"We can't just sit here glittering, can we?"

[usuallyhats]

- Finished watching Genesis of the Daleks yesterday. Thoughts:

• There's not a great deal to say about this story that hasn't already been said; I shall endeavour not to be too redundant.


• Although Davros is a great villain, the brilliant-but-evil disabled scientist is such a common ablist trope that I wish he'd been balanced with lots of other disabled characters across the whole spectrum from "staggeringly virtuous" through "quite nice" and "somewhat misguided" to, well, him. Not necessarily in this story but in the show in general. Also, I did feel a little uncomfortable watching the Doctor threaten to switch off his life-support system. :/


• The colour palette is gorgeous; I love how Our Heroes stand out amid all the neutral colours of the Thals and Kaleds.


• About Time reckons it could stand to ditch the bits with the landmine and the clam; I beg to differ. The greatness of the GIANT CLAM goes without saying, and I really like how the landmine sequence builds the tension, not to mention giving ol' Steady Hands Sullivan a moment of awesome.


• On a personal note, I was terrified by this story at age nine and now whenever I watch it there is always part of my brain remembering the fear and going "MEEP."

- And then I watched Revenge of the Cybermen, the first new-to-me story since Planet of the Spiders. Reactions:

• This is really reinforcing my belief that the Cybermen are Rubbish In Colour, though actually it's not just the colour, it's how talky they are. I can't really see the Cybermen standing around nattering about their plans so that any passing Sarah can overhear them. They feel like generic villain types, rather than Cybermen.


• I was intrigued to see the Seal of Rassilon all over the place, but then I looked up this story on the internets after part one (to see if it had been repeated, as I had a feeling I'd seen it before) and found out that this is never explained! About Time theorised that the Time Lords made Voga to get in the Cybermen's way; I like that idea.


• Aw, Harry's little "sorry about my friend, he's had a long day" grin at the guest cast after the Doctor called him an imbecile! ♥ And getting the names of the monsters all muddled up! ILU Harry!


• I loved Sarah Jane zooming off on a mini-speedboat! And crossing her fingers when she was transmatting. Oh, I am going to miss this TARDIS team.

- It was my afternoon off yesterday; I had Grand Plans involving making a necklace tree out of wire and papier mâché (*scatters accents randomly*), but the wire I had was too thin, so I went up to the craft shop to get some better stuff, which they didn't have. So I made some earrings instead.



I did make two of each, I just couldn't fit them all on the needle properly! And the one in the middle I actually made a while ago.

- Two links, coincidentally both from Twitter: 1) Stephen Fry - sorry , Step Hen Free - reaches one million followers; triggers an event in the continuum. 2) Javier Grillo-Marxuach linked this fantastic picture of Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar from the filming of the pilot episode of The Middleman, which I can't stop looking at. Am now attempting to make The Middleman be uncancelled through the power of MY BRANE.

Comments

[everlasting-day.livejournal.com]

Genesis isn't quite a top ten favouritest one evar sort of story for me, but it's pretty excellent and there's some really bloody powerful stuff in there and Michael Wisher is amazing as Davros. Harry is great, too - I tend to consider Season 12 as a kind of a mid-tier season, but I love the TARDIS team in it. I don't know how anyone could be down on the landmine and the clam because they're both quite clearly fab.

People moan endlessly about the Cybermen in Silver Nemesis, but Revenge is their absolute worst portrayal by a million miles. The Cyber Leader poncing about with his hands on his hips is one of those rare moments when Doctor Who is genuinely embarrassing to watch. The story isn't much cop, either - I think it's the low point of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. Oh, and poor Lis Sladen having the Cybermat prodded in her face, and the Vogan masks, and the fact that the Cybermen should get their arses kicked on Voga (because hello, planet of gold!) but don't, and the rotating planet, and... and...

It does have some nice character moments as you mentioned though, and the "tin soldiers" bit is cool. Oh well, lovely Terror of the Zygons next!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

The reason I love the landmine scene is because the Doctor doesn't snark at Harry - you can sense (or I can, anyway) Four willing Harry to be really very steady and not dislodge the mine - and it's a beautiful character moment because Harry can be quite clumsy at times and yet here he's as steady-handed as if he was performing a tricky bit of surgery. When I read About Time's comments on the scene, I want to bang their heads together for missing the point.

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

POST HIJACK!

I finally finished the Benny novel you sent me (I had actually forgotten I had it) and now I want to send you books!

