nemeses r us
Jul. 16th, 2007 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotSee, this is why Doctor Who so totally trumps Smallville - DW's head writer, in the podcast episode commentary for "Last of the Time Lords", on the Doctor's relationship with his arch-nemesis (a one-time friend gone crazy-take-over-the-universe evil, sound familiar?)
Executive Producer Julie Gardner: "It's about two men who could be friends, who should be friends..."
Exec. Producer/Writer Russell T Davies: "...Or husbands, even!"
Executive Producer Julie Gardner: "It's about two men who could be friends, who should be friends..."
Exec. Producer/Writer Russell T Davies: "...Or husbands, even!"
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Date: 2007-07-15 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 04:38 pm (UTC)SV, now...it's either the hat, or else the writing room is a battlefield. I think sometimes SV is written by warring factions, new dominances won and lost week by week - Clanans vs the Clexers vs the comic-book geeks vs the soap-opera junkies, and by 6th season they're refusing to make any truces...
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Date: 2007-07-15 05:07 pm (UTC)"Clanans" sounds like a sci-fi TV show's name for an alien race.
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Date: 2007-07-15 04:59 pm (UTC)I love you forever.
Love, Alissa
Yay! I love that there are all of these commentaries available (between the podcasts and the confidentials) that we don't have to wait for a DVD for! I really need to go through and listen to them all, but I'm sort of waiting until the it's-not-christmas-yet feeling just gets unbearable XD
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Date: 2007-07-15 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 05:53 pm (UTC)I mean, uh -- that is an awesomely amusing quote. XD ♥
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Date: 2007-07-15 06:47 pm (UTC)There is no subtext in our fandom. It's all text, baby <3
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Date: 2007-07-16 06:23 pm (UTC)I, I sort of want to write Master/Doctor. TOTALLY NOT MY USUAL STYLE, but there it is. I weep.
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Date: 2007-07-15 08:17 pm (UTC)...I'd offer RTD my babies, but I don't think he's interested in my baby-making equipment. So I'll just offer him my undying squee. Or something. XD
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Date: 2007-07-18 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 11:01 pm (UTC)I don't care what anyone else says, I like RTD! Above all else it's his love and enthusiasm for the show that have carried it through thus far. He may go a little too far sometimes, but as a whole I think that he is the best person possible for the job and I hope he or his ilk continue to work on it for a long time to come. The fact that he suggests something such as that, even light heartedly, just shows what a wonderfully open minded show this is! It's great!
I do so love the pod-casts. Or some of them at least. If you wanna listen to more then I suggest Gridlock, Girl in the Fireplace and Family of Blood, which are all especially awsome.
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Date: 2007-07-18 08:37 am (UTC)...but then I tend to fan madly on writers/creators, so I'm a bit biased. And lines like this are icing on the cake! ^^
Yeah, that's fandom for you...
Date: 2007-07-19 05:59 am (UTC)RTD takes a franchise that's been off the air for years, and almost forgotten. He brings it back to life, fills it with energy, writes fantastic, fun stories, persuades great actors to take on supporting, guest star roles, and sells it throughout the world. The show will be going into its fourth season soon.
And fans hate him? I give up, I really do. Or rather, I would give up if I hadn't already.
Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 04:06 pm (UTC)It wasn't forgotten, trust me. Nowhere near it. Books, specials, hell, Big Finish (http://www.ekmpowershop5.com/ekmps/shops/BigFinish/index.asp?function=DISPLAYCAT&catid=18) created their entire damned company around releasing audio plays. (And several of the Books/Audios have ended up in the new series - Jubilee became Dalek, Human Nature, etc)
The problem a lot of people have about RTD is in part his arrogance. If people don't like it, he doesn't consider the criticism, he promptly decides they're morons and just "don't get it". He's dragged a lot of the show down to fart jokes and chav references, boring humanity and has openly said people are idiots for not liking it.
