Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 150

A Modern Woman's Guide To Classic Who: THE SECOND DOCTOR YEARS: 1966-1969

Summary: The concept of regeneration, now one of the most iconic features of Doctor Who, allowed for a new lead actor to create a very different interpretation of the role.  Troughton's Doctor left aside the grumpy anti-heroics of William Hartnell to be a far more emotional, vulnerable Doctor, capable of high dramatics and physical comedy as well as something of a cunning streak.  With only one early exception, the Second Doctor stories moved away from historicals, sticking with science fiction adventure for the most part.  When it did utilise historical elements or settings, they were combined with alien or other science fictional concepts, a tradition which has continued into New Who. This is an era of monsters and mad science, with occasional moments of batty genius.

More so even than the Hartnell Years, the Troughton Years suffered from the BBC film destruction, so very few whole stories are archived.  For this reason perhaps even more so than the First Doctor, the Second Doctor is often remembered more by fans for his later appearances in the show (The Three Doctors in the 1970's, The Five Doctors & The Two Doctors in the 1980's).

Things You Need To Know: The sonic screwdriver and jelly babies both made their first appearances in Second Doctor serials.  And he still can't steer the TARDIS.  Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge Stewart and Benton both make their first appearance in this era, as do the Ice Warriors and the Yeti. Yes, Yeti!

The Companions:

Ben and Polly (Michael Craze and Anneke Wills) carry over from the First Doctor Years, and are soon joined by Jamie, a young Highlander who proved the point that a character from an earlier time zone can be an effective companion.  

After another of those 'quick, this is our stop, jump off while we can' farewells for the sailor and the duchess, the companion formula settles firmly into "Doctor + Jamie + girl" for the remainder of this run. The chemistry between the Doctor and Jamie was brilliant from their first story together, and you can see (or rather, read/hear) why they decided to take Jamie on as a companion.

Like the Heroic Blokes of the First Doctor era, Jamie is far more likely to pick up a weapon than the Doctor is, and is very brave. He and the Doctor share a childlike, quite innocent sensibility that works surprisingly well and turns every story into a Glorious Romp. Jamie's lack of cultural reference after the 1800's is easily handled by him dismissing anything he doesn't understand (such as the TARDIS) as magic, and he proves very capable of dealing with alien menace.  After The Highlanders he is mostly quite wasted until The Faceless Ones, because the decision to include him as a companion was a last minute one, and so he has a few stories in which his only contribution is the occasional line stolen from Ben and Polly, and he is forced at times to take episode-long naps in order to get him out of the way.

Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling), daughter of a mad scientist of the Victorian era who got a little too close to some Daleks, was a bit of a sweetheart and paired up very nicely with Jamie.  Only one of her stories survives: the Tomb of the Cybermen, which is generally regarded as a fan classic.  Known affectionately by some as 'leatherlungs,' Victoria turned screaming into an art form, and in her final story was allowed a chance to use her scream as a deadly weapon against the monsters. Black Canary, eat your heart out.

Zoe (Wendy Padbury): it may be partly due to story-survival that Zoe's pairing with Jamie is seen as the classic Second Doctor companion combo, as the majority of extant Second Doctor stories are from the last two years of the run, but it can't be denied that this trio are fantastic together.  As a girl from the future, Zoe offered a strong contrast to Jamie's more primitive attributes.  Her intelligence and computer geniusness is not only celebrated but, unusually for a Doctor Who companion, is not forgotten after her opening story.  We often see her bonding with the Doctor over their shared intelligence, just as the Doctor and Jamie bond over their adventurous nature.  Zoe's best moment: talking a computer into destroying itself.

Yes, that really is all the companions.  The pickings are rather slim, compared to the First Doctor Years, especially if you take into account that the Second and First Doctor were both around for roughly the same amount of time.

Feminist Heroes: Zoe Heriot, with little competition.

Best Stories You Can't Watch:

Ben and Polly get some unusually crunchy material to deal with in The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders, neither of which survive in the archives.  Power is thought by many to be one of the best Dalek stories of all time, and it does come across very well as an audio adventure, as a claustrophobic SF thriller that shows just how devious the Daleks can be.  It also depicts the isolation and fear felt by Ben and Polly as they try to adapt to the idea that the Doctor has turned into a different man.  This is hugely effective because they are stranded in an alien time and place – the Doctor is their ride!  It's also interesting because of how much was borrowed from this story for the recent Victory of the Daleks – the idea of Daleks masquerading as helpful robots and the Doctor being the only one who knows different is very effective, especially as even his companions don't trust him yet.

The Highlanders was my favourite Target novelisation when I was young and this was largely the reason that I adored Polly.  (It's also available as an audio adventure which I listened to much more recently)  It benefits from pairing Polly with a Highlands lass so shrill and wet as to make Polly seem like a modern woman (to understand how important this is you have to have seen the episode of the following story The Moonbase in which Polly literally makes the tea for everyone) and allows her to play a cheekier, bolshier version of herself than we usually see (more like the old Polly we were introduced to in The War Machines).  Also Ben gets a plotline in which being a sailor is actually relevant, while the Second Doctor capers around entertainingly with highlander Jamie and gets to drag up for the sake of espionage.

The Evil of the Daleks, the story which introduced Victoria, is also an iconic one to listen to if you like the audio versions, introducing the fascinating idea of Daleks trying to use human characteristics to make themselves smarter and more adaptable. Also worth listening to is The Web of Fear, which introduces Nicholas Courtney as Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge Stewart and brings the Yeti (previously introduced in Second Doctor story The Abominable Snowmen) into the London Underground.



