Showing posts with label Doctor Who. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doctor Who. Show all posts
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Doctor Who Christmas Special - "The Snowmen"
Besides this...
... kind of an uneven Christmas special, which is very much par for the course for the Christmas specials and the series itself as of late.
Monday, January 02, 2012
I Watch Classic Who: The Sea Devils
To get the obvious out of the way, "The Sea Devils" is a maritime remix of "The Silurians": from the hibernating reptilian subterranean hominids waking up to reclaim the planet from all these belligerent hairless apes, though the apes intend to preemptively exterminate them first, all while the Doctor futilely tries to broker peace between the two species. However, "The Sea Devils" notably departs from "Doctor Who and the Silurians" with how it portrays the military, in this case, the British Royal Navy, in a positive light. (For practical reasons, of course it would, since the producers secured the cooperation of the actual Navy.)
My pet theory for the early classic Who era is that the series reflects the post-WWII decline in British global hegemony, and each Doctor from Hartnell to at least Pertwee (I'm less versed in Tom Baker, strangely enough) has his own way of dealing with British declinism. In Pertwee's case, you see a once-powerful entity who was used to gallivanting around time and space (which offers a nicely literalized metaphor to the old "The sun never sets on the British Empire" saying) suddenly confined to both. Perhaps as a consequence, the Doctor collaborates most often and closely with UNIT at this stage in his history (UNIT being the stand-in for the United Nations), a collaboration which mirrors the UK's growing integration into pan-European multilateralism. (Interestingly, the UK joined the European Community, the precursor to the EU, in 1973; "The Sea Devils" was originally broadcast in 1972.)
Not that being part of an international community means that all their imperial tendencies have been quashed, however, not with the Doctor invariably trying to restrain the military's unilateral preemptive impulses and, as in the cases of the Sea Devils and the Silurians, failing to do so. But these ancient reptilian hominids are facing a stacked deck. Even the Doctor, ever the champion of a humanism that extends to non-humans, betrays his anthropocentric chauvinism when he tells the Sea Devils that they're guaranteed to be wiped out by the humans in the event of open war. With things tilted against the weird aliens and in favor of the humans (who, remember, speak with British accents), I figure that we're seeing contemporary internationalism struggling against nostalgia for Empire.
This nostalgia emerges most clearly in the adulation granted to the Royal Navy, manifested in all the loving shots of its technological might (which actually show real Navy warships and sailors). But nostalgia tends to imply a degraded present, and despite its illustrious history, the post-War Navy couldn't resist the rest of the UK's decline. In fact, by the time "The Sea Devils" was shot, the Navy was taking orders from the BBC, as a making-of featurette makes clear: the Who makers actually get the Navy to redirect an aircraft carrier to the Solent just to accommodate their shooting schedule. Maybe this faded naval glory is what prompts such conflicted attitudes towards potential threats to the UK.
My pet theory for the early classic Who era is that the series reflects the post-WWII decline in British global hegemony, and each Doctor from Hartnell to at least Pertwee (I'm less versed in Tom Baker, strangely enough) has his own way of dealing with British declinism. In Pertwee's case, you see a once-powerful entity who was used to gallivanting around time and space (which offers a nicely literalized metaphor to the old "The sun never sets on the British Empire" saying) suddenly confined to both. Perhaps as a consequence, the Doctor collaborates most often and closely with UNIT at this stage in his history (UNIT being the stand-in for the United Nations), a collaboration which mirrors the UK's growing integration into pan-European multilateralism. (Interestingly, the UK joined the European Community, the precursor to the EU, in 1973; "The Sea Devils" was originally broadcast in 1972.)
Not that being part of an international community means that all their imperial tendencies have been quashed, however, not with the Doctor invariably trying to restrain the military's unilateral preemptive impulses and, as in the cases of the Sea Devils and the Silurians, failing to do so. But these ancient reptilian hominids are facing a stacked deck. Even the Doctor, ever the champion of a humanism that extends to non-humans, betrays his anthropocentric chauvinism when he tells the Sea Devils that they're guaranteed to be wiped out by the humans in the event of open war. With things tilted against the weird aliens and in favor of the humans (who, remember, speak with British accents), I figure that we're seeing contemporary internationalism struggling against nostalgia for Empire.
This nostalgia emerges most clearly in the adulation granted to the Royal Navy, manifested in all the loving shots of its technological might (which actually show real Navy warships and sailors). But nostalgia tends to imply a degraded present, and despite its illustrious history, the post-War Navy couldn't resist the rest of the UK's decline. In fact, by the time "The Sea Devils" was shot, the Navy was taking orders from the BBC, as a making-of featurette makes clear: the Who makers actually get the Navy to redirect an aircraft carrier to the Solent just to accommodate their shooting schedule. Maybe this faded naval glory is what prompts such conflicted attitudes towards potential threats to the UK.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Doctor Who - "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"
On the suggestion of Chris K., I watched "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," which is a rollicking adventure story that happens to be an artifact of an obviously different era.
