Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 77

Happy Endings All Around [WHO-50—1996]

A bonus post this week, because 1996 was a big year for Doctor Who in more ways than one. Not only had fans been treated to the first live action TV version of the show since, well, Dimensions in Time, but also the Virgin New Adventures celebrated number #50 in their ongoing range.

That’s right, fifty original Doctor Who stories, and that doesn’t take into account the Missing Adventures which had started up a few years earlier, meaning that the most diehard books fans now had two to collect every month – one featuring the ongoing adventures of the Seventh Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz, and one featuring a previous TARDIS team.

The end was in sight now – by 1997, the BBC would take back the license to publish their own Doctor Who spin off novels in the wake of the TV movie, and Virgin would be left to carry on with their shared science fictional universe without the Doctor or his copyrighted monsters and friends. But a lot was still to happen in that last year.

The 50th NA was celebrated with the publication of Happy Endings by Paul Cornell (with one chapter made up of short scenes written by many of the regular authors in the range) and featured not only the wedding of Bernice Summerfield to her new squeeze and regular-bloke-in-distress Jason Kane, but also gratuitous cameo appearances of characters from nearly if not every previous book.

Reading Happy Endings in 2013, I was almost as baffled as I was back when I read it for the first time in 1996. The big difference between then and now is that we have Wikipedia (how did we COPE before?), and from that I was able to find a certain fanzine article which provided the necessary annotations to figure out what’s going on.

Yes, this novel has its own wiki.

I had read handfuls of the New Adventures (and would go on later to fill in some of the blanks) in the 90′s but not nearly enough to get all the convoluted references packed into this novel. If I had read every single book in the series, I have no doubt I would find this book as delightful and enjoyable as it was intended to be.

[ALL THE SPOILERS]

And don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty entertaining. The conceit is that Benny is getting married in a church in Cheldon Bonniface (the mysterious little town that was at the centre of Cornell’s first novel Timewyrm: Revelation, and thus has no actual significance to Benny) and that she and Jason are obliged to spend some time living in the village before being allowed to avail themselves of the church.

This then becomes one of the most elaborate and stretched-out wedding celebrations of all time, with the Doctor gradually popping guests in via the TARDIS, and the bride and groom having several weeks to figure out that actually, maybe getting married to each other is the last thing they could possibly want.

There are some lovely and touching reunions, and I particularly like that Benny has a Pakhar (giant hamster alien) bridesmaid, which causes some amusing hilarity in dress shops. From the Brigadier and his elderly UNIT version of Dad’s Army to his distant descendant Kadiatu and her owl, not to mention the appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, these story threads are entertaining regardless of whether I’ve read their original novels, and I was mostly able to sit back and enjoy the ride – only hunting up the wiki once I had finished.

I did balk a bit at the characterisation of Ace, who had been at the hub of many of the more dubious writerly choices throughout the run of the New Adventures. I had found her leather catsuit phase alternatively annoying and empowering depending on who was writing her, and while I am still to read the Kate Orman novel (Set Piece) that explains why she turned up in a 17th century frock on a time bike, I did find that bit pretty awesome. However, having Ace (or rather, Dorotheé as she is now known) respond to Bernice’s impending marriage by actively attempting to seduce the groom from the first moment she claps eyes on him is, well. Creepy and uncomfortable.

Add to that Benny’s own active distrust of Jason based on her concerns that he might only love her because she rescued him after a long period of isolation and thus he imprinted on her like a baby rabbit or whatever and is surely likely to go running around shagging everything that moves given half a chance… possibly I was just missing the nuance there, because I hadn’t read the previous novel, but it felt very odd that she should be quite so clingy and jealous on such little evidence. Didn’t feel like the calm and collected Benny that I remember from the other books!

I like the Doctor very much here – he is trying so hard to give Bernice a special event, co-ordinating the wedding of her dreams (including pulling the Isley Brothers out of their own time stream) despite the fact that it’s obviously not in his comfort zone, and his uncomfortable awareness that if getting married isn’t what she wants, he doesn’t know how to help her deal with that.

detail from the cover of Death and Diplomacy, the novel where Benny met Jason

There’s a lampshade hung on the fact that this wedding is entirely for Bernice’s benefit, with as Jason puts it – “everyone you’ve ever met and none of MY relatives” but again, that isn’t really explained. Also, the fact that the Doctor includes a bunch of people whom he and Ace met before Bernice joins them is a bit on the weird side, and stretches the premise of the story too thin for the sake of nostalgia about the NA range as a whole.

Like, Gilgamesh. Really? Of all the cool people the Doctor and Ace met in Timewyrm: Genesys, the one who gets an invite is the gross serial sexual harasser?