Best Stories To Watch:

Title: Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)

Featuring: the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria, Cybermen, Cybermats

Why Watch: It's Matt Smith's favourite Classic story, you know! The discovery of this story after many years lost to fans was greatly exciting, as it had long been romanticised at the Best Who Ever.  While I don't think it's that, this is certainly one of the best and most evocative uses of the Cybermen, the story based around a group of space archaeologists who dig up more than they bargained for.  It's quite a dark story with a strong female antagonist and has some very effective horror moments, and it's the only chance to see Victoria in action.

Or Not: there's some casual "of it's time" racism in this one, surrounding the character of Toberman, which is cringy to watch, and may spoil the enjoyment for many viewers.

Category: Mad Science

Title: The Mind Robber (1968)

Featuring: the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, Rapunzel, Gulliver, Karkus

Why Watch: One of my favourites of all time, and if you have kids who can cope with black and white TV, it's probably the most family-appealing of all the classic stories.  The TARDIS crew crash into the Land of Fiction, the TARDIS itself is destroyed in dramatic fashion, and there are Toy Soldiers everywhere… a cleverly written script managed to take a storybook concept and make it into a great, surprisingly suspenseful Doctor Who adventure.

Category: Fantasy With Bolts on

For Extra Credit: Check out Conundrum by Steve Lyons, one of the New Adventures novels which modernises the Land of Fiction.

Title: The Invasion (1968)

Featuring: the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, the Brigadier and Benton, Cybermen

Why Watch: The Cybermen were at their best in the Second Doctor era.  We also get a great villain in Tobias Vaughn, the introduction of UNIT, a terribly British military organisation set up to deal with alien menace, and Zoe blows up a computer with her brain.  Until fairly recently, this was one of many stories which had missing episodes and thus couldn't be watched in full – but an experimental project involving Cosgrove Hall (animators also responsible for Danger Mouse, Wind in the Willows and the Pratchett cartoons) replaced the missing visuals with some rather impressive black and white animation.  Sadly it cost too much for them to do it again any time soon, but maybe some day…

Category: Contemporary

Honourable Mention: The War Games (1969) – hands down one of the best Doctor Whos ever, iconic and brilliantly put together.  The only reason I'm not recommending it as one of the top three to watch is because it's ten episodes long, and regardless of how well it's paced and performed, it's TEN FREAKING EPISODES LONG.  If you enjoy the other Troughtons, though, it's worth the time investment.

Previous Posts:

INTRODUCTION

THE FIRST DOCTOR YEARS 1963-1966

Over My Dead Body Pie (for Boxing Day)

AKA "Over My Dead Body I'm Going To Waste These Nice Leftovers Making Bubble N Squeak, Jamie Oliver!"

Ingredients:

500g or so of turkey mince

Leftover roast vegetables

Leftover stuffing

Leftover fresh herbs from Christmas cooking

Two thick slices each of cold turkey & ham, diced roughly

1 small carton chicken stock

Half a handful of plain flour.

2 sheets frozen puff pastry

Brown mince in frying pan with a dollop of olive oil. Chop leftover vegies roughly and mix into the mince along with leftover stuffing, fresh herbs, and meat. Pour stock over the top and let it all bubble away nicely for some time, sprinkling the flour over the top and stirring through to thicken the sauce. Pour all contents into a baking dish and make a lattice on top of pastry strips.

Bake in oven at about 170º (fan forced) or 180º (normal) for half an hourish or until pastry is brown and crackly.  Serve with steamed greens & yesterday's gravy.

A Modern Woman's Guide to Classic Who: THE FIRST DOCTOR YEARS (1963-1966)

Summary: originally designed as a children's show, the Classic Doctor Who format at this time was half hour episodes making up whole stories of 2, 4, 6 (and occasionally, gulp, 12) episodes, though the stories themselves only got individual names towards the end of the First Doctor's run – most story titles were decided on later by fans, TV historians, DVD releasers etc.

The Doctor and his companions generally alternated between historical and SF stories, with very few set in contemporary times.  Unlike these days, the historicals were usually "pure" in that the stories involved no alien or science fictional element, other than the fact that the main characters are time travellers and have perspectives from other times.

Many episodes and whole stories from these years were destroyed by the BBC (well technically all of them were, but many were saved or recovered) which means sadly that some of the best stories are no longer available to view.  Hardcore fans can revisit them through audio recordings, or the good old Target Book novelisations, which are no longer in print but have a thriving existence in the second hand book market (and, more recently, have been made available from the BBC as audio books).

At this stage in Classic Who history, the TARDIS cannot be controlled by the Doctor, which means that any time he leaves a particular place and time, they are in the hands of fate. This gives extra tension to the companion journey, as in many cases they have no way of knowing if and when they can ever return home.  Several companion leaving stories thus comprise either of accidentally landing within a year or two of their point of origin and jumping off the bus while they have the chance, or picking the first random planet that seems to have something to offer.

The Companions: The classic group which kicks off the show consists of the Doctor: an elderly grump of an alien, his mysterious teenage granddaughter Susan, and two of her teachers (Barbara – history, Ian – science) whom they "accidentally" kidnapped.  The relationships between these four are very nicely developed: the teachers are often in conflict with the Doctor, but care very much about Susan, and try to back each other up where possible.