I promised you Just War, right? Was there another? It's been so long...

on abilist tropes and uncomfy moments

[missing-a-chair.livejournal.com]

As you say, the cliche of the disabled evil genius is often repeated, but I think you are being too hard on Genesis here for associating it with the cliche.

The logic behind davros is nicely consistent - the writers didn't follow the too-often used logic of "he's as evil as sin, so lets make him vulnerable"; they wanted a character who made the daleks in his own image. The daleks are helpless outside thier armor, and Davros is hlpless without his travellator (or whatever it was called)...

Effectively my point is that when considering cliches its worthwhile not only to notice "character X fits into pattern A" but also whether "X was designed as standard character A".

Plus, the trope for disabled characters does not restrict itself to evil geniuses, but to saintly ones also: Professor X of the X Men as an example.

Really, in the world of SF and fantasy, I think *normal* disabled people may be significantly underrepresented!...

As for Four torturing Davros... I can't remember the specifics of the story - it's been a year or so since I watched Four last... But the beauty of this storyline is that it pushes the doctor to his moral limits: at the end he cannot bear to commit genocide against a genocidal species. But apparently he is not above torturing an individual who will be responsible for genocide.
I think it is good for TV to challenge the viewer and in the case of doctor who I think it is *very* good for the doctor to be inhuman.

Invisigoth and I were nearly squeeing at the end of the Waters of Mars when the doctor was becoming insanely megomaniacal - she said "are they *actually* making him dark!?" in joy...

The only ways that episode could have ended with us being happy were if Capn whassername shot the doctor (also a good cue for the planned regeneration), not herself; or if the doc didn't angst over her, preferably because he left before her suicide, but i'd have accepted him not caring about it if it allowed them to run with a darker doc for a while.

What were your feelings?

[vonquixote.livejournal.com]

They feel like generic villain types, rather than Cybermen.

Yes.

That's sort of the problem. There are very few stories which treat them as anything other than dispensable challenge obstacles that can be brought in as a continuity reference. 'Revenge' isn't as bad for it as some, but it is essentially a retread of 'The Moonbase' with, as you say, bog-standard villain-fail injected in.

[usuallyhats]

The Four-Sarah-Harry team is one of my very favourites, so I'm very keen on season 12! I love The Ark in Space and Genesis, and I'm very fond of Robot, both for the bits that are actually good and some of the bits that aren't (the tiny tiny tank makes me laugh every time).

I'm quite glad to hear that Revenge of the Cybermen is in fact Nadir of the Cybermen, at least it's not going to get any worse!

[usuallyhats]

Yes! We're so used to seeing Harry in "nice, slightly bumbly" mode (which I also love) that it's really good to see that actually, yes, he is cool in a crisis and good at what he does. He's Surgeon Lieutenant Sullivan for a reason!

[usuallyhats]

Yay! I think it was only Just War, yes. Do you have my address, or shall I send it again? And did you enjoy Down?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yes, exactly!! I think a lot of people forget that. I love Harry's bumbling, but it's brilliant to see him being steady and calm too...

Re: on abilist tropes and uncomfy moments

[usuallyhats]

I think taken in isolation Davros is a great, consistent villain, but almost all the disabled characters (that I can think of off hand!) on Doctor Who fit the "bitter and villainous" trope (Davros, Judson from The Curse of Fenric, Lumic), so I really wish that there were a few more who didn't! There was a post on FWD/Forward recently that probably explains better than I can.

I do really like the element in Genesis of seeing how far the Doctor is willing to go for the greater good, but I felt that that scene didn't really frame it like that, because it was a case of flicking a switch rather than physical violence. So it was the way the scene was presented rather than the scene itself that I was uncomfortable with.

I haven't watched The Waters of Mars - I'd really stopped enjoying the new series by the end of season 4, so i haven't been watching the specials. Plus I don't like either Ten or solo-Doctor stories (unless they involve Eight, because he is my favourite). In general I'm not really a fan of dark unless the story really justifies it (which The Waters of Mars may have done, I don't know!) - it's just personal taste, but I prefer more joy in my tv watching.

[usuallyhats]

The scene with Sarah overhearing the Cybermen discussing their plans was the worst for this, I thought - it's a bit of a shortcut anyway to have characters stand around telling each other things they already know, but it's particularly out of character for the Cybermen to be having a natter about whatever wacky scheme the Cyberleader's come up with this time.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Found you on the friending meme!

[usuallyhats]

Hello! :)