The good: this is the first proper period piece of Who that I've seen (I'm not counting "The War Games," because... well, because it doesn't feel like a period setting), and seeing the Doctor in a deerstalker and getting all Holmsian was a treat. (Interestingly enough, I was watching the new Sherlock series just before I went on to "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," which is even more interesting since the creators of Sherlock are both writers (and in Steven Moffat's case, the showrunner) of the new Who.)
A few of the supporting characters also amused me, even if they're little more than broad English stereotypes. Henry Gordon Jago, an impresario of a vaudeville theater (sorry, THEATRE) whose beautifully florid Victorian English captivated me. I hold special love, however, for George "Gordon" Litefoot, an unflappably calm pathologist. Strange visitors barge into his lab, demanding to participate in autopsies? Very well. Young woman at dinner literally grabbing a whole turkey leg for herself and ripping into it? One mustn't gainsay the customary practices of youth, shan't one? Cheers, I suppose. The villain captures him, all but saying that he'll be executed? My word.
Then, there's the elephant in the room: I'm kind of taken aback that as late as 1977, the UK was still casting white guys in yellowface for Asian roles (that'll be East Asian roles, to any actual UK readers), though I wonder if "yellowface" applies when the actor in question -- John Bennett -- is actually wearing a rubber mask to get that vintage epicanthic fold for true Chinese eyes (barf) (also, rimshot).
While some thoughtful assessments feel that Bennett's character, Li H'sen Chang, subversively navigates racialist expectations of characters around him and thus cuts a sympathetic figure, I have a hard time getting past first appearances, specifically, just how ugly the makeup is. I'm sure the visceralness of my reaction derives from the fact that my ethnicity is being reduced to a handful of signifiers (skin with a jaundiced tint, slanted eyes, reliably aphoristic and pidgin-tinged speech) (oh, and opium addiction), so any possibility of sympathy becomes, at best, marginal. Plus, he barely looks human. I'm further disturbed by some of the remarks on the DVD commentary, where the actors mention how characters like Li H'sen Chang couldn't fly nowadays because of "political correctness" and that the makeup was really good. More to the point, I'm disappointed to hear the actors defend the depictions in "The Talons..." in this way, but not altogether surprised, since these were people who were deeply involved in the production.
But going back to the fact that they had to get a white guy to play Chang is just another iteration of a practice that dates back to the Charlie Chan era. And, again, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" was made in the '70s? ENGLAND, I AM DISAPPOINT. By the same time, the US had already had Bruce Lee and Kam Fong Chun as regulars on tv series, so Who's casting decision here doesn't reflect well on the UK. What's more, "The Talons..." does cast a bunch of actually Asian actors in cannon fodder parts, so it's not like they couldn't find any Asian actors in the UK. DISAPPOINT.
Then again, I wonder if I'd have been satisfied if the part of Li H'sen Chang had been played by a Chinese actor, or if I'd have felt that, given all the "Oriental" tropes associated with the role, even such a hypothetical casting would've been demeaning to the actor. If I try to imagine this scenario, where, everything else being equal, Chang was played by an Asian actor, I'd be able to dismiss the transposed L's and R's, the inscrutability, and so on, just because he wouldn't look like a burn victim.
Personally, when I focus on things as slippery as characterization -- one man's Engrish is another man's English, for instance -- I can easily rationalize away the offensiveness of "Oriental" tropes, especially when I otherwise enjoy the text in question. The text, for example, is just engaging in convention and that its intent isn't malicious, or that it embraces racial stereotype in order to subvert colonialist modes of expression, or so on. (See also the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) But if offense is taken on a visceral level -- like Bennett's burn-victim makeup, or, god, Mr. Sin's entire look -- then the effort to break through the pique and into a space of rational (or at least rationalizing) thought. I think this distinction between characterization and visceral appearance explains why I feel one with the English stereotypes and another way with the Chinese stereotypes.
But I'm belaboring a point that's surely been made countless time and dwelling on a lot of negativity, and "The Talons..." is on balance one of the more enjoyable Doctor Who serials that I've watched so far.
(Although I was a little wary at first when I saw with trepidation the Doctor and Leela climb down into a sewer -- they're just like caves, but wetter and smellier, AARGH! Thankfully, the sewers are revisited only once more, but the story still has its fair share of geographic backtracking (which I either don't notice in the new Who, or which doesn't exist in the new Who).)
Some miscellaneous observations:
The good: this is the first proper period piece of Who that I've seen (I'm not counting "The War Games," because... well, because it doesn't feel like a period setting), and seeing the Doctor in a deerstalker and getting all Holmsian was a treat. (Interestingly enough, I was watching the new Sherlock series just before I went on to "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," which is even more interesting since the creators of Sherlock are both writers (and in Steven Moffat's case, the showrunner) of the new Who.)