Roz has perhaps my favourite storyline, in which she teams up with Sherlock Holmes to solve a mystery – the great detective does not deal well at first with being in the future and thus out of his own comfort zone, where his usual tricks of deduction are less likely to be effective. But proving to himself that he can still be Sherlock Holmes even in an alien environment is of great satisfaction to him.

Chris’s plot line is basically being a shagbunny who apparently, despite coming from the future, is extremely rubbish at using protection. In this case, he is knocking around with teenage Ishtar, the young lady previously known as the Timewyrm, and while I spent the whole book being annoyed at Ishtar’s mother for being so weirdly protective of her daughter, she is basically justified at the end.

Where the story did dip into nostalgia that was directly relevant to Benny’s past, I enjoyed it very much – the reunion with the survivors from Heaven (from the novel Love and War) and their hand-fasting ritual involving nudity and cyberspace hallucinatory labyrinths was done very well indeed. I enjoyed the comic sequence that was the drunken stag and hen’s nights.

All in all, this is perhaps the most self-indulgent romp of all self-indulgent Doctor Who romps, and I do include the last 10 minutes of The End of Time in that category. But while it is basically a loosely connected pile of anecdotes about the weirdest wedding in history, it is still filled with scene after scene that makes me smile or laugh or nod in nostalgia, and it does rather make me want to go back and read all the books that I never got around to.

The Ace stuff is really icky, though. The resolution with her “fling” with Jason (spoiler, turns out the one she’s been shagging to ‘test’ his fidelity to Bernice is a clone) in no way justifies her gross behaviour, and Bernice’s oddly forgiving response to it. Oh, and having one of Ace’s former love interests turn up married to her mother increases the ick factor beyond all reasonable proportion.

The Daemons style crackfest reveal at the climax of the story was pretty ridiculawesome, though. Oh, Master. Don’t ever change.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Benny and Jason’s marriage didn’t last, and that they were far more fun as a divorced couple (and I say this as a mad Benny & Jason shipper). But you can’t say the wedding wasn’t memorable.

ELSEWHERE ON 1996:

Cold Fusion (7, Chris and Roz join forces with Adric, Tegan and Nyssa…) [Doctor Who Book Club Podcast]

The Scales of Injustice (Silurians & Liz Shaw!) [Doctor Who Book Club Podcast]

Damaged Goods (the only NA novel written by Russell T Davies, featuring a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gay sex scene) [Doctor Who Book Club Podcast]

PREVIOUSLY:

And You, Brutus? [Xena Rewatch 4.20-22]

4.20 Endgame

And just when it looked like the season was going to be mostly a write off… Xena got good again. Really, really good.

Some of the most interesting stories have been those involving the complex Amazon warrior culture (and Gabrielle’s ongoing ties to them), and the encroachment of the Romans into Xena’s Ancient Greece. In this story, those two plotpoints collide with devastating results.

Ephiny the Amazon Queen, Gabrielle’s dearest friend besides Xena herself, falls in battle against Brutus and the Romans. This isn’t the first time that the death of a queen has led her tribe to demand Gabrielle give up her wandering life to take up the role of Amazon Queen, but this time it’s very, very personal.

Danielle McCormack’s recurring role as Ephiny was one of the most memorable star turns in the series, and it hurts to lose her. But it’s a sign of the changes that will be coming in the season that follows this one – in Xena, we can take nothing for granted.

As Xena herself notes, change is in the wind. She has seen the Amazons go from a mighty nation to “a handful of scattered tribes,” and it feels like the end of an era is coming. But she’s not willing to bow down in submission before the Romans, or to allow the tribes to disappear.

While Xena goes on the attack, defeating Romans who sold Amazon prisoners into slavery, Gabrielle has her own moral quandary. Her way of peace is severely challenged by this situation, and the responsibility that the Amazons have placed upon her shoulders.

Xena takes Brutus prisoner, and Gabrielle is under extreme pressure to have him executed, but can’t bring herself to do it.

And then there’s Amarice, a mouthy teenager from “another tribe” who is constantly complaining about everyone around her not being good enough. She’s quite deeply annoying, in a very similar way to Tara, but Xena chooses to be patient with her, and try to teach her a little something.

Plus, the return of shiny blond Pompey Da Magnus and a tiny cameo by snarky McSnarkface Caesar!

Damn, I enjoyed this story. Xena hasn’t been this good for a long time, and it feels like they have finally found their way again. Massive, epic fight scenes, politics and scheming.

Gabrielle is angry at the vicious tactics Xena uses in battle, including putting the captured Roman soldiers on crosses, but when the heat is on, she leads the battle as a Queen must. No time for pacifism when the arrows are falling… and of course, at the end, she chooses yet another warrior to take her place, because the TV show is not called Gabrielle, Queen of the Amazons.