He's also a terribly overexcited fanboy and doesn't realise this a lot of the time. Look at stuff like Last of the Time Lords - well done, but he couldn't help himself, went over the top and spoiled chunks of it. And he's of the firm opinion that he wants to have less sci-fi - which is mindboggling, since DW is the longest running Sci Fi series the human race has ever produced! His stories also tend to be paper-thin, with far too many attempts to shock and awe people to try and compensate. It worked in the s27 finale Parting of the ways, but failed horribly in s28.
Personally I'm hoping we get a s5. RTD is buggering off...and the Almighty Mister Moffat (The Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Girl in the Fireplace, Blink) is rumoured to be slated as his replacement as head writer. *oh please oh please oh please*
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 04:42 pm (UTC)I worry about Moffat taking the helm. On the one hand, his plots sparkle, he's got great lines, and the creepiest/scariest stuff in the whole show, bar none. On the other, he seems to be one of those writers who believes romance is the most interesting sort of relationship that can be in a story, and hasn't written an ep yet that doesn't have a lot hinging on such, and considering how fond I am of the sorta-asexual/platonic nature of the Doctor...yeah, not sure about that. (Hey, I'm still a gen fan at heart; the slash is just an aberration. Okay, a lot of aberrations. Still!) (I want more from Paul Cornell, myself; "Father's Day" and "Human Factor/Family of Blood" are some of my favorite eps...)
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 05:29 pm (UTC)I actually know Paul IRL and have for years, he's a fucking crackup.
A lot of the romantic shit in Moff's stories are actually RTD dictates, hate to tell you. Not part of his normal writing style at all (Dig up some of the old Decalogues of you can) He, Paul, Gareth Roberts and Mark Gattis are old skool writers of some years, so I always eagerly huddle along to their stories. (Helen Raynor (Daleks in Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks) on the other hand needs to be fitted with a shock collar that goes off any time she approaches a script. Well, a DW one anyway. She did quite well in Torchwood's Ghost Machine)
I suppose the biggest thing that shits me about RTD...well, there are two. One is him walking about with the "fellate me!" attitude for "Making Who Big" (Dude the fucking series survived 26 years without you, you are merely standing on the shoulders of giants) and the other is the fact he has such good ideas...and then screws them in some way. It's maddening. He needs a beta, badly.
And wtf is with pulling up the worst moments from the original series to compare with his "brand new vision" on the confidentials? Seriously. The Master one pretty much just had a handful of clips from Daemons
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 05:54 pm (UTC)Well, in the Confidentials anyway, Moffat keeps talking about the romance like he's happy he's finally getting it into Who. I knew he was an old-schooler, and he does pen a sweet script. (Helen Raynor, OTOH, yes...what the heck happened there? Empire States Building, Dalek, sewer pigmen, how could you go wrong?)
RTD to me comes across like a big ol' fanboy of the original, bouncing about bringing the show to the next generation; the publicists are piling on the 'making it big' thing (I get the feeling because they're merrily cashing in on the series in a way they haven't since the original Dalek craze). The man does have an ego on him, but to make it in TV, you kinda have to. Hazard of the job. Especially when you got slavering fanboys at the door going apeshit if you get the wrong number of bumps on a Dalek.
And it could be worse. So much worse. I've seen the '96 movie. (Not dissing Paul McGann...just everything else about it.)
Ehh...like I said, I'd just as soon stay out of Who-fandom; seems like most of it is about hating on one thing or another (RTD or Rose or Martha or new fen or whatever) and me, I'm in it for the squee! & the crack. (hating is what I got Smallville for, dammit!) And sometimes it seems like folks are taking too serious a show about a 900+-year-old alien who flies around in a transcendental police phonebox...
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:02 pm (UTC)Oh that movie was a freaking abomination. Thankfully though we got McGann, and he's got an arseload of audios (http://www.ekmpowershop5.com/ekmps/shops/BigFinish/index.asp?function=DISPLAYCAT&catid=22) behind him now, so we get 8th with good scripts :D
And sometimes it seems like folks are taking too serious a show about a 900+-year-old alien who flies around in a transcendental police phonebox...