A few of the supporting characters also amused me, even if they're little more than broad English stereotypes. Henry Gordon Jago, an impresario of a vaudeville theater (sorry, THEATRE) whose beautifully florid Victorian English captivated me. I hold special love, however, for George "Gordon" Litefoot, an unflappably calm pathologist. Strange visitors barge into his lab, demanding to participate in autopsies? Very well. Young woman at dinner literally grabbing a whole turkey leg for herself and ripping into it? One mustn't gainsay the customary practices of youth, shan't one? Cheers, I suppose. The villain captures him, all but saying that he'll be executed? My word.
Then, there's the elephant in the room: I'm kind of taken aback that as late as 1977, the UK was still casting white guys in yellowface for Asian roles (that'll be East Asian roles, to any actual UK readers), though I wonder if "yellowface" applies when the actor in question -- John Bennett -- is actually wearing a rubber mask to get that vintage epicanthic fold for true Chinese eyes (barf) (also, rimshot).
While some thoughtful assessments feel that Bennett's character, Li H'sen Chang, subversively navigates racialist expectations of characters around him and thus cuts a sympathetic figure, I have a hard time getting past first appearances, specifically, just how ugly the makeup is. I'm sure the visceralness of my reaction derives from the fact that my ethnicity is being reduced to a handful of signifiers (skin with a jaundiced tint, slanted eyes, reliably aphoristic and pidgin-tinged speech) (oh, and opium addiction), so any possibility of sympathy becomes, at best, marginal. Plus, he barely looks human. I'm further disturbed by some of the remarks on the DVD commentary, where the actors mention how characters like Li H'sen Chang couldn't fly nowadays because of "political correctness" and that the makeup was really good. More to the point, I'm disappointed to hear the actors defend the depictions in "The Talons..." in this way, but not altogether surprised, since these were people who were deeply involved in the production.
But going back to the fact that they had to get a white guy to play Chang is just another iteration of a practice that dates back to the Charlie Chan era. And, again, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" was made in the '70s? ENGLAND, I AM DISAPPOINT. By the same time, the US had already had Bruce Lee and Kam Fong Chun as regulars on tv series, so Who's casting decision here doesn't reflect well on the UK. What's more, "The Talons..." does cast a bunch of actually Asian actors in cannon fodder parts, so it's not like they couldn't find any Asian actors in the UK. DISAPPOINT.
Then again, I wonder if I'd have been satisfied if the part of Li H'sen Chang had been played by a Chinese actor, or if I'd have felt that, given all the "Oriental" tropes associated with the role, even such a hypothetical casting would've been demeaning to the actor. If I try to imagine this scenario, where, everything else being equal, Chang was played by an Asian actor, I'd be able to dismiss the transposed L's and R's, the inscrutability, and so on, just because he wouldn't look like a burn victim.
Personally, when I focus on things as slippery as characterization -- one man's Engrish is another man's English, for instance -- I can easily rationalize away the offensiveness of "Oriental" tropes, especially when I otherwise enjoy the text in question. The text, for example, is just engaging in convention and that its intent isn't malicious, or that it embraces racial stereotype in order to subvert colonialist modes of expression, or so on. (See also the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) But if offense is taken on a visceral level -- like Bennett's burn-victim makeup, or, god, Mr. Sin's entire look -- then the effort to break through the pique and into a space of rational (or at least rationalizing) thought. I think this distinction between characterization and visceral appearance explains why I feel one with the English stereotypes and another way with the Chinese stereotypes.
But I'm belaboring a point that's surely been made countless time and dwelling on a lot of negativity, and "The Talons..." is on balance one of the more enjoyable Doctor Who serials that I've watched so far.
(Although I was a little wary at first when I saw with trepidation the Doctor and Leela climb down into a sewer -- they're just like caves, but wetter and smellier, AARGH! Thankfully, the sewers are revisited only once more, but the story still has its fair share of geographic backtracking (which I either don't notice in the new Who, or which doesn't exist in the new Who).)
Some miscellaneous observations:
- I have to mention one more race observation. Tom Baker manages to say "How are you doing?" admirably well in Mandarin in a scene where he's interrogating a Chinese flunky, though his followup question was, to my ear, gibberish. Later, when the Doctor finds the villain's hideout, he yells out in his finest Mandarin, "How are you doing?" as he busts through a door. I lol'ed.
- Classic Who loves villains who hide ugly disfigurement in masks (not counting City of Death, there's also The Three Doctors and The Caves of Androzani. So on the one hand, we've got humans getting transformed into beasts, and on the other, the physically deforming effects of hubris.