Brutus becomes an ally of sorts, helping the Amazons to defeat their mutual enemy Pompey and taking a peace treaty from the Amazon Nation to Rome, but will not listen to Xena’s urgings to be cautious of his beloved bro Caesar. Back in Rome, when Caesar burns the treaty, we see the first flicker of doubt and disappointment in Brutus’s face.

I WONDER IF THAT WILL BE SIGNIFICANT ANY TIME SOON?

*Checks the title of the next episode*

Ooh.

4.21 Ides of March

Oh Callisto, I have missed you so much!

Here’s the rub about living in a world with multiple types of afterlife: achieving death to gain oblivion isn’t necessarily going to work out the way you want. After finally meeting her end back in Sacrifice, Callisto is stuck in Hell (as distinct from Tartarus) and suffering the torture of being mocked by hallucinations of who else but Xena?

She is ripe to be tempted back into the mortal world to do some damage to her old enemy – particularly when she finds out that Xena’s path is earning her a place in the reincarnation queue despite her sins against Callisto’s family and other innocents.

The price is that Callisto has to team up with a certain J. Caesar. She does this with reckless glee, giving him the inspiration he needs to throw down with Xena once and for all. Because apparently it never occurred to him before that putting a bounty on her head would get her attention?

Meanwhile, Xena and Gabrielle are now travelling with Amarice, who making no effort to be likeable. The most interesting aspect of this trio is the way that Gabrielle is using more and more inventive ways to deal with violent situations without actually hurting people.

No wait, forget what I said. Amarice’s first words to the sanctimonious Eli are “If somebody threatened your mother, would you fight to defend her?” What with that and her ‘bitch, please’ expression while sizing him up, I now officially like her. Who’d have thought it?

While Xena goes running off to do violent things to Caesar, Gabrielle and Amarice hang around Eli’s hippie commune, talking about the philosophical significance of apples, and bringing on more of Amarice’s ‘bitch please’ expressions.

Frankly, Brutus and his thugs turning up to break up the party and take all the peaceniks (especially Gabrielle) as hostage comes as something of a relief.

“If you can love your way out of this one, be my guest.” (Amarice with a sword at her throat)

Xena, rocking the Romanpunk armour look, sneaks up on Caesar in his private chambers and sends that charm to do what it does best… except when Callisto is around to catch it, of course. Cue the awesome fight scenes, with disposable Romans and the completely magical, demonic Callisto in her urchin haircut and bright white tunic.

“They sent me to a place that makes Tartarus look like the Elysian Fields.” (Callisto)

While I love the scenery chewing of Karl Urban and Hudson Leick, it’s actually David Franklin as Brutus who carries much of the dramatic weight of the story, through his growing disillusionment with his precious Caesar, his quiet respect for Gabrielle, and his ability to look terrified of Xena every time she speaks to him.

Amarice continues to be awesome in her legitimate snarking about the incredibly smug and soppy ‘love exchange’ going on between Gabrielle and Eli in their snowbound mountain prison… which as it happens is the same place that Xena saw in her vision of being crucified alongside Gabrielle.

And along comes snow white Callisto with her temptation from the king of hell: her job is to ensure Xena doesn’t earn her redemption via the way of the warrior, and thus the price she demands for Gabrielle’s safety is for Xena to lay down her sword in love, peace and serenity.

I actually kind of love this. After all the angst and agony of this season, Xena now has utter confirmation that her current path – the way of the warrior – is absolutely what she needs to be doing, to make up for her guilt over past actions.

PEACE IS BAD, CHILDREN! HARMONIOUS MEDITATION IS A BIT EVIL.

And Brutus, poor Brutus, has his heart broken when he figures out what everyone else has known for a long time. Caesar is a dick.

“What would distract Xena more than her best friend’s execution?”

The battle is fought, Xena battles with renewed confidence, and the hippies (and Amarice) are saved. But Callisto, furious at her plans unravelling, breaks the rules she was given by directly striking Xena – she hurls Xena’s own chakram directly at her spine. Gabrielle, horrified by the sight of Xena lying helpless on the ground, takes up arms again, desperately hacking and slashing soldier after soldier with Xena’s sword, begging Xena to get up, to run away with her.

Gabrielle has, by the way, a lot of pent up aggression, and is quite good at killing people. Huh.

Xena lies in agony on the ground, horrified at the violence her friend has been driven to inflict. Gabrielle, also horrified, finally drops her sword as more Roman soldiers close in….

Things actually get worse from there. It’s a gut wrenching episode, with the ending that Xena has been seeing in her visions right from the start of this season. But at least there’s time for one more heartfelt, loving conversation to clear the air before Xena and Gabrielle are tied to crosses.

