Doctor Who: Love & Monsters

[altariel]

Poor Elton. Poor LINDA.

Second best episode of Doctor Who ever. Silly and happy and sad, just like people. So much darker, and so much better.

SNIFFLECOUNT: A: 23, Mr A: 27

Comments

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Have you two slept, yet? (;

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Made of stern stuff in this house!

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

That's what I call dedication! :D

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Nearly there...

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

People seem either to love that episode or to hate it; there's no middle ground. I, like you, am in the "love it" camp.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Love it to bits :-)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Mark and I hated that episode; we thought it was the worst written one we'd ever seen and that it really missed the mark it was aiming for.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I adore it. I think it's tremendously canny about objects of passion. And that the final monologue to camera is such a great thing to put out on primetime telly. Also, Marc Warren is terrific.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, see. It got 80% of the way there - it had great ideas in spades and a good cast - but good intentions aren't enough if you want to put an unconventional message across and have it really make people think. You've got to make a piece of art that's breathtakingly complete and cool if you want to get something from the far left-field firmly into people's heads. Take Chocolate Clockwork Orange, for example. (And you need to leave the cheap innuendos about blowjobs out, too).

And sadly, this episode just was not that good a piece of television, for my money; I really am not someone who gets the squee just because some TV program makes an episode apparently aimed squarely at getting my demographic on their side. It feels like cheating: flattering people into liking you as opposed to actually winning fans over with good television, IYSWIM. And I'd far rather not see Who descend into self-caricature and gratuitous fan service. Stargate Atlantis does the whole geek-love thing way better simply by regularly featuring realistically geeky interactions between moderately realistic (apart from the Hollywood-standard devastatingly good looks and buffed-up pectorals) geek characters; I must demonstrate at some point :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I do see what you're getting at, but I don't think this episode is trying to be A Clockwork Orange or to appeal to the geek demographic: I think it's Saturday evening family entertainment aimed at ten-year-olds of any age. And on that score it delivers: I love this episode not because it presses my fan buttons (which it also does) I love it because I wish, when I had been ten, Marc Warren had said those last lines directly to me, as I was sitting there in front of the telly.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Ah. Pathologically independent since birth here; never did care overmuch for other people validating me. I'd've felt patronised, I think...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Not really about validation, I think, so much as being presented with a vision of another different way of living life... which is what I read and watch fiction for.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yay, someone else who loved that ep. I thought it was an exhilarating ride and so much twisted fun. I think my only reservation was the tiled girlfriend at the end.