- Interesting that Louise Jameson had complained about Leela's skimpy outfit, and then when she gets gussied up in vintage Victorian togs, the writers have Leela complain about being so covered up. And by "interesting," I mean "perverse."
- I've found out after watching that Greel's pet giant rat is a point of camp hilarity for longtime Who fans; unfortunately, I didn't get as much a kick out of it -- just another example of the cheesy effects to me -- yet I feel like I've missed out on a rite of Who passage.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Classic Who
The nice thing about being a nu-Whovian is that when the current incarnation goes on break, there's no lack of older material to mine through. I knew going in about old Who's legendarily tight budget (which translates to its shoe-string effects), and actually, I find the cheapness impossibly quaint. However, the most jarring consequence of the budget constraints of the serial era is just how much narrative fat the stories have. Specifically, a lot of stories seems to be filled with the Doctor and Co. constantly tramping here and tramping there, before tramping back here again -- especially through labyrinthine caves. (Boy, do I hate those cave sets that cave set.) As you might expect, stories get elliptical as they tread and retread (literally) the same narrative space over the course of several episodes. I mostly blame the fact that the writers had to fill up so much time in their serials, each of which might constitute anywhere from two to 10 (ten!) episodes (though one episode is typically 20-something minutes), and also a dearth of ideas (though to be fair, the show may have simply lacked means to execute more ambitious ideas, which I'll attribute to the budget). The old series is an analogue to decompressed storytelling in comics, and basically, not a lot happens.
So, of the nine or so serials that I've watched, I haven't been impressed, but once in a while, there's one story that really knocks me out. Here, then, are the serials that I've seen, and brief thoughts on each (roughly in order of when I first watched them).
So, of the nine or so serials that I've watched, I haven't been impressed, but once in a while, there's one story that really knocks me out. Here, then, are the serials that I've seen, and brief thoughts on each (roughly in order of when I first watched them).
- "City of Death" (Fourth Doctor, with Romana II)
The consensus choice for getting people into the original series (it was written by Douglas Adams), "City of Death" was a serious letdown for me. One line of dialogue that gets singled out as an example of its wit:
Romana: Where are we going?
Pretty keen, to be sure, but I always imagined it being a seamless part of a larger scene, where in fact, it's pretty much its own scene, and as such, too satisfied with its own cleverness. (Sound familiar?) DOCTOR, I AM DISAPPOINT. Also: lots of walking back and forth, between a receiving room and a dungeon. No caves, fortunately.
The Doctor: Are you talking philosophically or geographically?
Romana: Philosophically.
The Doctor: Then we're going to lunch. - "Doctor Who and the Silurians" (Third Doctor, with Liz Shaw, Brig. Lethbridge Stewart)
Silurians are ancient bipedal lizard-people who had once populated Earth when a planetary catastrophe forced them to seek dormant refuge, underground... in caves. - "Genesis of the Daleks" (Fourth Doctor, with Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan)
Relentlessly grim, occasionally spiked with agonizing over heroic genocide. In short, very little fun. - "The Ark in Space" (Fourth Doctor, with Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan)
I liked this one, oddly, even if the story is fairly potboiler stuff: humans have sought refuge from a planetary catastrophe (sound familiar?), not in caves, thank god, but aboard a space station where they're held in suspended animation. But they've been infected by space worms, see, which slowly transform them into giant, malevolent grasshoppers. Only four episodes -- short, but sweet and definitely on the lighthearted side, even if it exemplifies the series' persistent preoccupation with the transience of humanity, the ease with which we can become monsters. - "The War Games" (Second Doctor, with Zoe Heriot, Jamie McCrimmon)
"The War Games" is the 10-parter I alluded to above, so the amount of elliptical traveling is unavoidable, and as a result, I found the bulk of this serial to be slow-going, even though it made John Seavey's list for people new to old Who and even though Zoe (capable, calm, stands up to authority) is the best companion that I've seen. But! The finale is a total trip, in which the story suddenly shifts from a standard bit of Aliens With Plans For Universal Domination, and into straight-up German Expressionist weirdness. So cool, so eerie, and well worth the preceding nine, meandering episodes. - "Remembrance of the Daleks" (Seventh Doctor, with Ace)
Another series I watched based on Seavey's list, "Remembrance of the Daleks" is marked by everything that's bad about the '80s, most of all in the figure of Ace. - "The Caves of Androzani" (Fifth Doctor, with Peri Brown)
More caves! It's right there in the title! BARF. The whacked out Phantom of the Opera villain barely breaks through the tedium of cave tramping, though I did have fun trying to figure out what accent Peri was supposed to have. I guessed South African, when, actually... - "The Three Doctors" (Third Doctor/Second Doctor/First Doctor, with Jo Grant, Brig. Lethbridge Stewart, Sgt. Benton)
An unambiguous, romping hoot. Love this to bits. The Doctor is always the smartest guy in the room, and he lets you know it. But what happens when there's more than one Doctor is in the room? The answer: unalloyed awesome. Seeing arrogance bumping up against arrogance and the ensuing bickering is a camp joy, and the Second Doctor sparkles like your favorite, incorrigible, whimsical uncle. - "Inferno" (Fourth Doctor, with Liz Shaw, Brig. Lethbridge Stewart, Sgt. Benton)
Aside from getting a kick at the Doctor amazing a soldier at his AMAZING technological gadgets by showing off a---GARAGE DOOR OPENER---one of the villains is a green Borat.
