Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The new season summarized

I summarize the reaction of many blogs to the third season of Doctor Who:

Smith and Jones: "When the Doctor said that he had to expel the radiation, I thought he was going to fart. He didn't. How clever is Russell T. Davies to upend fan expectation that way!"

The Shakespeare Code: "Shakespeare was sort of a dick, wasn't he?"

Gridlock: "The Macra! I had to spend fifteen minutes explaining to my significant other what the Macra were!"

Daleks in Manhattan: "Why pig people? I don't get it."

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Further Research - Paradise Towers

I add another bit of value, as I try to post links to works that are related to various episodes. I'll start with a McCoy episode, as he's the last Doctor for me to post about.

High Rise, by J.G. Ballard (US UK)

In the Ballard novel, the inhabitants of an enormous, self-contained residential tower, slowly descend into madness as a result of the average day-to-day problems related to the working of the building: elevator breakdowns, power cuts, air conditioner maintenance, that sort of thing.

Mister X (US UK)

Wikipedia:
Set in Radiant City, a dystopian municipality inspired by the Bauhaus and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the series concerned a mysterious figure who purported to be its architect. His radical theories of ‘psychetecture’ were causing the citizenry to go mad, just as he did, and he took on the mission to repair his creation.

Another mystery

According to an entry in the About Time series of reference works, a particularly amusing moment in The Stones of Blood comes when:
Coven leader de Vries, trying to escape the wrath of a goddess, has his twittering acolyte suggest that they drive away. His line - 'Plymouth? For Heaven's sake, Martha!' - became the title of a fanzine, and the core of a scene in The League of Gentlemen.
A couple of weeks ago, finding myself with a bit more free time than usual, I decided to pull out the DVD and have a look for that line.

I spent a good two hours zipping around trying to find it. Considering that the story's running time is a half hour less than that, and the character who delivers the line is killed halfway through the second episode, I start to wonder if there are bits missing from the DVD.

The other thing I wonder is how many episodes it takes in the current series for the Doctor (or anyone else) to turn to Martha Jones and use the line.