Back in Rome, Brutus confides his fears about Caesar’s ambition to the other senators, ensuring that he also has a pretty unpleasant Ides of March…

The use of white in this episode is pretty striking: from Callisto’s bright tunic to the terribly clean togas of Caesar and the senators, and of course the snow that falls as Xena and Gabrielle are crucified. I noticed this before I remembered reading that in fact there had been a conscious design choice to avoid white in Xena generally, to make sure that the show had a darker palette to Hercules (avoiding togas was also a big part of the original brief). Even Gabrielle’s virginal wedding dress back in season 2 had been more of a creamy gold colour. The dramatic contrast then in the jump cuts between both execution scenes is especially severe, as is the bizarre sight of Callisto dressed like a disco angel while doing the work of the devil.

And thus, the story of Caesar and Xena ends, with their mutual deaths. The difference between this and the first time that he crucified Xena is that she isn’t alone this time; nor is she rescued.

Haloed in suspiciously white outfits, with choral song, the spirits of Xena and Gabrielle find each other…

So, what is it to be? The Elysian Fields, reincarnation or that place with the harps they’ve been hinting at? I guess we’ll have to tune in next week to find out because that WAS NOT IN FACT THE SEASON FINALE.



4.22 Déjà Vu All Over Again

Cliiiiip show!

Xena has always done inventive things with the clip show format, the height being The Xena Scrolls. Over in Hercules land, they started something similar. There was a 30 second joke scene at the end of The Xena Scrolls in which a descendant of Joxer played by Ted Raimi (possibly playing his brother Sam?) pitched a TV show based on the lost scrolls of his ancestor to a Rob Tapert (producer of Hercules and Xena, who also married Lucy Lawless) played by Bruce Campbell.

With “Yes Virginia, There Is A Hercules,” (1998) and “For Those Of You Just Joining Us,”(1999) they took the joke one step further, telling the behind the scenes story of the making of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, with the regular cast playing writers and producers including Liz Friedman, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. In this surprisingly coherent ‘future present,’ both Hercules and Xena are hit shows, based on actual historical characters, with the important minor detail that Kevin Sorbo is in fact the real Hercules, immortal, playing himself in the TV show. Oh and Ares (who was freed back in The Xena Scrolls and set loose on the world again) is still making trouble…

Most of which is not especially relevant to this particular episode except to note that this is the same ‘future present’ as the others, which is why Xena: Warrior Princess is referred to both as a hit show and as a genuine historical character.

Unless, of course, as could be surmised, this entire episode is in fact a fevered hallucination by Xena and/or Gabrielle during the many days it would have taken them to die by crucifixion.

So, here we meet Annie (Lucy Lawless), a rabid Xena fan who convinced that she is the reincarnation of the legendary warrior. To the disgust of her boyfriend Harry (Ted Raimi) she insists on seeing past lives counsellor Maddie (Renee O’Connor), to figure out if Annie is the mysterious ‘Xena Vigilante’ who has been running around the city solving crimes.

After an in depth hypnosis session (cliiiip show!), Annie discovers to her deep horror that she was in fact Joxer, not Xena – and, as it turns out, the cynical Harry is the real Xena. Dr Maddie is, of course, Gabrielle, though as it turns out she is not a “genuine” past lives counsellor and has been running a scam. When her partner Marco (Robert Trebor) ties them all up with a literal bomb ticking (yeah that part didn’t make a lot of sense until later), Harry and Maddie explore their past lives so that he can activate his latent Xena powers and save them all.

Considering that the last proper episode climaxed with the deaths of our heroines, and that reincarnation and life after death has been a major, serious theme of this season, it is a bizarre choice to finish up with a slapstick comedy about past lives. On the other hand, it is a very Xena thing to do.

The other very Xena thing to do, of course, is to overtly explore the romantic possibilities of her relationship with Gabrielle via a male avatar, as referenced here with a clip from “The Quest” in which Gabrielle kisses a hallucination of the mostly dead Xena, and ends up with Autolycus’ moustache in her mouth.

So again here, we get one of the more overt confirmations that Xena and Gabrielle have a non-platonic eternal love, as acted out in the most heterosexual way possible, between Harry and Maddie. The old dynamics reassert themselves (including Harry actually hitting Annie to stop her endangering them, as Xena has often done to Joxer in the past), and he ends up fully possessed by Xena’s spirit.

When Harry proves himself to be Xena by saving them all from the bomb, Marco reveals his true self too – he is, of course, Ares. The performances by both Ted Raimi and Kevin Smith are especially good, managing to recreate the steamy chemistry that we usually see between Xena and Ares – and pulls the episode back from the brink of extreme heteronormativity.

Lucy Lawless pulls off a cleverly understated Ted Raimi/Joxer impersonation, but Ted Raimi’s Lucy Lawless/Xena is pretty damn spectacular, mimicking not only her inflection and body language, but also her fighting style.