Anyway, as you might guess from its title, "Inferno" is an apocalyptic story with a heavy dose of dystopic parallel universe, none of which prevents it from exhibiting some classic British drollery. Really solid installment. (And by the by, Liz Shaw really looks like a young Barbra Streisand here.)
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Doctor Who - 5x06 "The Vampires of Venice"
One sentence review: stupid and fun. It's weird that so far, I have on balance preferred the non-Moffat episodes to the Moffat-penned episodes. Then again, I prefer Moffat's one-shots ("The Girl in the Fireplace" and, of course, "Blink") by far over the two-parters. (I did enjoy all of Jekyll, however.)
Also...
Also...
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, January 08, 2009
10 Hours: 7. Doctor Who, "Midnight"
"Midnight" (4x08; BBC One, 6/12/08)
Read more after the jump.
I may be gauche for saying this, but I was never a Donna Noble fan. So I guess it's little surprise that my highlight of the fourth season was this Donna-less episode, which I watched towards the tail-end of a deliriously sleep-deprived all-night fourth-season Who marathon (no tacos), which is a great way to experience such a claustrophobic, paranoid variation on the lifeboat scenario.
The episode begins as a benign and chummy jaunt, but as befits its title, "Midnight" quickly spirals into pure horror when everything about the revived series, everything that's familiar, becomes an ingress for an unknowable evil. The Doctor's greatest virtues -- his curiosity in the new, his confidence bordering on arrogance, his impulsion to take charge, and to add insult to injury, his gift of gab -- are all systematically, sadistically turned against both him and the viewer, as the improbable keeps eating away at perceptions of safety until the impossible materializes: Sky's repeating becomes parallel, simultaneous echoing and, finally, prepeating. (Even Rose's cameo, on a TV screen, silently shouting for the Doctor but unseen by anyone but us, is transfigured from a moment of excitement into an anguished and futile cry of helplessness.)
Perhaps most nightmarish of all, the Doctor's unwavering compassion is set upon him; the other passengers suspect him of complicity with Sky precisely because he was the only one kind enough to speak with her prior to this disaster, and this perversion of compassion nearly costs him his life. If the Doctor as the ultimate believer in humankind is stripped of all his power and his righteousness, then where does that leave normal humans?
The lifeless, barren, frozen wastes of Midnight.
Indie rating: Fabio Orsi - "Find Electronica (Part 1)"
Read more after the jump.
I may be gauche for saying this, but I was never a Donna Noble fan. So I guess it's little surprise that my highlight of the fourth season was this Donna-less episode, which I watched towards the tail-end of a deliriously sleep-deprived all-night fourth-season Who marathon (no tacos), which is a great way to experience such a claustrophobic, paranoid variation on the lifeboat scenario.
The episode begins as a benign and chummy jaunt, but as befits its title, "Midnight" quickly spirals into pure horror when everything about the revived series, everything that's familiar, becomes an ingress for an unknowable evil. The Doctor's greatest virtues -- his curiosity in the new, his confidence bordering on arrogance, his impulsion to take charge, and to add insult to injury, his gift of gab -- are all systematically, sadistically turned against both him and the viewer, as the improbable keeps eating away at perceptions of safety until the impossible materializes: Sky's repeating becomes parallel, simultaneous echoing and, finally, prepeating. (Even Rose's cameo, on a TV screen, silently shouting for the Doctor but unseen by anyone but us, is transfigured from a moment of excitement into an anguished and futile cry of helplessness.)
Perhaps most nightmarish of all, the Doctor's unwavering compassion is set upon him; the other passengers suspect him of complicity with Sky precisely because he was the only one kind enough to speak with her prior to this disaster, and this perversion of compassion nearly costs him his life. If the Doctor as the ultimate believer in humankind is stripped of all his power and his righteousness, then where does that leave normal humans?
The lifeless, barren, frozen wastes of Midnight.
Indie rating: Fabio Orsi - "Find Electronica (Part 1)"
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Recap in Progress
Did I say Tuesday?
Looks more like Wednesday. If I don't get it done by Wednesday night, then to each and every reader who leaves a comment to this post, I'll apologize in personalized lolcatdeeley form. Yup, mark it on your calendars -- my deadline is definitely Thursday.
