thisbluespirit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit) wrote2009-08-15 08:33 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote2009-08-15 08:33 pm
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Yet More Top Five-ness
Which sounds like a list of Top 5 Five moments, which it isn't. I remembered that I hadn't done ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
john_elliott's Top 5, so here goes:
I had problems with 'Top Five things I would like to see retconned out of existence', because while DW can come up with things that make me tear my hair out at times, I generally get over it and by the next month find it amusing anyway. And isn't retconning what evil types do? (Oh, and Time Lords and Torchwood.)
Nevertheless, here goes:
1. The ending of The Android Invasion. If there were a world where Harry got a better exit than this not-even-on-screen unforgiveable rubbish, I'd be happy. (Although I still want the BBC to bring it out on DVD, because my VHS copy broke half way through last time I tried to watch it, which means even less Harry in the world for me.)
2. What the NAs did to Ace. I'm not bothered now, because everyone's given up on accepting them as official canon (except any Bits People Like and Benny), but when I was a teenager, I would definitely have retconned this and probably done actual harm to Peter Darvill-Evans had he come anywhere near me. There is nothing like being a teenager and having your no. 1 heroine that you want to grow up to be (hmm) suddenly turned into an unlikeable, embittered, still just as messed up, Dalek-killing machine. Because only 30 year old men are fans of DW. (My other heroines were Lynda Day and Kate Adie, but sadly I still can't say boo to a goose except on rare occasions and I only ever blew up a thermistor once).
3. Sarah's 20 years of moping in School Reunion. Or I would, if I believed it for a second. The thing with DW, is that continuity is always up and down and this means that our lovely Sarah Jane, for all her better side, tells whopping great fibs from time to time (like this, and "I come from 1980." Not in those outfits, you don't.) I'm sure she has her reasons.
4. I'm getting desperate here: Michael in the BFA The Gathering. Not entirely, but keep that other girl alive and let him take his much-too-young voice, strangest accent ever heard on audio and car-obsession and run off with her, letting Tegan to do that leaving scene on her own two feet and spare me the sound effects I could have so lived without. I mean, the poor man has to compete with Five and then he goes on about his car, (which, btw, is romantic-fic of whatever sort, shorthand for "I'm young, flashy, shallow and Not The Right One, whatever it might actually mean in life). I don't want it to end differently. I just want him out of the way and not give me Scenes of Wrongness in my head. Then I could love this audio properly for the amazing arguing and being the antidote to School Reunion.
5. Do you think anyone will notice if I don't write a fifth? Hmm. Okay, if you push me, I could pretty much live without anything written by Chris Chibnall. I had to stop watching Torchwood because of my reactions to his scripts and he did something truly terrible: he nearly stopped me from watching Life on Mars because I saw his episode and it wasn't anything like as good as the five minutes I'd seen from the first one. Anyway, enough of that. I'm not saying he's a terrible writer, just that I've learned by now that I'll end up throwing things by the end of one of his eps. (My main problem is that our world-views differ considerably and my main criticism: why can I not shake the feeling, especially in Torchwood that he writes stuff because it was cool on some other show? And he writes emotional scenes all TV Soap while simultaenously saying "Aren't I clever and mature to do this?")
Which I hope is as vindictive a post as you'll ever get from me, but I did promise to answer the questions.
***
Alsopersiflage_1 said if I wanted to do my top Brig/Liz is canon! moments, I could. So I did:
1. Inferno Brig and Liz are definitely an item. We don't want to know how or why because it would be disturbing, but it does suggest at least that in a world without the Doctor, they get together.
2. When he chats her up - I mean, interviews her in Spearhead from Space. And then watches her work a lot. She doesn't half enjoy trying to wind him up, too.
3. Ambassadors: The villain tells Liz that he's killed her UNIT friends. Does Liz do what every other single white female companion does and gasp "The Doctor?" No, she doesn't. Her instant concern is "The Brigadier?" This is unheard of. (Plus, for some reason, I really, really like their exchange after he rescues her and the Doctor, asking if she's all right and she says "Just get me out of here." I think it's the little look between them.)
4. The Brigadier escapes from the Silurians and Liz is concerned. (I must watch this one again, because it was probably the shippiest.) Also, Silurians, Ambassadors and Inferno all establish that Liz works with the Brigadier much more than the Doctor does - he picks and chooses which investigations to do but she, as an official employee, gets to go on the boring ones. (Where no doubt she sounds off to the Brigadier about the Doctor being impossible while still trying and failing to wind him up).