As the only Xena fan in the room, it’s up to Annie (still smarting from the revelations of the day) to point out to Harry that their relationship is not going to work out, because Gabrielle is Xena’s soulmate. And, you know, that doesn’t ACTUALLY mean ‘platonic best friends’.

So as “Xena and Gabrielle” share a non-threatening M/F kiss at the end, Annie dances off down the street, making up a song about how awesome she is, Joxer-style – proving once again that Lucy Lawless could totally have a career in musical theatre.

It’s all horribly charming, but if I didn’t know for certain that Xena and Gabrielle were coming back next season, I would have very mixed feelings about this episode! I can’t help thinking that when it screened, Xena fandom across the world must have let out a mighty scream of WTF?

CHAKRAM STATISTICS:

People who want romance with Xena: 14

People Xena allows to romance her: 8

Xena dead lovers: 5 (yes I’m counting Caesar)

Gabrielle dead boyfriends: 2/7

“Adorable” children: 39

Babies: 7

Babies tossed humorously in the air during fight scenes: 6

Xena doppelgangers: 5

Xena sings a mourning song: 6

Gabrielle sprained ankles: 2

Xena dies: 4

Gabrielle dies: 5 (still ahead!)

Characters brought back from the dead (incl. ghosts and visits to the Underworld): 55 (I don’t remember how many of these are Callisto but it has to be a few by now)

Ares loses his powers and goes all to pieces about it: 2

Xena or Gabrielle earns money: 3

Xena or Gabrielle spends money (or claims to have money to spend): 9

Out of the Pantheons: Morpheus, Ares, Hera, the Titans, Hades, Celesta, Charon, the Fates, Bacchus, Aphrodite, Cupid, Poseidon, the Furies, Discord, Krishna

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, Boadicea, Cleopatra, Crassus, Pompey, Sophocles

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

Hide the Hestian Virgins!

Lunatic with Lethal Combat Skills

Coping with Your First Kill

Sweet Hestia, I’m In a Den of Filth

The Bitter and Sweet of It

Because Caesar Was Taken

Armageddon When??

Rolling Around Like Weasels

You Killed Me?

My Fungus Is Spreading

Virtue is Its Own Reward

Mr Stinky, I Presume

She’s Responsible For Your Death!

Blood, Sex and a Hot Tub

These Shoes Fit Me Perfectly [WHO-50—1996]

Every regeneration brings a new look for the Doctor – sure, his face and entire body are different, but that’s not important.

The important thing is his NEW LOOK – his sartorial style. None of the Doctors wore exactly the same thing for every single episode (though a few from the JN-T era came close, with only a couple of variations) but they all had a very powerful and recognisable aspect to their fashion choices, which makes the Doctor feel like he is in costume rather than in clothes.

This makes the traditional Wardrobe Room sequence an essential and fascinating aspect to each regeneration story. Only a few Doctors actually discover their trademark outfit in the TARDIS Wardrobe Room itself – but there is always a sequence of some kind in which every new Doctor discovers for himself What Kind of Trousers He Likes.

The Second Doctor was unsure of everything when he first regenerated – not least whether he should bother telling his companions Ben and Polly what exactly the hell was going on with him – but he knew he liked hats. The stovepipe hat which he selected in Power of the Daleks never appeared again (unless it’s slipped into one of those missing stories in a minor sequence everyone has forgotten) but thanks to a bunch of publicity photos, it has stuck with him over the years and certainly made multiple re-appearances in comics and novel illustrations.

The Third Doctor stole his Look, lock stock and barrel, from a rather haughty gentleman in the hospital he attended – not only his ruffled shirt and cape combination, but also his car! Throughout his run, he wore more distinct outfits than any other Doctor, and yet they all conformed to the mode he committed to right from the start (you were the first shirt that these shoulders saw).

The Fourth Doctor used a bit of film trickery to appear as a quick change artist, flirting with Pierrot, King of Hearts and Viking costumes before settling on a “random” combination of coat, shirt and trousers, pulled together by the two key accessories that would define his look: that hat and THAT super long hand-knitted scarf.

The Fifth Doctor wandered through the TARDIS in a haze of amnesia, before stumbling across a convenient outfit that she had blatantly laid out for him to find – the first time we see the TARDIS actively taking an interest in what her bloke wears. Possibly she was just sick of the scarf.

The Sixth Doctor chose his outfit with extreme deliberation, and it’s hard not to watch that scene as being part of his post-regeneration trauma, in which he wants to inflict the most unpleasant experience possible upon his fellow travellers. This is, however, nothing compared to some of the even more dreadful outfits that were available in the wardrobe room in that episode – Commander Lang staggers in there after a concussion and manages to select an outrageously camp striped silvery blue tunic for himself, which not only looks terrifying and is apparently made from chocolate wrappers, but also manages to be the hiding place Peri had chosen for his gun clip.