So, until Friday, shame on you all for not reading this site (as far as I know). I'm trying to figure out if MightyGodKing is a single mortal entity, or if it's more like a succession of regenerated alien beings à la the Doctor. I can't decide because I'm not trying very hard.
Indie rating: Slowdive - "In Mind Reload Remix (The 147 Take)"
Looks more like Wednesday. If I don't get it done by Wednesday night, then to each and every reader who leaves a comment to this post, I'll apologize in personalized lolcatdeeley form. Yup, mark it on your calendars -- my deadline is definitely Thursday.
So, until Friday, shame on you all for not reading this site (as far as I know). I'm trying to figure out if MightyGodKing is a single mortal entity, or if it's more like a succession of regenerated alien beings à la the Doctor. I can't decide because I'm not trying very hard.
Indie rating: Slowdive - "In Mind Reload Remix (The 147 Take)"
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
San Diego Comic-Con International 2008 - Never Again
Here's the highlight of SDCC...
How's that for a hook?
Actually, the fact that Aeon there was the acme of my time at SDCC speaks both to the con itself and my tastes, which together have conspired to make 2008 the last con I'm likely go to. Before making my annual hajj to Nerd Mecca, I told a few people that this would be my last Comic Con. To a person, they didn't believe me, but the hassles involved with the pilgrimmage now far outweigh the geeky euphoria that's becoming more and more remote to me. I mean, traffic was so bad inside and outside of the convention that even Spidey had to resort to public transportation.
More reasons why SDCC has jumped the shark after the jump.
On the surface, SDCC looks like it's becoming ultra-commercialized thanks to enormous Hollywood productions squeezing out the insular world of comics and reorienting the entire convention around pop culture in general. This summer, though, comics have reasserted themselves, infiltrating the upper echelons of Hollywood and commercial viability and reclaiming its cetnral role at the Con (e.g. lots of cosplayers inspired by the Joker of The Dark Knight). And fine, I don't mind commercialism so much, not when my enduring love for tv forces me to embrace the fruits of corporatism -- SDCC is probably the best opportunity for regular folks to be wooed so directly by actual tv producers, actors, and other sundry poobahs.
But as a result of its ever-rising profile and cachet as a pop cultural event, SDCC has at the same time been transformed into a perverse Disneyland; for popular panels that you want to attend, you have to line up an hour beforehand to make sure that you get in. Maybe I was naive, but I thought that True Blood (Alan Ball's upcoming HBO vampire series) wouldn't be hard to get into and tried to get in just before it started, but by then the meeting room was already at capacity and I couldn't get in. For especially landscape-changing pop phenomena like Heroes or Battlestar Galactica, you could hardly take any chances. I had no pretensions about getting into Heroes, but with BSG in its last season and me at my last SDCC and having missed 2007's BSG panel, I went to into its meeting room before 11am while The Simpsons panel was still in progress (BSG started at 2:30), and sat through a Dean Koontz panel (I listened to my mp3 player) and Joss Whedon's The Dollhouse panel (hey, my mancrush Tahmoh "Helo Agathon" Penikett is in it). (In the process, I had to abandon my place in line for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and any delusions of seeing WTF new recurring guest star Shirley Manson. Opportunity costs. :\)
At this point, I have to make an admission: I'm not even much of a BSG fan anymore; my interest in the show peaked in the middle of the second season, so it was hard for me to get into the "So Say We All" festivities, though my state of sleeplessness had a lot to do with how distant I felt from everything. See, I wasn't kidding about my Doctor Who marathon; I'd been slowly getting through the revived series when I actually looked at the SDCC lineup less than a week before the Con and saw that it was holding a Doctor Who panel, including outgoing showrunner Russell T. Davies. I was only through the first two seasons, though, and through a combination of dwindling credits and balky servers, I still had almost a full season (or about 10 episodes) left by the time I got settled into San Diego at 10pm Wednesday night. So I plowed through them until 6am Thursday morning, napped for 45 minutes, then went to the Con. As you'd expect, I've been paying for the sleep deprivation ever since, and I'm sure it wreaked havoc with my ability to enjoy anything.
However, even if I wasn't a zombie, in some cases, a panel might've proved to be a sore letdown. I heard that the Heroes panel, for instance, was no more than a glorified test screening for the season 3 premiere and that the audience didn't get to interact at all with the cast. Meanwhile, the BSG panel was moderated by Kevin Smith, who, while funny, bogarted the bulk of the time that could've, should've been given over to the audience in an open Q&A session.