Susan (Carole Ann Ford), though retrospectively interesting to fans because we're fairly sure she must be a Time Lady (nothing was known to the audience about the Doctor's background at this time) gets very little to do in order to show off how special she is, beyond the very first episode.  Partly this is because she takes the "damsel" role in most stories, though her knowledge of other times and places can be quite useful.  She is the template for the Doctor Who companion whose potential is under-utilised in favour of lots of screaming and running – though to be fair there are fewer of these than people think.  Susan's best story is her last one, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in which she is separated from the others and gets a whole subplot to herself, including a decent romance.

Ian (William Russell) is (VERY LOOSELY) the prototype for Captain Jack: the active Heroic Bloke character who is willing to do the thumping-when-necessary part that the Doctor is too Doctorish to bother with.  He is quite stuffy and old-fashioned (even for the 60's) and regularly tries to protect Barbara and Susan, when not stealing Barbara's cardigans to defeat Daleks and other menaces.  His best stories are The Daleks (can't bring myself to call it The Mutants, sorry), The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Chase.  I however love him most in The Romans, because it's a fun blend of comedy and action for him

Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) gets a far more interesting narrative than Ian, probably because the younger male lead would be expected to be all heroic etc. whereas she often acts beyond expectations of a demure 1960's school teacher.  Thanks largely to Susan taking on many of the damsel duties, Barbara gets many opportunities to be independent, capable and to take command of the story.  She is at her most interesting in The Aztecs, where she is mistaken for a goddess and decides to use her powers to try to change the bloodthirsty nature of the society they are visiting, though the Doctor warns her that changing history is impossible.

Susan is later replaced by Vicki (Maureen O'Brien), a space urchin who fulfils exactly the same role in the narrative that the Doctor's granddaughter did.  She forms a rather nice relationship with the Doctor, bringing out his fun side in stories like The Romans and The Chase.  The Rescue, a two-parter which introduces the character, is really only of interest to Vicki fans: The Romans, The Chase or The Time Meddler would be of more value.  Sadly my favourite Vicki story, The Myth Makers, in which she visits Troy and becomes part of the narrative as Cressida, no longer exists.  The Target novelisation is a doozy, though, as the writer had the balls to make HOMER its apparent narrator.  Yes, really.

After Barbara and Ian left, Vicki was "promoted" to female lead, and the standard combination from then on (with a few notable exceptions and overlaps) was to have one male and one female companion alongside the Doctor instead of a "family' group.

Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) was the Heroic Bloke replacement for Ian, and is another character whose potential was not quite realised – as a spaceman from the future, he had a lot more to offer the stories than he was allowed.  His sudden appearance at the end of The Chase is all crunchy and promising: he was a prisoner of Mechanoids for many years, clinging to a soft toy for comfort and the last of his sanity, and the TARDIS is his only lifeline out.  It is a fantastic launch for a character, but there was little follow through.  It doesn't help that several of his best stories no longer exist: to anyone desperate to know anything about him as a companion I'd say go straight to the audio version of The Dalek's Masterplan, which is really excellent (also The Reign of Terror).  The Time Meddler and The Ark are rather good examples of existing TV stories with Steven action.

Katarina (Adrienne Hill) is a weird anomaly, a companion who did not appear in any full stories, and whose few episodes (I think she appeared in three or four?) no longer exist in the archives.  A priestess from Troy who seemed to be grabbed at random by the Doctor five minutes after leaving Vicki behind, she was written out speedily because the writers regretted introducing her in the first place, figuring that a character from the past would make a lousy companion. (they were wrong, as Jamie McCrimmon showed later in the 1960's)  I always assumed Katarina was boring and miserable but actually having listened to The Dalek's Masterplan, she was quite good for the brief period she was there, and died valiantly, blasting herself out of an airlock to save Bret and the Doctor.

Replacing Katarina a little while later was the extraordinary Sara Kingdom.  I was always predisposed to like this character, as she was played by the awesome Jean Marsh, and the picture in my Doctor Who book had her pointing a gun and looking all tough, something rarely allowed to a companion.  But only this year when I listened to The Dalek's Masterplan for the first time (did I mention: AWESOME) did I realise how good she was.  Sara gets a far better through-narrative than most companions.  When we first meet her, it is as a tough soldier belonging to a corrupt organisation: someone so loyal to her government that she shoots her own brother dead when she believes him to be a traitor.  The Doctor and Steven, however, cause Sara to question her own beliefs, and she has to choose between what she has always believed in, and the cause of honour and freedom.  It's a path very similar to that followed by Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) in Farscape, nearly 40 years later.  Something I particularly liked is the way that Steven, far from pulling an Ian-like "let's look after the laydeez, shall we" act on Sara, treats her entirely like an equal.  There are several moments where he defers to her, or has an opportunity to patronise her but doesn't.  It was one of the only times when I thought the script credibly conveyed that he was from the future.

(Jean Marsh, incidentally, does not consider Sara to have been a companion, as she was never hired for that role, but Sara is generally considered a "canon" companion by most fans]

Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane): ah, poor Dodo.  The companion most likely to end up at the bottom of a favourite companions list, because no one can remember which one she was.  If there was a list of companions treated most badly by the production, she would take the crown from Katarina: Dodo was never allowed to shine, lurches from a cockney accent to a received English one depending on what the producers had decreed that week, and is written out finally, halfway through a story, offscreen.  Still, she is in The Ark which is an excellent SF story, and while she contributes very little to The War Machines, her final story, it is a very good one.