The Seventh Doctor delved into to the TARDIS wardrobe in a scene so familiar it was almost becoming a parody of itself – the twist being that it wasn’t his loyal helpmeet Mel who witnessed the scene, but the cynical Rani in disguise. What could be old hat was rendered highly entertaining by her dislike and obvious boredom as he playfully teased his way through a series of Old Doctor accessories, before throwing off the Second Doctor’s Yeti coat to reveal another of those Carefully Calculated ensembles, complete with question mark jumper and the hat that won Sylvester McCoy his audition.

So basically, once the Eighth Doctor turned up, there was a whole lot of baggage attached to the Wardrobe Room Scene – and as it happens, in an uneven and flawed production that often made poor choices as to its balance of Old Backstory and New Stuff, they got this part pretty damned perfect.

Amnesiac and confused after being unexpectedly killed on the surgical table and then regenerating in a corpse drawer, the Eighth Doctor emerged like Frankenstein’s Monster, wrapped only in a sheet, and promptly staggered around a distressingly broken and derelict part of the hospital (why are all the things smashed?) in a haze of artistically-shot angst.

Then, still unsure about who he was, he found his way to a bunch of staff lockers, which had been conveniently stacked with fancy dress costumes for the Millennium Party about to begin.

The Eighth Doctor picked up a long scarf first (which suggested one of the party-goers was a PBS-watching Tom Baker fan) and held it up for a moment before discarding it. He then did likewise with a Nixon mask before settling on the Wild Bill Hickock number. He chucked the gun that went with it, leaving a deep green velvet jacket, grey waistcoat and, basically, a perfect Old Fashioned Gentleman Doctor costume.

My first question is, has anyone ever seen a velvet cowboy costume for hire?? Was it a homemade custom cosplay job? I’m pretty sure Wild Bill wasn’t dressed like that in Young Riders. Anyway…

A very cute touch is that the costume fitted, but the Doctor couldn’t find the right shoes – and so went around gorgeously dressed but barefoot for the next several scenes, including those in which he met Dr Grace Holloway for the first time in this body and followed her home. This not only set up something of a ‘Tarzan and Jane’ vibe between he and the impeccably dressed ‘Amazing Grace,’ but also provided background humour because the Doctor’s toe tag from the morgue is still extremely visible.

Strangely, the appallingly judgemental boyfriend who had just left Grace because she dared to leave an opera date because she was on call and had lives to save (or um, end), took ALL THE FURNITURE in the house but left his shoes. Which happened to be the right size.

This led to one of the official Best Bits of the TV movie in which the Doctor finally convinced Grace that there was something strange, wonderful and alien about him (instead of just being a creepy stalker in her car), but broke off from a dramatic speech to express how happy he was about his new shoes – a moment often cited as the point at which many Doctor Who fans fell in love with Paul McGann as the Doctor.

The Doctor: No, no, no, no, no… wait, wait! I remember – I’m with my father, we’re lying back in the grass, it’s a warm Gallifreyan night…

Grace: Gallifreyan?

The Doctor: Gallifrey! Yes, this must be where I live. Where is that?

Grace: I’ve never heard of it before.

The Doctor: A meteor storm… t-the sky above us was dancing with lights! (He dances around, pointing as if they can see them now) Purple, green, brilliant yellow… yes!

Grace: What?

The Doctor: These shoes! [Stomps the ground happily.] They fit perfectly!

Once the shoes fit, he began not only to remember who he was, but to act like the Doctor – as if the costume was the final, essential stage of the regeneration process.

This was mirrored by the Master’s progression in the TV movie, arguably more traumatic than that of the Doctor because he had left all vestiges of his prior life behind, surviving only as ashes, a snake and some translucent goo before finally taking over the body of ambo Bruce (Eric Roberts).

Luckily for the Master, Bruce had a whole bunch of leather in his wardrobe, and some fierce sunglasses. I’m not sure whether the Master went through a variety of different leather jackets/coats as the movie progressed, or if was simply clever shooting that made it look that way: once he began to embrace his old, evil self, we saw him first in close-fitting leather jacket in mid-shot that was quite sensible, and later in a long, dramatic leather coat that seemed more flowing and robe-like in each scene.

Finally as the caterpillar broke free of the leather cocoon, the Master admitted his true identity in the scene where he descended the staircase in the TARDIS, purring the much lampooned line “I always drrrresss for the occasion” in full Gallifreyan robes with high collar, red and gold embroidery, and a whole lot of swish.