All the same, my convention malaise was underpinned by my increasing apathy towards comics, which rendered the proposition of Comic-Con a little pointless. I used to love to get convention sketches from artists -- the most I've ever gotten at one con was, I think, 13 -- but this time I barely got five. Since my faculties weren't engaged in nerd ecstasy, I had time to think about what used to appeal to me about conventions, and I concluded that they rebalanced the relationship between creators and fans. In short, they give the audience a voice. Maybe (probably) I don't affect the official narrative of a tv show or a comic, but I was able to broadcast my own narratives (or better yet, zings) to my peers -- which is what I do on my blog, only with more stammering and sweating. But if I'm a nerd without anything over which to geek out, then I don't have any narratives to offer (or I do have a narrative -- a pithy suggestion about a possible crossover between BSG and SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER FOR YOU WHO AREN'T CAUGHT UP WITH BSG UP TO THE FINALE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE LAST SEASON Cormac McCarthy's The Road -- but Kevin Smith made it his business to cockblock me). So as a nerd ronin, a geek without a master, or even a gathering of similarly sweaty dweebs with whom to commiserate over a fictional narrative, is it finally time for me to acquaint myself with the Whedonverse?
SDCC wasn't a total loss, of course; hottie cosplayers can go a long way.
And although he wasn't wearing that sexy Justin Timberlake hat, I was stoked to see Scott "Pete Hornberger" Adsit at SDCC.
I can confirm that he will appear in some capacity in the third season of 30 Rock. I bring you news that you can use.
As for Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies never did make it to the panel (he was locked away working on scripts for Torchwood), but I did find out that Stephen Moffat -- the new showrunner and the writer responsible for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink" (aka the episode which he packs with not one but two mind-scrambling sci-fi conceits), and "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" -- speaks with the exact same inflections and rhythms as the Tenth Doctor.
I got to take a photo with one of my favorite writers from Justice League Unlimited, Dwayne McDuffie.
I also got my JLU DVD signed by both him and Bruce Timm.
Lots of Cobra this year.
And my sketches made up for the low quantity with pretty good quality.
Mike Mignola -- a vampire.
Dave McKean -- I asked if that was Satan or Pan, and he answered, "Yes."
Ryan Dunlavey -- Karl Marx.
Philip Bond -- Venus Dee Milo. I adore Bond's art, but when I asked him for a sketch, I couldn't think of anything, only that I really loved his work with Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan. "That's practically everything that I've done," he said. "Would it narrow things down," I replied, "if I suggested something you did for Vertigo?"
Steve Lieber -- Omar Little. I'd known Steve Lieber from his work with Greg Rucka, but he caused an Internet sensation with his Simpsons-style caricatures of characters from The Wire. We chatted about The Wire, too (Rucka hasn't watched it yet! But Ed Brubaker has), and he ranked his favorite seasons: 4, 3, 1, 2, 5. He also mentioned Generation Kill and how much he enjoyed Ray Person on his constant ephedra-high.
Last, but not least:
Indie rating: Paula Fraser & Tarnation - "Now It's Time"
How's that for a hook?
Actually, the fact that Aeon there was the acme of my time at SDCC speaks both to the con itself and my tastes, which together have conspired to make 2008 the last con I'm likely go to. Before making my annual hajj to Nerd Mecca, I told a few people that this would be my last Comic Con. To a person, they didn't believe me, but the hassles involved with the pilgrimmage now far outweigh the geeky euphoria that's becoming more and more remote to me. I mean, traffic was so bad inside and outside of the convention that even Spidey had to resort to public transportation.
More reasons why SDCC has jumped the shark after the jump.
On the surface, SDCC looks like it's becoming ultra-commercialized thanks to enormous Hollywood productions squeezing out the insular world of comics and reorienting the entire convention around pop culture in general. This summer, though, comics have reasserted themselves, infiltrating the upper echelons of Hollywood and commercial viability and reclaiming its cetnral role at the Con (e.g. lots of cosplayers inspired by the Joker of The Dark Knight). And fine, I don't mind commercialism so much, not when my enduring love for tv forces me to embrace the fruits of corporatism -- SDCC is probably the best opportunity for regular folks to be wooed so directly by actual tv producers, actors, and other sundry poobahs.
