Christmas '08
Thursday, 25 December 2008 22:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexSo - we did it. In spite of everything, we had an absolutely lovely Christmas. There were presents, and dinner, and the Doctor Who Christmas special. And there were not tears, or arguments, or even too much gloominess about the future. Obviously it wasn't the same as most years. Mum had to take a back seat while the rest of us handled all the food preparation and so on, and even then the day clearly tired her out quite a lot. But she enjoyed it, and so did we, and that's what counts.
And as for Doctor Who? Well, I'm pretty sure that was the best Christmas special so far. OK, so it had a bit of a silly ending - but isn't that par for the course with RTD? And along the way this story really freshened up the genre by simply turning most of it on its head. No need to write your way around the problem of a London population who've got used to annual alien battles if you set your story back in 1851; no need to find some tortuous way of creating fake 'snow' at the end if it is simply snowing anyway (in proper Dickensian fashion) all the way through the story. Thank goodness.
The other major inversion, of course, is putting the Doctor into the role of his own companion, and allowing him to see what he is like from the outside. That should be great - and it was. Sadly for Rosita, though, it left her with precious little to do. Sure, she had her Awesome Axe Moment... but other than that, she was a bit of a third wheel, really. And at the end, after all that, she gets to be a nursemaid. Oh, Mammy!
This year's Extreme Fandom Squee was, of course, the archive footage of all ten Doctors to date (with the black-and-white / colour gulf neatly elided by simply putting all of them - and indeed all infostamp footage that I can remember - in black-and-white). This probably constitutes rather healthier squee-fodder than last year's "I am a god from Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous" speech. And this year's Christmas-related references that I caught included the rise of a new king, someone sleeping in a stable, and the Doctor as a sort of 'good shepherd' rescuing a small boy - besides the obvious A Christmas Carol / Wolves Of Willoughby Chase-style Victorian London, of course.
More personally, I couldn't help but see the Cyber-shades as Taran Woodbeasts with metal masks on - and I find both far more cute than scary. And if I already felt when reading one of the Oz books earlier in the year that the Wizard reminded me of the Doctor, that goes quadruple now I've seen him taking off in a balloon.
So they kept us guessing and speculating very effectively in the run-up, and for once I felt the pay-off on the 'Next Doctor' hook was nicely worked out. We got evil governesses, classic Victoriana, really very plausible Cybermen, and gratuitous explosions. And Who's past was treated respectfully and reverently, without either getting skewed into something it never was or being allowed to over-burden the plot. Pity about the five-minute Transformers movie tagged onto the end - but other than that, top notch!
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And as for Doctor Who? Well, I'm pretty sure that was the best Christmas special so far. OK, so it had a bit of a silly ending - but isn't that par for the course with RTD? And along the way this story really freshened up the genre by simply turning most of it on its head. No need to write your way around the problem of a London population who've got used to annual alien battles if you set your story back in 1851; no need to find some tortuous way of creating fake 'snow' at the end if it is simply snowing anyway (in proper Dickensian fashion) all the way through the story. Thank goodness.
The other major inversion, of course, is putting the Doctor into the role of his own companion, and allowing him to see what he is like from the outside. That should be great - and it was. Sadly for Rosita, though, it left her with precious little to do. Sure, she had her Awesome Axe Moment... but other than that, she was a bit of a third wheel, really. And at the end, after all that, she gets to be a nursemaid. Oh, Mammy!
This year's Extreme Fandom Squee was, of course, the archive footage of all ten Doctors to date (with the black-and-white / colour gulf neatly elided by simply putting all of them - and indeed all infostamp footage that I can remember - in black-and-white). This probably constitutes rather healthier squee-fodder than last year's "I am a god from Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous" speech. And this year's Christmas-related references that I caught included the rise of a new king, someone sleeping in a stable, and the Doctor as a sort of 'good shepherd' rescuing a small boy - besides the obvious A Christmas Carol / Wolves Of Willoughby Chase-style Victorian London, of course.
More personally, I couldn't help but see the Cyber-shades as Taran Woodbeasts with metal masks on - and I find both far more cute than scary. And if I already felt when reading one of the Oz books earlier in the year that the Wizard reminded me of the Doctor, that goes quadruple now I've seen him taking off in a balloon.
So they kept us guessing and speculating very effectively in the run-up, and for once I felt the pay-off on the 'Next Doctor' hook was nicely worked out. We got evil governesses, classic Victoriana, really very plausible Cybermen, and gratuitous explosions. And Who's past was treated respectfully and reverently, without either getting skewed into something it never was or being allowed to over-burden the plot. Pity about the five-minute Transformers movie tagged onto the end - but other than that, top notch!
Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting.
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Date: Friday, 26 December 2008 14:07 (UTC)