P.S. Arc Words and Bob Barker Is The Key

I have sort of been intrigued with how they introduced the mythology of Darla into Angel during Season Two and there was a mention in one of those episodes (I don’t recall exactly where, maybe in The Trial or before) of Holtz chasing after Darla and Angel, so another shout-out to upcoming events in Season Three. It’s become a touchstone in several shows in recent years, such as Doctor Who or Lost, that they would mention or remark upon future key developments as arc words or teasers, like Mr. Saxon, Bad Wolf, and the Medusa Cascade. Something that attentive fans might pick up on and be eager to speculate about at the time the show was airing, or a way for fans rewatching the show, maybe years later, to reminisce on those glorious or glorificuous moments. And Bob Barker is the Key.

As for the Doctor Who stories I’ve watched since I last posted…well. I mentioned being stuck in the middle of Doctor Who and The Silurians? Maybe even that I had been watching The Two Doctors around that same time? Well, since then, I’ve seen Warriors of The Deep (Okay, pantomine horse, but they tried their best. Could it have been worse? Maybe, if they had not even tried at all. Not the best Doctor Who story by any stretch of the imagination, I agree with the opinion that the Silurians should have gotten the more flexible costumes while the Sea Devils should have been stiffer. Why couldn’t they just do makeup instead of rubber costumes? Was makeup more expensive than rubber costumes? What about face pieces instead of full body pieces?

You know, from what I’ve seen, the Silurians may be ‘advanced’, but they are just as bad as humans at starting wars between the inhabitants of this planet. In Doctor Who and the Silurians, one of them unleashed a plague/epidemic that could have destroyed humanity, for goodness sake! Not to mention the mutually assured destruction ploy of Warriors of the Deep. Okay, not all Silurians are like that, although their leaders certainly have not set a good example in all of their encounters.)

I’ve also seen Timelash. (Cough, again, not exactly the best story, but not the worst story, H.G. Wells is okay, though the Sixth Doctor can be a bit difficult to love. And that triangle Timelash tinsel tunnel [tongue twister] is not the best effect.) I’ve also seen the Awakening, which I pretty much liked, Revelation of the Daleks, an interesting setup/premise, I grant you that, especially after it had time to settle with me and I read/heard some more about it. By coincidence, I had actually seen The Loved One movie just before I saw this story, and it really did remind me somewhat of that movie/story, although the character changes with the funeral director/cosmetician…not exactly sure I liked Doctor Who’s take on that relationship, but there was promise there with those characters.

Besides the first two stories of Trial of a Time Lord, I’ve also seen Frontios (An excellent adventure/premise betrayed by terrible monster costumes. “The Tractators!” as Turlough kept screaming weren’t as scary as he made them out to be. And I still have no idea what they did to him, or should I say, his planet Trion. Ah, well, with Turlough, it seems that we’re glad to get any kind of backstory at all. I thought there would have been more in Frontios, and what was in Planet of Fire…a little too late, I suppose I should say. Like Philip Sandifer said in his own blog about Planet of Fire, there was so much promise in this season/era of Doctor Who that was never delivered upon, just a spark amidst the mess, really.) I tried to watch Resurrection of the Daleks, but the disc was cracked, and so I had to get a new one. In the meantime, I went ahead and saw Planet of Fire. So that’s where I am now with Doctor Who.

I’m going to finish watching Trial of A Time Lord, Discs 3 and 4 are coming soon, then I’m going to go back to watching Doctors 3 and 4 while also finally seeing some of Doctor 7’s first serials, and rewatching some of his that I have already seen. And maybe I really will get into Farscape as well. I tried watching the first two discs of the first season (apparently this was two years ago, surprise, I thought it was a year ago) and never got fully invested in it, or was thrown off, so I will try again to watch Farscape. Wish me luck there.

Puny Master

I just saw ‘Planet of Fire’ and with the last cliffhanger and episode for that story, I couldn’t help laughing and saying, “Puny Master, puny Master, crush him with your shoe, Peri! Why did she have to sneeze just when she was about to crush him? He was running around like a scared little mouse, climbing into and out of his console! I almost wish that he could have been talking with a squeaky little voice when she first uncovered him inside his ‘Master control box’. Ha!

No wonder he needed Kamelion to help him out of that fix. I had wondered why he was using the robot to save him, in that he had to be incapacitated in some way. I never imagined he would be so small, though, until a minute or so before Peri uncovered him.

I’m also in the middle of watching ‘Trial of A Time Lord’, so I happened to just see Peri’s last story before her first story, which is kind of strange, but oh well. I liked The Mysterious Planet well enough, a very good story with some funny/brilliant moments, but Mindwarp sort of dragged a little bit more and I did feel frustrated with it, the back and forth questioning as to whether or not the Raak attacked the Doctor and Peri and the Doctor betraying them, not to mention the fiasco with Sil and his people, the ‘rebellion’, and Peri’s ‘demise’. Brian Blessed was pretty good even with his fairly limited role, and he tried his best to make the guy likeable enough.

As usual, I’m going back and forth between watching the stories and reading Philip Sandifer’s TARDIS Eruditorum blog on the story to see what sort of thoughts he had about it. It’s pretty interesting, and I agree with his opinions most of the time. I have also been checking out An Adventure with the Wife in Time and Space blog as well, just getting into that after hearing about it from Sandifer. Pretty funny and excellent as well, I think on a personal level, I’m somewhere in between the wife and husband in terms of their opinions of the Doctor Who episodes/stories.

I’m still watching Buffy/Angel, although a bit more intermittently, having finished up Angel Season Two (I struggled in the middle of Season Two, but at last I finished watching it. I had not realized that Lorne never revealed his name until the fourth-to-last episode of the season. And there was a bit at the beginning of Reprise…the sound effect of the bleating/crying comes from the goats, but then the camera focuses on the broken baby doll in the shopping cart with Angel in the background, so they were already thinking about Connor! Or at least that’s my opinion there.)

I have not finished watching Buffy Season Five, however. For a while there, I saw quite a few episodes, but then I stopped after I saw The Body and finished up Angel, and it’s a little hard getting back into Buffy. The episode Forever took Forever to watch.

I’ll mention the other recent Doctor Who serials I have seen later.