Ben and Polly (Michael Craze and Anneke Wills): the first companions until Sarah Jane (& the Brigadier) to help a Doctor transition between regenerations, these two were my favourite black and white companions for many years, even when I had never seen them in anything.  Their opening story, The War Machines, is a very cute robots and aliens piece which has the benefit of being set in a far more swinging version of the sixties than ever seen before (or possibly since) in Doctor Who.  Polly is the posh dolly bird secretary to an evil overlord; Ben is the Cockney sailor in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Together: THEY FIGHT CRIME.  Sadly if you fall in love with them in the War Machines there isn't much material left to enjoy: and most of it is Second Doctor stuff, so I will leave it at that for now.

Feminist Heroes: Barbara Wright and Sara Kingdom.

Heroic Blokes: Ian Chesterton, Steven Taylor, Ben Jackson

The Screamiest of Them All: Susan and Polly

Best Guests: Nicholas Courtney as Bret Vyon in The Dalek's Masterplan, Peter Butterworth as the Meddling Monk in the Time Meddler

Best Stories You Can't Watch: Did I mention The Dalek's Masterplan?  A truly epic space opera series with politics, fabulous planets, traitors and a lovely bit of time travel comedy stuck randomly in the middle.  I also have a soft spot for The Myth Makers, AKA Doctor-Who-Does-Troy.  Both are available as audio adventures, as are all missing stories.  Perhaps the most lamented missing story is The Tenth Planet, which not only introduced the Cybermen, but also featured the first ever regeneration of the Doctor, but if I were you I'd skip that in favour of The Power of the Daleks, the Second Doctor's debut…

Best Stories to Watch:

Titles: The Daleks (also known as The Mutants) [1963] and The Dalek Invasion of Earth [1964]

Featuring: First Doctor, Susan, Ian, Barbara, Daleks!

Why Watch: the introduction of the Daleks saved the show from early cancelation and ensured its continuance for many years – both of the first two Dalek serials still (mostly) hold up today for war-against-robotic-alien melodrama, creepy design and music, and interesting character moments.  In some ways they are the Alien and Aliens of the Doctor Who franchise – The Daleks gave us battles and adventure on a distant planet, but The Dalek Invasion of Earth ramped up the stakes considerably, with an excellent and effective portrayal of a post-apocalyptic London.

Category: Good Old Fashioned Space Opera

For Extra Credit: follow it up with the two Glorious Technicolor movies starring Peter Cushing, which were adaptions of these serials. Compare and contrast!  Marvel at the Daleks in colour!  Blink in astonishment as Ian and Barbara are replaced by interchangeable comic slapstick actors and bombshells, respectively!

Titles: The Romans [1965] and The Chase [1965]

Featuring: The First Doctor, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, a hint of Steven, Romans, Daleks and Mechanoids!

Why Watch Them:  Both stories are often maligned and sneered at by hardcore Doctor Who fans, but are dear favourites of mine because of the comedy and great character moments.  The Romans shows the TARDIS crew on holiday for the first time, and manages to pack in just about every Ancient Roman story trope known to cinema.  Ian and Barbara's charm and ingenuity are shown off to great effect during their separation from the others, and William Hartnell's First Doctor has never been as likeable as in this romp, alongside perky Vicki.  The Chase, meanwhile, is based on the premise that the Daleks have built a time machine with which to pursue the Doctor and his crew through Time as well as Space. It flits from strange setting to strange setting, somehow managing to tell about eight different stories.  It's like the whole Hartnell era distilled into one chaotic patchwork of a story, and if you don't take your Who too seriously, it makes for a very fun watch.  Again, Ian and Barbara are shown to great effect here, their final story, and it is evident how much they have grown and learned as companions.  I'm not saying both stories wouldn't be best watched whilst drinking and giggling, but they are rather adorable.

Category: Romps (and in the case of The Romans, Historical too)

For Extra Credit: Develop your own drinking game while watching the Chase, and spot a future companion on top of the Empire State Building.

Title: The War Machines [1966]

Featuring: The First Doctor, Ben, Polly, and I suppose you can count Dodo

Why Watch it: a fun, action-packed story which benefits from its datedness, showing a Swinging Sixties London under attack by War Machines and evil computers.

Category: Contemporary

For Extra Credit: Read up on the history of the Post Office Tower, an iconic London landmark that Australians like me mostly recognise because of the giant kitten episode of The Goodies.

Honourable Mentions: Episode 1 of An Unearthly Child (introduces the first TARDIS crew beautifully, but I recommend avoid the three following eps which are full of BBC cavemen and rather dire), The Aztecs (for great Barbara-meets-history action: this one is recommended to Random Alex in particular!), the Time Meddler (we meet a fellow member of the Doctor's race! lovely use of anachronisms and the effects of time travel), The Ark (an excellent piece of surprisingly hard science fiction which looks at the kind of effect the Doctor can have on the people he interferes with).

Previous Posts:

Introduction

A Modern Woman's Guide to Classic Who: Introduction

I've had a few female friends discover Doctor Who in recent years and express a sort-of interest in visiting or revisiting Classic Who. But… there's so much! And while there are some great resources that review Classic Who (in recent years I've particularly enjoyed the Chronic Hysteresis, Copperbadge's season-by-season LJ reviews, and the father-and-son podcast Hoo on Who which reviews the DVD releases in no particular order) most of them are immersed in fan perspective of the the huge, sprawling universe that is, well, Classic Who.