You. have. no. idea. We're talking damn near 50 years of canon. And fanwanking? Rampant Star trek fans have NOTHING on the average DW nut. I'm not kidding when I say we invented fanwank. Seriously.
It doesn't hurt that the show was originally aimed at a higher IQ group too. So most old skoolers tend to be intelligent...and more anal than a proctologists convention. Checked out the canon-fodder comm? We're answering those questions from memory!
(and it's not transcendental. It's transdimensional. The inner TARDIS occupies a different dimension from the outer plasmic shell. Hence the bigger on the inside :P And TARDISes are pan-dimensional living beings, anyway)
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:16 pm (UTC)(and it's not transcendental. It's transdimensional. The inner TARDIS occupies a different dimension from the outer plasmic shell. Hence the bigger on the inside :P And TARDISes are pan-dimensional living beings, anyway)
XDDDD I have never so keenly felt the need for an icon that says "U R A BIGGER G33K THAN ME" :P
(Heh, you want intellectuwank? I hung out on a Tolkien newsgroup for a year. There they differentiate between Quenya and Sindarin and make fun of you if you've only read the trilogy + The Silmarillion - and I never did get all the way through The S. Though I can still spell it, which is a badge of...something...)
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:29 pm (UTC)You have no freaking idea
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:34 pm (UTC)Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 07:06 pm (UTC)Actually, I'm hosting a guy with far too much time on his hands on my domain. Have a look at http://www.meshyfish.com/~roo/docwho1.html. Hefty amount to chew through, but it does cover book, series and audio canon (And also lists the Laws of Time)
Basically all you need to remember is The Academy, the seat of TL power was the Panopticon, the Doctor was in the Prydonian chapter, and he went to the academy with the Master (Koschei), the Rani (Ushas), The Meddling Monk (mortimus) Drax and The War chief (Magnus). That's from the book Divided Loyalties, but the Master/Rani/Doctor/Drax is TV canon. They all went rogue. I'm guessing it was a bad year for the academy
The doctor also spent a lot of his time at the academy doing badly and pissing off to talk to a hermit, and spent a lot of time with the Shobogans (underclass of dropouts). One of his most respected tutors was Borusa (who later became high Lord President of Gallifrey. )
The Doctor also did a lot of fucked up shit during his childhood - electrified the president's Perigosto stick, messed with the gravity net in the Panopticon so the entire graduation ceremony took place mid-air, and introduced cats to the Gallifreyan ecology. His accomplice in this was a fellow Time Lord called Ruath (BookCanon: Goth Opera)
If you want to play with it more: The ability to regenerate and to travel through time isn't native. It's instilled via genetic manipulation, also known as the Rassilon Imprimature - it's what divides Gallifreyans from Time Lords (a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Rassilon_Imprimatur">TARDIS wiki stub) Who gets it is based on their performance at the academy, and the Order they're in.
That enough to get ya started? :D
picking yer brane
Date: 2007-08-01 07:17 pm (UTC)Ah-hah! So there is a difference between Gallifreyans and Time Lords! I've been trying to figure that one out.
(oh, does it ever state in TV canon that the Doctor & the Master were in the same class in the Academy? I had the Master being a year behind - not a major point as it's only a cameo, but...)
Re: picking yer brane
Date: 2007-08-01 07:31 pm (UTC)The Master you could do as a year younger in age, but in the same class. The Master was a brilliant scientist before he went batshit. I think the closest they get to expressly stating in TV canon is the line "We were at the academy together" from The Five Doctors
Re: picking yer brane
Date: 2007-08-01 07:34 pm (UTC)TV canon: Underworld
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 07:13 pm (UTC)TV canon: The Doctor graduated with a Double Gamma (51%) from his second attempt at the Academy. Failure or expulsion on the first go, it's never said :D
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:18 pm (UTC)(still maintain the Borg would eat the Cybermen alive, though :P)
Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:19 pm (UTC)Re: Speakin' as a fan...