5. Inferno: I can't quite remember what it is, but there's a moment where LIz just orders him to follow her (or hurry up, or whatever it is), without explanation - and he does. (With an honourable mention for the bit where - accident of production I know, but still - Stahlmann or someone has a conversation and they stay close together in the back of the shot, chatting animatedly.)
john_elliott's Top 5, so here goes:I had problems with 'Top Five things I would like to see retconned out of existence', because while DW can come up with things that make me tear my hair out at times, I generally get over it and by the next month find it amusing anyway. And isn't retconning what evil types do? (Oh, and Time Lords and Torchwood.)
Nevertheless, here goes:
1. The ending of The Android Invasion. If there were a world where Harry got a better exit than this not-even-on-screen unforgiveable rubbish, I'd be happy. (Although I still want the BBC to bring it out on DVD, because my VHS copy broke half way through last time I tried to watch it, which means even less Harry in the world for me.)
2. What the NAs did to Ace. I'm not bothered now, because everyone's given up on accepting them as official canon (except any Bits People Like and Benny), but when I was a teenager, I would definitely have retconned this and probably done actual harm to Peter Darvill-Evans had he come anywhere near me. There is nothing like being a teenager and having your no. 1 heroine that you want to grow up to be (hmm) suddenly turned into an unlikeable, embittered, still just as messed up, Dalek-killing machine. Because only 30 year old men are fans of DW. (My other heroines were Lynda Day and Kate Adie, but sadly I still can't say boo to a goose except on rare occasions and I only ever blew up a thermistor once).
3. Sarah's 20 years of moping in School Reunion. Or I would, if I believed it for a second. The thing with DW, is that continuity is always up and down and this means that our lovely Sarah Jane, for all her better side, tells whopping great fibs from time to time (like this, and "I come from 1980." Not in those outfits, you don't.) I'm sure she has her reasons.
4. I'm getting desperate here: Michael in the BFA The Gathering. Not entirely, but keep that other girl alive and let him take his much-too-young voice, strangest accent ever heard on audio and car-obsession and run off with her, letting Tegan to do that leaving scene on her own two feet and spare me the sound effects I could have so lived without. I mean, the poor man has to compete with Five and then he goes on about his car, (which, btw, is romantic-fic of whatever sort, shorthand for "I'm young, flashy, shallow and Not The Right One, whatever it might actually mean in life). I don't want it to end differently. I just want him out of the way and not give me Scenes of Wrongness in my head. Then I could love this audio properly for the amazing arguing and being the antidote to School Reunion.
5. Do you think anyone will notice if I don't write a fifth? Hmm. Okay, if you push me, I could pretty much live without anything written by Chris Chibnall. I had to stop watching Torchwood because of my reactions to his scripts and he did something truly terrible: he nearly stopped me from watching Life on Mars because I saw his episode and it wasn't anything like as good as the five minutes I'd seen from the first one. Anyway, enough of that. I'm not saying he's a terrible writer, just that I've learned by now that I'll end up throwing things by the end of one of his eps. (My main problem is that our world-views differ considerably and my main criticism: why can I not shake the feeling, especially in Torchwood that he writes stuff because it was cool on some other show? And he writes emotional scenes all TV Soap while simultaenously saying "Aren't I clever and mature to do this?")
Which I hope is as vindictive a post as you'll ever get from me, but I did promise to answer the questions.
***
Also
persiflage_1 said if I wanted to do my top Brig/Liz is canon! moments, I could. So I did:1. Inferno Brig and Liz are definitely an item. We don't want to know how or why because it would be disturbing, but it does suggest at least that in a world without the Doctor, they get together.
2. When he chats her up - I mean, interviews her in Spearhead from Space. And then watches her work a lot. She doesn't half enjoy trying to wind him up, too.
3. Ambassadors: The villain tells Liz that he's killed her UNIT friends. Does Liz do what every other single white female companion does and gasp "The Doctor?" No, she doesn't. Her instant concern is "The Brigadier?" This is unheard of. (Plus, for some reason, I really, really like their exchange after he rescues her and the Doctor, asking if she's all right and she says "Just get me out of here." I think it's the little look between them.)
4. The Brigadier escapes from the Silurians and Liz is concerned. (I must watch this one again, because it was probably the shippiest.) Also, Silurians, Ambassadors and Inferno all establish that Liz works with the Brigadier much more than the Doctor does - he picks and chooses which investigations to do but she, as an official employee, gets to go on the boring ones. (Where no doubt she sounds off to the Brigadier about the Doctor being impossible while still trying and failing to wind him up).
5. Inferno: I can't quite remember what it is, but there's a moment where LIz just orders him to follow her (or hurry up, or whatever it is), without explanation - and he does. (With an honourable mention for the bit where - accident of production I know, but still - Stahlmann or someone has a conversation and they stay close together in the back of the shot, chatting animatedly.)