My intention with the series of posts to come is to provide an introduction to Classic Who for the almost-complete newbie, who knows nothing about the old show, might be a bit daunted by the sheer quantity of material, and generally prefer their TV to be modern, snappy and high-paced. I also wanted to focus on some of the more woman-friendly aspects of the old show, when and if they become available. While I love the Doctor, I was usually far more interested in the companions as characters and reading Chicks Dig Time Lords this year showed me that I wasn't the only one.

I also think that the list of Classic Who stories that are most prized and beloved by fans aren't necessarily the ones that will appeal to the new fans, either because of their length, their pacing, unexpected landmines of sexism or racism, or reliance on knowledge of the show's history. Which is not to say that my recs are guaranteed winners, either, but I'm particularly going to try to find stories that might help fill the void during the sad New Who free months to come once the Christmas Special airs. (TEN HOURS TO GO for East Coast Australians)

(Note: this is one woman's guide, intended to present a (not 'the') modern female perspective – I don't claim to be comprehensive, nor to represent all of womanhood.)

There are several reasons for a New Who fan to want to check out the old series. If you honestly want to immerse yourself in the entire history because you're desperately hooked and you want to understand what Three/Brigadier slash is all about, or write long epics about Captain Jack Harkness interacting with everyone the Doctor has ever met, then you're better off with Copperbadge's reviews of the seasons. I'm still boggled that there are people who decide that they need to watch Classic Who IN ORDER. That's really not how it works!

My guide is intended to suggest recs for people who:

1. Are interested in the companions and their journeys, and would like to meet some of the kick-ass women (and dreamy young men) in the Doctor's past, or understand some of the continuity references from the new show.

2. May have been casual viewers of Classic Who in the good old days, and want some points of reference to revisit the show.

3. Need some cheesy Dalek goodness.

THE FIRST DOCTOR YEARS: 1963-1966

THE SECOND DOCTOR YEARS: 1966-1969

THE THIRD DOCTOR YEARS: 1970-1974

Domestic Fairy: Pre-Christmas Edition

I have been domesticking up a storm this week, shopping, making things, cooking, and planning more cooking. Surely earned a Mother of the Year award this morning by entirely forgetting to take the baby to daycare – for her ONE full day this week, the one I had made many plans with Raeli for. At 10:30 (after a bad night's sleep because someone had nightmares and had to climb in with us) I suddenly blinked, stared at the baby and said "we forgot to take Jem to daycare!"

Cue mass hilarity all around.

Once we had rectified that mistake, Raeli and I had brunch at the local cafe and then went down to Meredith's Orchard to stock up on fruit and vegies for the Christmas weekend. Got a good deal on raspberries, picked today! Back home to rehabilitate her dolls house in return for putting away or chucking away a whole lot of old toys. And then it was icecream concoction construction (or possibly deconstruction). Using silicon cupcake cases & chocolate mould trays, we made vanilla penguins, turkish delight hearts, and mince pies, all by stirring interesting things into icecream. I also made the outside layer of the icecream pudding (Christmas Bombe!). I was going to have a Turkish Delight core but now I'm thinking raspberry-doctored vanilla.

Sadly I think the creativity overstretched practicality. The results were delicious but messy, and I don't think the freezer is cold enough for the icecreams in the moulds to harden properly. The best results were the mince pies: brandied fruit stirred into vanilla icecream and scooped into star-shaped silicon cases to serve.

Oh, and I whipped up a lasagne too Though I managed to split the bechamel sauce like a bad hollandaise, leading to huge amounts of delicious but strangely lumpy cheeseness over the dish. Turns out that an extra large fruitcake pan is actually excellent for making lasagne in. Once again, messy but tasty. (actually that pretty much sums up most of what emerges from my kitchen)

Raeli and I alternated between bonding beautifully and grouching at each other, largely because her vocabulary seems to have reduced sharply to 'BUT MUUUUUUM' which drives me wild with irritation, especially when she follows up 'don't say that to me again' with "BUUUUUT MUUUUUUUUUM." There were times when I thought my head would explode!

She's still only five, right? Not fifteen?

Tomorrow's plan is to make it to Pilates for the first time in a month (a succession of disasters and babysitting letdowns have prevented me), to pick up a few groceries (no big pre-Christmas shop for me, I can't face the queues), check the postbox and then come HOME and pretty much stay here until the holiday hits. Still need to finish the Christmas Bombe, bake a gingerbread cake, and probably make christmas muffins with Raeli because she desperately wants to.

Sigh. Baking with children is fun, but takes FIVE TIMES LONGER.

I should really wrap presents.

Kind of sleepy, actually.

More Joyous Christmas Vids

(I think my favourite bit about this one is OMG Arthur Darville can play the piano)

Swedish Christmas Box

It's getting pretty Christmassy around here.  Raeli and I had a mammoth shortbread baking session yesterday, producing not only shortbread daleks but also cats, bunnies, high heeled shoes and other ephemera.  Sadly the sheep, cows and rockets didn't work out as I had hoped as it turns out those fancy cookie cutters I bought are crappy, and you can't get the dough out of them without breaking it.

I have a jar of dried fruit marinating in rather a lot of brandy, ready to be turned into a cake this week.  Should I worry that most recipes say to soak the fruit in rum or brandy overnight?  My jar has been going since November!