We’d never seen the Master like this before. Black cloaks and capes, yes, and his classic ‘look’ in the 1980′s certainly had a hint of high collar about it. But the reds and golds of the Time Lord politicos had never been something we associated with him, so he looked wrong in them, every bit as wrong as Tom Baker looked in those same robes back in The Deadly Assassin (well, not the same robes, Eric Roberts was quite obviously wearing a far more expensively designed and produced version).

I still kind of love that bit. I’m sorry.

Finally, let’s look at Grace Holloway and her clothes – like the Doctor and Master, hers were very carefully chosen, but unlike either of them, they don’t represent character growth or change for her. She was pretty much already awesome.

Much has been made of the scene in which Grace dropped an artful tear at a fake opera, and then ran in slow motion through the ER in the same opera gown (a gorgeous, billowing satin number), only to refuse to change out of it when she got there because, style. Oh, okay, lack of time. But mostly, STYLE, BABY.

It’s her later clothes that caught my eye on a recent rewatch, though, possibly because I have been somewhat absorbed in the Song of Ice and Attire blog which draws attention to the way many characters in Game of Thrones wear costumes designed to call attention to their relationships or political allegiances.

Grace finally ditched the ballgown for (briefly) scrubs, but after meeting the Doctor, her civilian clothes always seem to match or reflect his in some way. Not a green velvet jacket, sadly, but in the carpark scene she wore a grey trenchcoat that seems to match his waistcoat and cravat.

When she came home to change, she added layers of grey including a belted wool coat and a scarf of silk-and-velvet, with a couple of touches of purple in her blouse and gloves. For some reason she put the grey trenchcoat on over the wool coat for the park scene, but didn’t return to the house with it, and later did all the motorcycle chase scenes in just her wool coat.

You can see Grace’s layered look up more closely in the motorcycle scene – and the combination of scarf, blouse and coat does look a LOT like the Doctor’s waistcoat ensemble – plus she has a brooch at her throat that adds a touch more Victoriana to her look, reflecting his. Is this intended to show what a good companion she would for to him?

In the final sequence, where Grace replied to the Doctor’s travel invitation with a counter offer – “No, you come with me!” and they parted sadly, the lighting actually made the purple and greys of Grace’s outfit very similar to the blue of the TARDIS herself. Ahh, colour co-ordination.

Possibly it would be going too far to point out that while they started out with very different hairstyles, Grace’s smooth hair had become so dishevelled by the end of their adventure that it looked like they were wearing matching wigs?

I’ll save that argument for another day.

ELSEWHERE ON 1996

A Modern Woman’s Guide to Classic Who: The Eighth Doctor Years [tansyrr.com]

His Humanity Proven [Tor.com]

The TV Movie [The Angriest]

Dashing and Debonair [NeoWhovian]

Things We Like: The One With the Kiss Edition [Verity!]

The TV Movie [Wife in Space]

Eight is Not Enough [Verity! Podcast]

Interview with Paul McGann [The Independent]

The Rampaging Return of Liquid Gold.

Remember those comic fantasy novels I got published back in the 20th century when beer was 5p an ounce and children all had excellent manners? Here’s one I prepared earlier!

Liquid Gold was the second book in the Mocklore Chronicles, often erroneously referred to as the Mocklore trilogy. A sequel to Splashdance Silver (though intended to work as a standalone novel) it continued the adventures of Kassa Daggersharp, pirate queen (and occasionally witch) and her slapstick crew of half-arsed criminals. Liquid Gold introduced a time travel plot, a new tough female character in sensible armour, and a bunch of classical history and mythology references (I was in third year university when I wrote it, had just chosen my Classics major and was terribly impressed with myself for taking a Latin reading course of The Aeneid from which I borrowed copiously).

Sadly the print run and distribution for Liquid Gold was much smaller than for Splashdance Silver, and so over the years I have heard that many people who had enjoyed the first book never managed to source a copy of the second.

Well, now you can! Thanks to Tehani at Fablecroft (and the ebook production work of my own silent producer) Liquid Gold is now available for sale in e-edition. You can currently pick it up via Amazon/Kindle or in any preferred format from Wizard’s Tower Books, and it will soon also be available at Kobo and Weightless Books.

Here’s a widget that Cheryl made for me:

Original Blurb:

Liquid Gold – the most seductively dangerous substance in the history of the cosmos – has just been discovered in the Mocklore Empire. But no sooner does its creator, Mistress Opia, realise its breathtaking capacity to manipulate time than Sparrow, the troll-raised mercenary, steals it away.

With the Liquid Gold unleashed, nothing will ever be the same again, certainly not for Kassa Daggersharp, who is unexpectedly killed by a rampaging trinket. As the Underworld’s latest client, Kassa is in a position to notice that something is terribly wrong with the afterlife – and everywhere else.