But as a result of its ever-rising profile and cachet as a pop cultural event, SDCC has at the same time been transformed into a perverse Disneyland; for popular panels that you want to attend, you have to line up an hour beforehand to make sure that you get in. Maybe I was naive, but I thought that True Blood (Alan Ball's upcoming HBO vampire series) wouldn't be hard to get into and tried to get in just before it started, but by then the meeting room was already at capacity and I couldn't get in. For especially landscape-changing pop phenomena like Heroes or Battlestar Galactica, you could hardly take any chances. I had no pretensions about getting into Heroes, but with BSG in its last season and me at my last SDCC and having missed 2007's BSG panel, I went to into its meeting room before 11am while The Simpsons panel was still in progress (BSG started at 2:30), and sat through a Dean Koontz panel (I listened to my mp3 player) and Joss Whedon's The Dollhouse panel (hey, my mancrush Tahmoh "Helo Agathon" Penikett is in it). (In the process, I had to abandon my place in line for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and any delusions of seeing WTF new recurring guest star Shirley Manson. Opportunity costs. :\)
At this point, I have to make an admission: I'm not even much of a BSG fan anymore; my interest in the show peaked in the middle of the second season, so it was hard for me to get into the "So Say We All" festivities, though my state of sleeplessness had a lot to do with how distant I felt from everything. See, I wasn't kidding about my Doctor Who marathon; I'd been slowly getting through the revived series when I actually looked at the SDCC lineup less than a week before the Con and saw that it was holding a Doctor Who panel, including outgoing showrunner Russell T. Davies. I was only through the first two seasons, though, and through a combination of dwindling credits and balky servers, I still had almost a full season (or about 10 episodes) left by the time I got settled into San Diego at 10pm Wednesday night. So I plowed through them until 6am Thursday morning, napped for 45 minutes, then went to the Con. As you'd expect, I've been paying for the sleep deprivation ever since, and I'm sure it wreaked havoc with my ability to enjoy anything.
However, even if I wasn't a zombie, in some cases, a panel might've proved to be a sore letdown. I heard that the Heroes panel, for instance, was no more than a glorified test screening for the season 3 premiere and that the audience didn't get to interact at all with the cast. Meanwhile, the BSG panel was moderated by Kevin Smith, who, while funny, bogarted the bulk of the time that could've, should've been given over to the audience in an open Q&A session.
All the same, my convention malaise was underpinned by my increasing apathy towards comics, which rendered the proposition of Comic-Con a little pointless. I used to love to get convention sketches from artists -- the most I've ever gotten at one con was, I think, 13 -- but this time I barely got five. Since my faculties weren't engaged in nerd ecstasy, I had time to think about what used to appeal to me about conventions, and I concluded that they rebalanced the relationship between creators and fans. In short, they give the audience a voice. Maybe (probably) I don't affect the official narrative of a tv show or a comic, but I was able to broadcast my own narratives (or better yet, zings) to my peers -- which is what I do on my blog, only with more stammering and sweating. But if I'm a nerd without anything over which to geek out, then I don't have any narratives to offer (or I do have a narrative -- a pithy suggestion about a possible crossover between BSG and SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER FOR YOU WHO AREN'T CAUGHT UP WITH BSG UP TO THE FINALE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE LAST SEASON Cormac McCarthy's The Road -- but Kevin Smith made it his business to cockblock me). So as a nerd ronin, a geek without a master, or even a gathering of similarly sweaty dweebs with whom to commiserate over a fictional narrative, is it finally time for me to acquaint myself with the Whedonverse?
SDCC wasn't a total loss, of course; hottie cosplayers can go a long way.
And although he wasn't wearing that sexy Justin Timberlake hat, I was stoked to see Scott "Pete Hornberger" Adsit at SDCC.
I can confirm that he will appear in some capacity in the third season of 30 Rock. I bring you news that you can use.
As for Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies never did make it to the panel (he was locked away working on scripts for Torchwood), but I did find out that Stephen Moffat -- the new showrunner and the writer responsible for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink" (aka the episode which he packs with not one but two mind-scrambling sci-fi conceits), and "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" -- speaks with the exact same inflections and rhythms as the Tenth Doctor.
I got to take a photo with one of my favorite writers from Justice League Unlimited, Dwayne McDuffie.
I also got my JLU DVD signed by both him and Bruce Timm.
Lots of Cobra this year.
And my sketches made up for the low quantity with pretty good quality.
Mike Mignola -- a vampire.
Dave McKean -- I asked if that was Satan or Pan, and he answered, "Yes."
Ryan Dunlavey -- Karl Marx.
Philip Bond -- Venus Dee Milo. I adore Bond's art, but when I asked him for a sketch, I couldn't think of anything, only that I really loved his work with Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan. "That's practically everything that I've done," he said. "Would it narrow things down," I replied, "if I suggested something you did for Vertigo?"
Steve Lieber -- Omar Little. I'd known Steve Lieber from his work with Greg Rucka, but he caused an Internet sensation with his Simpsons-style caricatures of characters from The Wire. We chatted about The Wire, too (Rucka hasn't watched it yet! But Ed Brubaker has), and he ranked his favorite seasons: 4, 3, 1, 2, 5. He also mentioned Generation Kill and how much he enjoyed Ray Person on his constant ephedra-high.
Last, but not least:
Indie rating: Paula Fraser & Tarnation - "Now It's Time"
Sunday, July 13, 2008
So You Think You Were Going To Read My Recap
Given a choice between quality and punctuality, I'd rather err towards the former. Hopefully I won't take until Tuesday night, but I'm willing to push my luck. That's how much I love you all.
Indie rating: Kylie Minogue - "Never Too Late"
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