My other baking plans for the season are icecream centric – I want to make a frozen pudding bombe and some moulded icecream "mince tarts."  Ironically with all my icecreamy plans, the weather this week has been cooler than we're used to in December.  Good baking weather, not so good for melting icecream.  Still, not complaining over here!

An exciting box arrived from Sweden this week, courtesy of Kaia the Swedish Writing Fairy, and we decided to make a bit of a thing of opening it on the evening after Raeli's last day of term.  We could have waited until Christmas, of course, but where's the fun in that?

There were many awesome things inside the box, including chocolate (Europeans put the most exciting things in chocolate!  This time it was raspberry & blackberry, though I still haven't gotten over last year's blueberry Lindt), some Champions League goodies, hand-knitted baby socks and picture books with handwritten English translations by you-know-who!

Honestly, opening this box I felt like Katy Carr at school about to unearth a precious tin of Debby's jumbles. The box *itself* has now been played with so hard it is lying in bits on the living room floor.

By far the crowning glory were the two knitted Jemima-from-Play-School dolls – one classic, with pigtails and yellow overalls, for little Jemcakes, and one with bobbed hair and maroon overalls for big sister Raeli.  There were also extra changes of clothes – sunshine overalls in the same orange yarn as Jem's beloved jacket which she has only recently grown out of, and a white jumper.  The dolls were cooed over, towed from one end of the room to the other, and dressed and redressed in various outfits and combinations.

Both girls LOVED having matching dolls, and I swear they have played together more in the last couple of days than in the months leading up to it.  Despite the more-than-four years between them, there is something about having matching toys that has just brought them together.  Jemima Classic got to keep her name, but Raeli-Jemima has been named Josie.  The two dolls are cousins, apparently, and Raeli refers to them as the JJs. There is an elaborate backstory which I have only kept half an ear on, but I have no doubt that these two are going to be well played with over the next few years. Luckily they're sturdy as well as cute.

JJ Junior apparently is very fond of my new library chair, which was intended to be my mother's day and birthday present six months ago, but due to various delays at the warehouse, shipping, etc., has turned up as an early Christmas present too.  It is extremely comfortable.

So, I wrote a novel. What Do I Do Next?

A friend has been working steadily away on his fantasy novel. When he finished, he called me up and asked me, "What do I do next?"

My advice was to write Book 2. While it might seem counter-intuitive to keep putting all your eggs into one basket, when it comes to fantasy you learn a lot more from getting to the end of your series than the end of the first volume. Also, you learn so much in writing Book 2 that you can then go back and look at Book 1 with new, jaded, experienced eyes, and rewrite accordingly.

But now he's finished Book 2, and I feel like I should be able to give a more comprehensive answer.

Only… I'm not exactly an expert in getting published for the first time. None of us are, of course – there are many ways to get published for the first time, and most authors only experience ONE of those. In my case, though, it was a pretty atypical route (involving a competition that no longer exists) so giving advice on how to get to that point is a bit like… well, when friends ask for advice on coping with relationship breakups. (Um, I've never had one. Still on my first.) Possibly that is a bad example, because I am AWESOME at being a complete EXPERT on other people's break ups.

But anyway.  My point is that people often look to published authors for advice, and while we can often share really fabulous advice about working methods and business plans and all the stuff we actually do, I'm not sure that we're always that useful when it comes to helping new writers figure out how to get started.  Started was a long time ago for some of us…  And while getting published isn't necessarily easy for us, and certainly isn't something to be taken for granted, it's still a whole different game trying to sell a book as someone who has a track record.

I'd like to be able to offer my friend something a bit more substantial than "Query agents first, don't send the whole books unless they ask for it, don't pay 'reading fees,' yes they REALLY expect a synopsis to be a page or so…"  And while I'd like to just send him away to listen to five years' worth of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing and Will Write for Wine podcasts, possibly he was hoping for a slightly more efficient answer.

So what I'm wondering is – where should I point my friend?  What blog posts, what communities, what research hubs?  Where are the nearly-published submitting-like-crazy writers hanging out in 2011?

If you had just finished your first fantasy novel, what would you do with it?

Hide the Hestian Virgins!

2.20 The Price

This is an episode I remember hugely disliking and being bored by on my first run through season 2, and never watching again. All I remember is it being one of those that's all peril and no humour, but looking at it now I can see other reasons that would have turned me off, even if I wasn't alert to the reason why.

The Horde are basically voiceless savages, and while I enjoy Xena facing her past and a bit of grim backstory, I much prefer it when she has to face antagonists with personality to them. And, you know, dialogue. I am a fiend for awesome dialogue and I have a tendency to bounce completely off stories that have none. This is a very male-heavy action story which has nothing about it that feels especially 'Xena' and offers nothing to our female leads other than the opportunity to act tough or look horrified.

Also there's something grotesque and pretty damned offensive about the racial stereotype of the growling, murderous savage, and little is done to mitigate the using of this antiquated trope. (this is I think later addressed in the far better episode Daughter of Pomira though I didn't love that one either) I found it interesting that the use of Maori costume and iconography with the all-male Horde is used to emphasise them as being violent, ugly and terrifying – the contrast being the way that the costume and iconography were used to add to the mystique of the Amazons, who also have a scary, dramatic appearance but are shown to have complex characters, a history and society rather than just being "monsters".

