out to the good things in the end. It comes back to Vincent and The Doctor. "The bad stuff doesn't cancel out the good and make it unimportant."
I wish more dramas would remember this. Series nine of Spooks had me drowning in doom and gloom and five fan fics later, and a billion scene rewrites I still feel like my favourite character is doomed to a life of sadness because the scriptwriters have filled the episodes with so much angst and sadness and pain.
no subject
I just realized the other day that, although I like both serious, angsty character dramas and lighter more comedic shows, I only feel compelled to write fic for the lighter ones. I feel like I have so much more freedom with lighter shows. The characters are perhaps drawn a little more sketchily, giving me more room to interpret; there's more humor, which I love to write; and I feel like, with tone, you can essentially always take characters from a lighter show and go darker, but it's very hard to take those from a darker show and lighten them up. Tragedies just cut off possibilities in so many ways.