Maius Intra Qua Extra

Last time, I opened my post with "adventure great, ending bad". Today, after 24 hours of thinking about it, watching it again, and another 12 hours of thinking about it, I'm revising this to "entire thing average-good".

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When I told my husband that this is probably my new favorite episode, he said, “Really? It’s better than ‘Human Nature’?” I didn’t really have an answer for that. Do I really like it more than that, or my other favorite, “The Caves of Androzani”? It’s really hard to say. The three episodes are so different, with entirely different reasons for being good, it’s hard to compare them and choose a winner. I think I’ll have to say all three for now.

But I have seen it twice so far. It would have been three times but we ran out of time last night.

Spoilers inside…

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Well, it's here! The first of three specials for the 60th!

tl;dr: I enjoyed this episode a lot, but there are caveats.

Very long review. And yes, very spoilerific.

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It's been a while since I reviewed the first two audios in "Once and Future", Big Finish's 60th celebration series. I've listened to three more of them, so here are my thoughts.

Spoilers, of course.

A Genius for War (Seventh Doctor, The General, Davros)
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Two's Company (Sixth Doctor, Harry Sullivan, Jackie Tyler, Lady Christina de Souza)
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The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50 (Tenth Doctor, Missy, Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, Strax)
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And then, in all three audios, just like in the first two, the Doctor basically arrives to find out about the degeneration weapon, gets caught up in the adventure, and leaves without finding anything out except the next place he should go look. So, in summary, I'd say AGfW and TMIoP50 are good stories worth listening to on their own and TC is skippable, and that I'm hoping we get some real story arc soon. There aren't many audios left in this series.

This is a full review of the second season of Good Omens. The first paragraphs are general and non-spoilerific, but the rest, under the cut, is fully spoilerific, so don't click if you don't want to know.

It's important to understand that season 2 is not season 1: it's not an adaptation of an existing story, it's not a parody of 1980s Armageddon/Antichrist movies, and it doesn't focus on the humor and absurdity of the end of the world and the people caught in it. Gaiman took season 2 in a totally different direction, and if you're not expecting that, you may not like what he came up with.

Season 2 is far more serious in intent, if not in execution. It opens with a puzzle - why is the archangel Gabriel in Aziraphale's bookshop? - and follows Aziraphale and Crowley through trying to solve it. It seems to capitalize on the popularity of the "A & C through history" sequence of the third episode of Season 1 by having a historical flashback in each episode, and while not as charming as the first time, they provide plenty of A & C goodness. Then in the sixth episode, when they finally do figure it all out, a more important story emerges. I'll admit that while watching the episodes for the first time, it felt a bit janky - some of the situations were a bit too absurd and implausible - but it comes together in the end and looking back, now I can see why things happened the way they did.

(Note: I read a few of the reviews that came out on the release day from critics who'd been given an advance viewing, and it was immediately obvious that they'd been allowed to see the first five episode but not the sixth. They all complained that "nothing makes sense" and "obviously Gaiman ran out of ideas". Sorry, guys, but episode six - like in the first season - is the one that made the story.)

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Well, I did say I would try to post more, but I still don't feel like trying to write anything about RL. So, taking inspiration from scifirenegade’s recent post…

I'm involved in two bands (one concert, one Dixieland jazz) and they both meet weekly at the same rehearsal room which is 20 minutes away from my house. I'd been listening to music during the drive (mostly DW stuff) and then I thought, "Why the hell am I not listening to all these audios I've bought but never listened to?" So I started listening to them, and here are my thoughts on them.

Hm. I listed out all the audios that I’ve listened to in the past few months and it’s quite a few. So, here are the first two reviews, of the two audios so far released for the 60th anniversary’s “Once and Future” series.

Past Lives (Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Kate Stewart, Osgood)
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The Artist at the End of Time (Fifth Doctor, Jenny)
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Conclusion
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All right, so I haven't posted since the end of September. I kept meaning to - I mean, I left a lot of DW discussions and fun life discussions and a daily meme hanging. But, I got bogged down. You might remember that I was having a lot of work stress. Well, that eased up and it was actually going really well... and then a new bomb went off and it was awful again, and now it's getting back to good. I want to write about all of that, but not today. This is going to be a happy, fun catch-up post.

Doctor Who

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Hobbies

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Writing

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My husband points out that Rose's Catti Brie may not have been particularly useful to the episode itself, but was important to the themes of the season and the Tenth Doctor's run as a whole.

The Doctor's reaction to Rose's face-sucking was out of proportion to the situation. He was already investigating the problem when she was brought in and he growled the lines, "And as a result, that makes things simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why? Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me!" Then the scene changes and he goes off to question Tommy to figure out what's going on - in other words, after that outburst, he did nothing different than what he would have done if Rose hadn't been taken. Rose's condition didn't cause him to find some hidden reserve of strength that he needed to defeat the enemy (the way that attacks on Catti Brie inspire Drizz't) or give him any insight into what he was up against or how to figure it out.

What, then, did Rose's condition do? The clue's in the Doctor's phrasing: "And as a result, that makes things simple." It turned the Doctor's focus from saving lives to anger and revenge, and thus, he never did his signature move, which was to give the Wire a choice. This is perfectly in line with the season 2 theme of the Doctor losing his purpose and moral compass due to his infatuation with Rose and the Tenth Doctor Time Lord Victorious theme of placing himself above everyone else when he doesn't have a strong companion to temper his dark side.

Nicely done. Subtle, but true to character.

New Year's special come and gone. Review, with spoilers, of course.

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This was probably the best DW episode in a long time.

Major spoilers below, if you haven't already been spoiled by the rest of the Internet already.

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