Okay, it is kind of cool to see Xena taking on the responsibility of yelling at a bedraggled, heartsick Athenian troop of soldiers to shape them into a force capable of fighting the villainous Horde, and I can see the main point of the story is how easily Xena can slip into her own war-hungry maniac self when the threat is bad enough. Seeing Gabrielle's calm competence in getting a sickbay organised, and later standing up against Badass Xena to be merciful to the wounded Horde, effectively shows how far she has come. But the whole thing is so shouty and violent, I still can't love it.

2.21 The Lost Mariner

Playing on the Flying Dutchman story with an Ancient Greek twist or two (oh how I love any mention of Scylla and Charybdis!) this nautical tale makes use of a couple of the elements from Ulysses – namely the boat set, and Poseidon the CGI water god. Again, the production values of this one are excellent, and the figure of the lonely, cursed Cecrops is played with great power and charisma by Tony Todd.

I loved the fact that Xena, realising Gabrielle has been picked up by the cursed ship, was so determined to join them and save them all rather than to consider the possibility that the curse might get the better of her. Gabrielle's seasickness is again played for humorous effect, with Xena teaching her a pressure point to use against it – only for Gabrielle to end up so robust that she can happily eat raw squid!

Rather more icky was the "puppy love" angle where Gabrielle, the first woman any of the cursed sailors have seen in decades, is followed around by a gross old man who obviously fancies her. They treat it as if it's a comic situation whereas the whole situation screamed 'potential rapist' to me, and I resented the coy tone of the script, where Gabrielle regularly has to laugh uncomfortably, put up with the situation, and play it down when discussing it with others. Icky.

I very much liked the way that the 'curse can only be broken by love' trope was taken apart, first by Xena and then by Cecrops himself, proving a) that it's a stupid trope and b) the only way to make it not a stupid trope is to include all kinds of love, not just the very narrow definition of heterosexual romantic happy ever after kind of love.

2.22 – A Comedy of Eros

This has always been one of my favourites. Unrequited love, Hestian virgins, farce comedy, Joxer and Draco… sad, but true. Jay Lagai'ia continues to be the only actor to have made a random warlord character interesting, so it's exciting he was finallyinvited back. Having said that, at least one line (about how he once told Xena about his attempt to go straight) does suggest that the scriptwriters confused Draco with Marcus.

The premise for the plot is simple: Xena has heard that big bad Draco plans to kidnap the Hestian virgins (cough, y'all know I wrote a thesis on Vestals, right? Trust me when I say how much wrongness there is in importing them into Ancient Greece, just cos Hestia had similar domestic god-duties as the Roman Vesta and their names sound a bit similar, geddit?) and she plans to stop him. Joxer has also heard of this rumour (obviously he's on the warlord mailing list) and bounces along to help. And then… Cupid shows what an appalling parent he is by leaving his baby Bliss unsupervised in a room full of cupidy weapons because he just *has* to have sex with his wife right now. And make more babies. Yep, cos you're SO GOOD AT LOOKING AFTER THE FIRST ONE RESPONSIBLY, CUPID.

Okay, the baby with fluffy cherub wings is kind of cute. He snatches up Daddy's bows and arrows and takes off on a rampage of random romance, shooting the arrows here there and everywhere.

Xena is enchanted into loving Draco. Gabrielle is enchanted into loving Joxer. As their artificial adorations get seriously in the way of saving those virgins, Draco gets the arrow treatment too and falls in love with Gabrielle. There are hijinks. Many, many hijinks.

It's an odd choice for the season finale. It's fluffy and enjoyable – Xena's battle to retain her own personality in the face of her unexpected love for Draco, and the way she stays totally in character while incorporating that love is very well done. But considering some of the epic adventures from this season that could have been placed here – The Xena Scrolls, for instance – it sits at the end of the season like a fluffy marshmallow someone has dropped on a meat pie. For the second time in a row, there is no "proper" season finale, just another episode apparently chosen at random to close out the season.

(I have to keep stopping to remind myself that this is pre-Joss American TV, when the whole Babylon 5 season arc thing was still an oddity rather than an expectation in spec fic television)

Where this one differs from the other comedy episodes of season two is that instead of hitting the reset button, it leaves us with two actual ramifications, significant changes that will come back to bite in future episodes. Firstly, when Cupid is putting everyone back the way they should be, Xena requests that he leaves Draco the way he is, still enamoured of Gabrielle. Obviously this is a major dick move on behalf of our heroine – sure, he's a bad guy, but letting him stay enchanted to be in love with someone who has no interest in him? That's a special kind of cruelty. I do like that as with Xena herself, being in love does not change Draco – he's still trying to weasel out of "going good" at the end, and his natural inclination is still to burn villages and kill people, though he knows the woman he "loves" does not approve. It also can't be overlooked that Gabrielle is blatantly being set up with her very own stalker, which is not very foresighted of Xena. Thank goodness they did address Draco's enchantment in a later episode, even if it took them three years to get there. It was, despite my reservations, entirely worth the wait.

The other ramification is that Joxer, believing the enchanted Gabrielle to be in love with him, has joyfully reciprocated her feelings, only to have his heart broken at the end when he discovers it wasn't real. This is apparently very funny – or at least, the script, Cupid and Gabrielle all seem to think so. (to be fair Gab is unaware Joxer is now in love with her, and is trying to come to terms with the fact that she has been throwing herself at him for most of the episode) The saving grace is that Xena takes Joxer seriously and recognises this for the small but affecting tragedy that it is for him – and her knowledge of his feelings will affect her own relationship with him in the coming season.