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I did notice Liz asks 'The Brigadier?' rather than 'The Doctor?'. :D
Of course, you realise I now want to re-watch all of Season 7? Not just 'cos of this list, mind! I'm still writing your Liz/Eight fic and after listening to "The Blue Tooth" for the fifth time (it's a sort of tag fic for that audio), I was reminded of just how much I love Liz all over again... (Besides, it's simply not possible to watch Season 7 too often!)
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I'm looking forward to the Liz/Eight fic, although I must confess I haven't heard The Blue Tooth.
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Oh! You need to listen to The Blue Tooth!!
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Oh, and #3
"tells whopping great fibs from time to time (like this, and "I come from 1980." Not in those outfits, you don't.) I'm sure she has her reasons."
Made me laugh out loud. I too wish to retcon out that bit of School Reunion, but luckly, like you say, Sarah-Jane is apparently a pathological liar by times so we can just disregard it (or, you know, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey)
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I agree completely with School Reunion (still, it's better than Sarah being uncertainly dead like Schrödinger's Cat, which is where the books left her). I haven't seen The Android Invasion or heard The Gathering, so can't comment on those.
I don't know if Chibnall was responsible for the implication in Torchwood that the only afterlife in the Whoniverse is an eternity of darkness and solitude, awaiting each and every character we care about. But that would definitely go on my top five list. (Fortunately, we know better. They really just head back to the Round...)
While I wouldn't have thought of including the books' rewrite of Ace, I can quite see the reasoning there. You could broaden it to the general tendency of the books to give companions messed-up later lives. Just off the top of my head, beside Ace they aren't exactly kind to Dodo or Victoria or Zoë or Jo or Peri (though, as with Sarah, at least she ends up alive).
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Uncertainly dead? Would that be Interference? My memory of it is very confused and vague, but I think that's not just down to me. ;-D
I have no idea, but it doesn't sound unlikely. It's not that sort of thing I object to, but the fact he seems to be smug about it, too. It was the lighthouse one that made me decide I'd better avoid his writing for the sake of my sanity.
No Happy Endings here, no sir. (Well, obviously there's Happy Endings but even that isn't...) Not that I didn't love some of them, but not without still muttering to myself about What They Did To Ace.
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I can recite that poem off by heart. It's one of my things I have in my head for when I'm faced with a classful of children and have no books ready. (Or at least, I used to be able to. I sit at a desk these days and let my practical skills turn rusty).
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...or maybe it's an eccentricity she picked up after she met the Doctor, as some kind of reaction to becoming laden with truths that she couldn't tell anybody, and wouldn't be believed if she did.
(I'm reminded of Emanuel Tagore's advice to Mike Ford: "Be a storyteller, an embellisher, a liar; they'll call you that and worse anyway.")
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I like the Sarah-Jane-Smith-as-compulsive-fibber idea; it explains a lot.
When it comes to spin-off media like the NAs and audios, I have long since adopted the position that "it's canon if I like it; if I don't...not so much..." which is weaselly, I know, but suits me just fine! ;D I'm coming around to the idea that there is no hard-and-fast Who canon, because to impose same would imply an authority that RTD, or whoever else, simply does not possess. But yeah, what they did to Ace in the NAs was pretty much unforgiveabe; it wasn't as if she hadn't already had a pretty good coming-of-age character arc in the television stories; to try and make her "dark and edgy" for the benefit of 20-30-something fanboys was overegging it somewhat, I'd argue.
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Besides, you can't *have* canon for a show that time-travels and has parallel universes...
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By and large, I am forced to accept what appeared on screen, allowing for Sarah telling lies and things.
"Let's face it, all DW fans are 30 year old males, so that's the audience we're writing for." was so not the phrase I wanted to hear as a 13-14-15 year old female fan. The thought gives me a slight *wibble* even now.
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You see, my take on that is that the unofficial Brig love life canon is as everyone says, but things happen earlier. He never mentioned his wife the whole time the Doctor worked at UNIT, and that's restrained, even for the Brig. He doesn't get away without mentioning Doris (and I always assumed his affair with her happened years and years ago from the ref in Planet of the Spiders). Therefore there was Fiona, but he divorced her pretty much as soon as he joined UNIT, being unable to talk to her about Cybermen and Yeti and suchlike. (And given how marvellously unsneaky he is at lying to the Doctor in Silurians, she would have known something was going on.)
That's the continuity I have in my head, because if the production team had been as determined to have him married as they say, all they had to do was drop in a line, say:
"No, sorry, can't Doctor. My wife's expecting me back for dinner and she says if she doesn't see me at least once a fortnight, that'll be the end of - Good grief, giant octopii, did you say? I'll be right there."
And did they bother? Did they even have him flash a wedding ring around? No, so I adapt the off-screen canon for my own purposes. *evil grin*