things I have been watching and listening to

[usuallyhats]

- Finished listening to "Legend of the Cybermen" last night, and I must confess that I was a little disappointed. I was reading some discussion of it on who_anon, and I agree with the anon who said that zie'd have enjoyed it more if zie'd known the twist at the beginning of the trilogy, and that zie didn't like the fact that as soon as we found out that Jamie and Zoe were fictional, the narrative seemed to think we'd stop caring what happened to them. I felt a bit cheated that I'd got so invested in Jamie's storyline, only for him not to be the real Jamie. And I hated that real!Zoe lost all her memories again. HATED. It really felt like they were determined not to disturb canon, despite having made it seem like they would. And the end of "The War Games", much as I love that serial, is a bit of canon that needs disturbing, in my opinion.

With that one major caveat, I enjoyed the rest of the trilogy. Six's speech on (seemingly) losing Jamie in "The Wreck of the Titan" made me cry ("It was meant to be a treat" - that sort of thing will always get to me, and Colin Baker hit just the right tone of bewildered grief). I cackled a great deal at the meta bits in "Legend of the Cybermen", and really liked all the fictional people, especially Alice, who I may have been shipping with fictional!Zoe a bit. I just wish I had liked the ending more, because it really spoiled my enjoyment of the whole trilogy. Is "Night's Black Agents" worth listening to (given the above, or just in general)? I haven't heard it yet since BF seem to have had some trouble actually sending me the Companion Chronicles recently. Must email them.

- NEW LEVERAGE! I hearted the first episode very much, the second less so, largely because I was a bit :/ on the actual plot, and because I was distracted by knitting angst, but even so I just love all the characters and all their interactions SO MUCH I still find myself sitting there all ♥_♥. Here are some things I wrote down while I was watching:

• "Besides, I sleep better upside down." PARKER ♥


• "We're going to sort this out." *stabs* Oh Nate.


• Oh no, Hardison's doing his English accent again!


• Parker and Sophie bonding over theft! ♥ them and their relationship.


• "Little sloppy."/"New glasses." TEAM.


• PARKER WITH A MINI-HELICOPTER! LOVE.


• "I like when we pretend to kiss."/"Pretend?" Parker/Hardison! One of my MANY Leverage ships.


• Ahaha, Bonnano's cheerful delivery of "Nathan Ford is a very bad man"!


• AW at Nate getting all protective of his LOVELY TEAM.


• Ooo, an ARC. This should be fun.


• Nate is going to try ALL the names! I hope Sophie's real name turns out to be Sophie. Or Jenni, that is an excellent name.

~


• "What are you, lurking?"/"Yeah. That's what I do. I'm a lurker." :DDD


• "Hardison, confiscate some pastries." Good plan, Parker!


• Sophie programming Eliot! And her conversation with Parker about it! SHOW.


• Aw, poor Eliot, no-one will dance with him. :( (Christian Kane, on twitter: "Allotta people have expressed their symphathy cause Eliot didn't get to go to the dance.. Thank you but people, Eliot always gets to dance!" :DDDD)

- Another thing I watched: Blake's 7, "Terminal". Another good episode! (I understand these are few and far between next season, alas.) Some brief thoughts:

• I have MANY FEELINGS about Tarrant's outfit, but I cannot quite articulate them. Ooo, close up! IT'S FULL OF STARS.


• Hahaha, Avon's studded gloves!


• Aw at Vila telling Avon he cares about him.


• "What are you going to do if he spots you?"/"Duck." ...excellent plan there, Tarrant.


• Oh, Vila looks so sad that the ship is dying. I am sad too. ZEN. *cries*


• Well done on rescuing Orac, Vila! I was wondering if anyone was going to snag him. And his line about second hand spaceships is great. I find it a little odd that Servalan didn't notice that something was up with the Liberator, but I suppose she was probably too busy being smug about having got control at last.

Comments

[everlasting-day.livejournal.com]

I was really happy with the Six 'n Jamie trilogy overall - the way it felt like a cohesive 12-part story was rather fab. I concur with your disappointment about Jamie and Zoe (although I had a feeling that it wasn't the real Jamie as all the weird stuff in City of Spires developed), but it didn't spoil it for me too much in the end as there was an awful lot of good stuff in Legend. The meta bits were indeed fantastic (Nick Briggs morphing into a Cyberman!), and I really dug all the cool Cyberman stuff, like the Cyberised mermaids, giants and Moby Dick! And that cliffhanger with Oliver Twist was genius.

I also adored that scene from The Wreck of the Titan. I thought Colin was on absolutely top form in all three plays actually, some of his best work for Big Finish.

I absolutely can't wait for the Five/Tegan/Turlough/Nyssa stories - I've been looking forward to those for months. And the Seventh Doctor stories after them sound completely fantastic, too. It's shaping up to be a very strong year for Big Finish.

Season 4 of Blake's 7 is honestly excellent and contains some of the all-time best episodes of the whole series, but unfortunately all of its bad episodes are near the beginning, so it doesn't exactly get off to the greatest start. Power, Stardrive and Animals are what the phrase "oh dear" was invented for.