This episode is the point at which I really started liking Joxer the first time around (I hate this, but I am a sucker for unrequited love plots), something which has retroactively influenced my response to his earlier episodes. Joxer is much more interesting as a character when he isn't being written as a total fool, and this little love story grounded him somewhat, for a while at least.

Also the scene where an enchanted Gabrielle happily sings the lyrics to his "Joxer the Mighty" song is a thing of beauty.

CHAKRAM STATISTICS:

Boys who want romance with Xena: 10

Boys Xena allows to romance her: 5

Xena dead boyfriends: 2

Gabrielle dead boyfriends: 2/7

"Adorable" children: 31

Babies: 5

Babies tossed humorously in the air during fight scenes: 6

Xena doppelgangers: 3

Xena sings at a funeral: 2

Xena dies: 2

Gabrielle dies: 1

Characters brought back from the dead (including ghosts and visits to the Underworld): 13

Ares loses his powers and goes all to pieces about it: 1

Xena or Gabrielle earns money: 1

Xena or Gabrielle spends money (or claims to have money to spend): 5

Out of the Pantheon: Morpheus, Ares, Hera, the Titans, Hades, Celesta, Charon, the Fates, Bacchus, Aphrodite, Cupid, Poseidon

The Celebrity Red Carpet of the Ancient World: Pandora, Prometheus, Hercules, Iolaus, Sisyphus, Helen of Troy, Paris, Deiphobus, Menelaus, Euripides, Homer, Autolycus, Meleager, Oracle of Delphi, David, Goliath, Orpheus, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Ulysses, Penelope, Cecrops

SEASON TWO OVERVIEW:

This season feels a lot more like "classic Xena" than the previous one, bearing in mind that the "classic Xena" period really only lasts up until the end of season three, at which point the show starts reinventing itself so hard it's barely recognisable at times. The emphasis on repeat characters, the design elements introduced here like Gab's costume, the full moon night shoots and the pretty pretty boat set, the continuation of Gabrielle's Queen of the Amazons plot arc and the Callisto plot arc all contribute to a series that feels like it has a strong identity.

Having said that, the actual balance of this season is all over the place. I wonder how much of it was caused by having to film/screen episodes in a different sequence than originally planned thanks to Lucy Lawless's injury (I have heard this mentioned as an excuse for why there were so many Joxer eps so close together, leading to fan panic and wrath). After a flimsy first few episodes, the season takes off with a bang and continues to be very strong for some time, particularly the run of episodes involving Callisto, and the sort-of-three-parter consisting of Destiny, The Quest and A Necessary Evil. The problem is that every episode after A Necessary Evil feels disposable. The episodes are all either comedies or one-shot drama eps, which could be shown in any order. After teasing the audience with character development and story arcs, the season ends with far less oomph than it really should at this point.

On the other hand, this season gave us Julius Caesar, allowed Ares to be awesome, and turned Callisto into a goddess. The good news is, it's all about to get pretty damn excellent… stay tuned!

Season Highlights:

Return of Callisto

Intimate Stranger

Ten Little Warlords

The Xena Scrolls

Destiny

The Quest

A Necessary Evil

Season Lowlights:

Orphan of War

A Solstice Carol

The Price

Previous Xena Rewatch Posts:

Warlord is a Lady Tonight

I Don't Work For Money

Amazon Wanna Take A Ride?

Go To Tartarus!

Swashbuckle and Shams

Death In A Chainmail Bikini

Full Moon It Must Be Xena

How Do You Mortals Get From Day to Day?

The Future is Archaeologists

Divide and Conquer

My Sword is Always Ready to Pleasure You

Friday Links 17-12-2010

It's officially school holidays today! My plans involve hanging out with my girls, baking shortbread and posting some stuff. Big plans!

I've blogged a lot about the juggling act of mothering and writing (mostly under my Mama Writer tag), but new mum Diana Peterfreund has summed the topic up beautifully in a blog post entitled "Two Professions." She's absolutely right about the similarity of unhelpful/constraining/overly specific advice that new mothers and new writers receive, and the filters you have to develop to find what will work for you.

There's a great post here on ten of the best female comics creators of the year – referencing some stuff I know about and an awful lot I don't. Including, omg, second collected volume of Castle Waiting? Let me at it!

Meanwhile, the first piece of promotion for upcoming ABC "gay geek sitcom" Outland, written by Boxcutters' own John Richards, was on i09 of all places! I have been fascinated to listen to John's updates on the podcast on getting a show made, including such gems as how to rewrite scripts about a Star Trek fan club without actually mentioning Star Trek because it makes the lawyers nervous, or how to stage an entire gay pride parade for a day's filming (hint: Twitter!)

I raised my eyebrows a bit about the whole Big Bang Theory comparison, mostly because I find that show quite alienating as a woman (I am coming around to it but the first episode I saw was so offensive to my feminist sensibilities that I bounced off HARD and it's difficult to recover from something like that) and I am trusting John to do a better job of making a show I want to watch! Though for his sake obviously it would be awesome if the show did as well as Big Bang Theory… I think it's vaguely promising at least that while there is only one female main character in the show, she is gay and a geek as well as the male cast, which includes her in the premise rather than the weird 'smart people to the left, pretty people to the right' vibe that Big Bang Theory gives off.

Also I don't remember if I linked to this already, but Rowena has done a huge interview with me (possibly it wasn't that huge before I got my hands on the questions, but I talk a LOT) over at the Ripping Ozzie Reads blog, and if you can make it to the end I am giving away a free copy of Power and Majesty and Siren Beat.