Date: 2007-08-01 06:33 pm (UTC)And the new series cybers deserve to be eaten. I loathe them. I loathe them so much I went off my tits on a huge rant about it (http://taleya.livejournal.com/337286.html). The borg would be torn apart and used for spare parts.
And the TARDIS Uber Alles. FFS, it materialised around an entire damned planet in Blood Heat. Compliment that with the State of Grace (Which disallows weapons firing) and the Enterprise is screwed. (And they did kinda do a Doctor Vs Q - look up the story The Celestial Toymaker) :P
Kirk would be too busy trying to shag the companion of the week, and the Doctor would nip off and screw up the Enterprise merrily.
Producer/Writer Russell T Davies
Date: 2007-07-23 08:35 pm (UTC)Re: Producer/Writer Russell T Davies
Date: 2007-07-28 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 04:17 am (UTC)That my friend, is another fandom we've both got!
Although to be fair, I've got 24 years on you with this one! *sticks out tongue*
(And Master/Doctor is completely Knives/Vash. So there)
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Date: 2007-08-01 06:56 am (UTC)Master/Doctor as Knives/Vash ahhhhhh *head goes 'spodey* (at least Doctor & Master aren't siblings. Er not that it would stop me if they were. But still) Though the Master has more fun about it than Knives. I looooove villains who enjoy themselves so yes, the Master is pure <3333
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Date: 2007-08-01 12:34 pm (UTC)And there was a plotline that was only ever left as a cut off line about the Master and Doctor actually being brothers. :D Hence the line RTD wrote in SoD to tease at it :D (Check "Planet of
ShortsFire" with the cut off line "How could you do this to your own --")So now my crack-addled brain is wondering if Jack = Wolfwood :D Err, have I mentioned I've not been getting much sleep of late?
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Date: 2007-08-01 03:25 pm (UTC)Jack = Wolfwood XDDDDD I don't know what's better, picturing Wolfwood traveling through time or picturing Jack with a portable confessional!
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Date: 2007-08-01 03:39 pm (UTC):D
ok, compare Ainley!Master wiping people out in Castrovalva to Simm!Master gassing parliament. The former doesn't give a shit overmuch. He's a cold killer. The latter is purely batshit. If you want some seriously creepy master, watch some of the old Pertwee (3rd) eps with Delgado!Master. No batshit there, he's just a meglomaniacal murderer. By Ainley, his aims had turned into breaking the Doctor (Hence the Knives comparisons)
I don't know what's better, picturing Wolfwood traveling through time or picturing Jack with a portable confessional!
.....You just know he'd turn that into a glory hole.
(breaks out the old school iconage purely because she can :D)
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Date: 2007-08-01 04:32 pm (UTC)You say that as if Wolfwood hasn't already! :P
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Date: 2007-08-01 05:22 pm (UTC)It does not help that I actually have a dojin that has Wolfy working as a prostitute to raise funds for his kids. Man, the fun really starts when the other three find out. Had no idea Milly was so damned kinky :D
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Date: 2007-08-01 05:29 pm (UTC)Het dj! Hee! I only got a couple Trigun dj (heeeey, you were the first one to introduce me to dj, now that I think about it...Goku/Vegeta, way back when! And now I got...er...somewhere over 100. Or 200. I'm afraid to make an exact count. But it's all your fault! Well, and a problem with living in Japan.)(...thinking about it, I think my only kinky het dj is Pokemon, Rocketshipping. I have no idea what that says about me and suspect I'd rather not find out ^^;;;)
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Date: 2007-08-01 05:34 pm (UTC)And the artwork is spot on :D
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Date: 2007-08-01 06:01 pm (UTC)Most of my collection is, sadly, Yu-Gi-Oh...yeah, I know, shut up, I just have a thing for Kaiba, is all :P