[nentari.livejournal.com]

I haven't listened to Legend of the Cybermen yet (I got my hands on it and Wreck of the Titan today), so I'm skipping the spoilers and will come back to them later, but I've finished Night's Black Agents a couple of hours ago and it's still fresh in my memory. It's an interesting story, but it's definitely not one of my favourite CCs even though it's a Jamie one. I might see it under a different light once I learn the resolution of the arch, but at this point it felt a bit disjointed; apart from that, it's a rather straightforward and well-paced story.

[vandonovan.livejournal.com]

A lot of people don't like S4, and while it has some duds, I think it's overall much better than S3 and I really love (or love to hate) the second half of S4. It'll break your heart, but for me that's some of what's so good about it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Avon's gauntlets are Bayban's, I think. I wonder how he got them.

Vila is lovely and clever and brave in this. [loves]

I have yet to catch up with Leverage, but I now possess S1 and S2 after TV here showed only some S1 in the wrong order. [stabs]

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Yay for Leverage's return!!

I loved the meta in The Legend of the Cybermen, but I agree that it was disappointing to find the whole thing hadn't been real.

Still haven't heard Night's Black Agents, yet...

[usuallyhats]

the way it felt like a cohesive 12-part story was rather fab
Yes, that worked very well!

but it didn't spoil it for me too much in the end as there was an awful lot of good stuff in Legend.
I think it spoiled it for me because I loved the rest of the trilogy so much! It's something I really hate, and I didn't think it was really necessary - it would have been hard but not impossible to get real!Jamie into the Land of Fiction, and Zoe losing her memories again didn't even make sense.

(Nick Briggs morphing into a Cyberman!)
That was brilliant!

I thought Colin was on absolutely top form in all three plays actually, some of his best work for Big Finish.
*nods* He's usually very good, but he was fantastic in these last three plays.

It's shaping up to be a very strong year for Big Finish.
Agreed! I wasn't sure about the idea of breaking the year down into seasons at first, but they've done some really great trilogies.

Season 4 of Blake's 7 is honestly excellent and contains some of the all-time best episodes of the whole series
Hurray! I'd got the impression that it was a long slow slide towards the end, so it's very encouraging to hear that it's not. I shall just grit my teeth through the bad episodes...

[usuallyhats]

Thanks! I'll probably listen to Night's Black Agents eventually, but I wanted to know what I'd be getting into.

I love your icon!

[usuallyhats]

Oh, excellent, I'm glad to hear it's not as bad as I'd thought! Heart-breaking I can cope with, it's badness I was worried about.

[usuallyhats]

Avon's gauntlets are Bayban's, I think. I wonder how he got them.
Hah, so they are! Maybe they both picked them up in some sort of interplanetary leather and studs sale.

Vila is lovely and clever and brave in this. [loves]
He really is. *clings to this episode*

I have yet to catch up with Leverage, but I now possess S1 and S2 after TV here showed only some S1 in the wrong order.
Oh no, how frustrating! Hope you enjoy it - it's not flawless or anything, but it just makes me so happy whenever I watch it!

[usuallyhats]

Yay for Leverage's return!!
\o/ \o/ (accurate representation of my feelings on this matter :D)

but I agree that it was disappointing to find the whole thing hadn't been real.
It just felt like such a waste. :(

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

\o/ \o/ (accurate representation of my feelings on this matter :D)

*grins* It looks like this season could be rather darker...

It just felt like such a waste. :(

Yes.

[nentari.livejournal.com]

I love your icon!
Thanks. I made it from a scene in the Ten Doctors webcomic. :)

Anyway, I've finished listening to the trilogy, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I was disappointed with the fact that the trilogy didn't fix/explain the continuity error from Helicon Prime (at the end of that CC, it was clear that Jamie had completely forgotten about the Doctor and didn't even remember The Highlanders, and after listening to City of Spires I was expecting an explanation for that error) and I really don't like the idea of Zoe to be back to square one. On the other hand, I really liked the pace of the stories overall (I was particularly impressed with Georgia Moffett in City of Spires) and felt it was a really interesting story arc.
And the resolution, frustrating as it was, connects well with Jamie's other CC, The Glorious Revolution. I had been told it provided some clues to the Six/Jamie arch, but after I listened to it I was utterly confused, since something Jamie says at some point in that one contradicts what is shown in City of Spires; it was only now that I realized the contradiction is the clue I was told about, as The Glorious Revolution is narrated by the real Jamie.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's good to watch happy-making shows. Mine are Chuck, Burn Notice, Big Bang, and now Leverage. And ooh, I see the IT Crowd is coming back on.

[usuallyhats]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the stories overall too, but I was so disappointed with the ending it sort of coloured everything.

I hadn't noticed the connection with The Glorious Revolution!

[nentari.livejournal.com]

As I said, the connection is the fact that there is no connection. I know canon is a very subjective thing in Doctor Who, but it would have been very difficult for the Six/Jamie audios (up to the ending, that is) and The Glorious Revolution to be able to make sense as part of the same canon. I'm guessing that this is what my friend meant when she told me about the connection.