don't forget your shoes, and don't be late

[usuallyhats]

Have not been on the internets much recently: came down with a cold, and then went up to my parents' for Easter and did not take my laptop. Excitingly, whilst I was there, Chicks Unravel Time was nominated for a Hugo! Gosh. (The only other thing I have read in that category was Chicks Dig Comics, which I also really liked. Go Mad Norwegian Press!)

Also over the last week I...

- played the piano! I'd forgotten how much fun "I Dreamed A Dream" is to play, even though I am not as good at it as I used to be (I used to know the entire first page off by heart, so I could start on page two and not have to turn over). When I am grown up I shall have a piano, and also possibly lessons, because I am not that great at it.

- went to see Richard III at the Tobacco Factory, which was really excellent. I don't know the play at all, nor much about the history, so didn't really know what to expect, but it was great, and contained more black humour and good parts for women than I was expecting. I'm going to see the other half of the Shakespeare season, Two Gentlemen of Verona, in a few weeks and am now looking forward to it even more. (I also have a spare ticket to it that I'm trying to sell; give me a shout if you think you might want it!)

- watched the first six episodes of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and became very enthusiastic about it. The first episode in particular was very good, and I like that they're bringing up themes of power, responsibility, and whether the ends justify the means without going all grimdark about it. Also Wasp is the MOST ADORABLE, my goodness, tiny and tough and competent and AMAZING. (Thor is definitely second in the adorableness stakes, as is right and proper.)

- read the third issue of Young Avengers, which I feel has really hit its stride: it had all the humour and pace and heart of the first two issues, but felt a lot more substantial than they did and therefore banished the tiny voice in the back of my mind that was going "I paid TWO POUNDS AND TEN PENCE for this". Good.

- watched "The Bells of Saint John": the explanation for the title made me laugh. I liked it a great deal overall, though I had three niggles as follows:

• Much as I liked the Amy reference, her name isn't "Williams" and that is never going to stop making me angry.


• I really want Eleven to just tell Clara what he knows about her other selfs already. This is going to be a continuing background annoyance for me until it happens, but I probably won't mention it again unless Eleven angsts about it in a particularly tiresome way, I just wanted to note it at least once.


• I wish Clara had actually done all the travelling. It would make a nice change to have a companion see TARDIS travel as an extension of the adventures she was already having, rather than going along because she hadn't managed her own adventures. The Doctor as a sort of superior travel agent, rather than a rescuer.

Other than that it was "Eleventy, Clara, your faces are delightful" all the way down. "I've invented the quadricycle"! TWENTY SEVEN BRAINS, oh Eleventy I love how you are simultaneously centuries old and also about ten. Clara hung onto her cup of tea all the way through the TARDIS and the aeroplane! A woman after my own heart. ♥

- caught up with veritypodcast, which is A Good Thing and makes me feel very happy to be part of Doctor Who fandom. This week's episode was an excellent discussion of season 7a, which I had to pause briefly to watch two of such_heights's great season 7 vids, I am destroyer I am lover and Sunday (I would have watched Dinosaurs On A Spaceship and As Cold As It Gets too but they weren't on my ipod for some reason). I feel a lot more warmly towards "Asylum of the Daleks" than I did when it was first broadcast, because "I am destroyer I am lover" is so sharp and cool and interesting, and "Sunday" just fills me with many Pond-related feelings. ♥

Now I am away to catch up on DW/LJ/reply to things/generally make my life less of a disorganised mess than it currently is. I may be some time.

Comments

[such_heights]

Awww, thank you! I'm very fond of that set of vids. :D

[usuallyhats]

They are all excellent, I love them very much! ♥

[cosmic_llin]

I loved what the "bells" turned out to be, that was nifty. Ditto on the Williams thing - seems strange when they'd always made such a point of them being the Ponds.

Overall I... cautiously liked it? There were lots of fun bits, anyway. But yeah, I'm not sure why he can't just tell Clara what the deal is.

Also I thought Celia Imrie was terrific but that's basically a default state of being for me.

[usuallyhats]

She was fantastic, yeah!

I really enjoyed this episode, but in the back of my mind I'm still somewhat nervous of completely commiting to loving the whole season, if you see what I mean.

Ditto on the Williams thing - seems strange when they'd always made such a point of them being the Ponds.
*nods* It makes me feel a little like I was on the wrong side of that joke all along, and that I should have been shaking my head at the Doctor whenever he referred to Rory or Brian as a Pond. :(

[queenthesixth.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Doctor Who as well. So great to have it back!

As regards, 'Williams', that didn't bother me because it's Rory's surname and she might have decided that while Mrs Williams isn't the name she wants to go by, it would do for a pen name. Because it was Amelia Williams and while that is her name, technically it isn't because she's known to everybody as Amy. Just my take on it.

Clara is a delight and the ending gave me a few chills when we saw just what 'factory reset' meant for absolutely everybody working at the Shard, including Celia Imrie.

[usuallyhats]

Yes! I'm not always wowed by Moffat episodes, but when I like them, I REALLY like them.

I wouldn't mind it as a pen name, but they made so much out of Amy being a Pond and everyone connected to her being Ponds too right up to the point where she and Rory left, and then suddenly she's a Williams on her gravestone and her books, it sort of feels like the implication is that it was fine for her to be a Pond while she was gallivanting around with the Doctor, when she stops she has to settle down and be a grown up, and that means taking Rory's name. Especially since we never see her choose it, so we don't know what her reasoning is (or whether she mostly goes by Pond still).

She is so much fun! I hope we get to hang onto her for a good long time. And yes! Celia Imrie was so great in that little scene.

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

Richard III is such a fabulous play. The version I saw contains less women than it should (It's edited rather as "Does this scene involve Laurence Ollivier? If Yes, keep scene. If No, scene unimportant.") but the black humour is glorious. I'd love to see another version.

[usuallyhats]

Ha! I can understand that attitude... I'd never seen it before, though I know I must have read it, because I wrote an essay on the history plays at university.