Meanwhile, an escaping Sparrow teams up with Daggar, a profit-scoundrel doing his best to be unscrupulous. But neither are prepared for the repercussions of tampering with the Liquid Gold.

Tansy Rayner Roberts’ hilarious sequel to ‘Splashdance Silver’ has a full complement of dysfunctional gods, dastardly villains and butt-kicking heroines.

Sexual Harassment at SF Conventions.

It’s been a big day for the discussion of sexual harassment at SF conventions!

An important guest post went up across several high traffic, popular author blogs, written by Elise Matthesen. You can read it in various places, but I first saw it at Jim C Hines‘ blog, and then (with Mary’s commentary) at Mary Robinette Kowal‘s. You should read it in Elise’s words – her post is a clear account of what happened after she was sexually harassed at the recent Wiscon by a well known editor in the industry. She discusses not only her personal reaction, but particularly the process she went through in reporting the harassment, both to the convention committee themselves, and to the editor’s employers at Tor. In both cases, she was treated with great support and respect, which I think is an important aspect to the story – that sexual harassment policies were backed up with effective and non-confrontational procedures.

I’ve heard this incident discussed in various places, from private mailing lists and forums to personal conversations, and of course comments on blogs. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of the story of how many people’s response to hearing the editor’s name was “Oh, well. Yes. I’m not surprised.” Because, people always know. Either they turn a blind eye, or they quietly warn their friends, or they hold off from speaking it aloud because of not wanting to make waves, or risk their careers. Speaking out is scary, especially when a serial harasser is someone who has power and influence in our industry.

Elise Mattheson is very brave to speak out, and indeed to put her name to the formal report, something many have not done, but… she has spoken out, and the world has not ended. She has friends and many people of great influence who have been willing to stand up with her and say ‘this isn’t okay.’ Which is important because of course, many harassments do not get reported NOT because of a lack of bravery, but because women feel powerless, or are afraid of being blamed or told they are making a fuss about nothing. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or just in the wrong (which is to say, right) places, but it feels like there has been less pushback this time around, as compared to what happened to when Genevieve Valentine went public about being harassed at Readercon. [Edit: She recently wrote a killer post about her experiences with sexual harassment more generally over her life, and how she's doing a year after Readercon: Dealing With It.]

It feels like fewer excuses are being made, less complaining that this is even an issue, and that overall our community is doing a better job of dealing with these issues. Am I imagining that? Are we actually making progress here? Or have I just filtered my internet too completely?

What has been happening today, in response to Elise making her story public, is that other women have been standing up and telling their stories.

Cherie Priest says Maybe It’s Just Us, talking about her various experiences being sleazed on to or harassed at conventions, and how women often group together informally to protect and warn each other because they are used to not being listened to.

Mary Robinette Kowal talks about Elise was talking about, and the societal baggage that comes with making sexual harassment complaints.

Alisa Krasnostein says It’s not just them over there, talking about sexual harassment in its various forms (being groped at a party and being talked over on a panel, all part of the same thing which is being treated as less of a person because you are female), which aspects of conventions she is least comfortable attending, and why she prefers to be in the bar or the dealer’s room with people she trusts.

Maria Dahvana Headley talks about conference creeps, and why calling a convention a “safe space” doesn’t mean it is one, unless you meant to say “safe space for harassers” and lists the many experiences she has had of being treated as if she is at a convention for a harasser’s benefit rather than her own. It’s a horribly funny post, particularly the comparison to pirates at the end which had me laughing out loud.

I also think that Amal El-Mohtar (@tithenai) tweeted a very important message in relationship to the subject:

“If this summer seems relentless where talk of harrassment in SF is concerned? Recognize that’s because it IS relentless.”

Friday Links Is Depressed By Politics This Week

In the last week, I’ve found two new things to be obsessed with reading on the internet. Neither of them is actually NEW, but you know. The first is the exceptional Mansplained (Academic Men Explain Things to Me) Tumblr, in which highly educated and professional women share their anecdotal experiences of having less qualified men explain their own field to them. Not every post is a gem, but so many are, and I ended up reading the whole thing back to the beginning (seriously, 50 pages) because there was something magical and empowering about seeing all that experience gathered together – an acknowledgement that no, you’re not imagining things, this happens ALL THE TIME.

The second revelation is Nimona, an excellent web comic with gorgeous art by Gingerhaze, about a rebellious teen shapechanger who volunteers herself as sidekick to an Evil Villain and forms an adorable filial relationship with him. I love it to bits, it’s funny and sweet and so nice to see a heroine who isn’t stick-thin or bothered about good manners or niceness.

Other than that, the last couple of days have been inspiring and horrible as far as women in politics go. The ramped up sexist bullshit in the Australian media over the last several months set the scene for a Labor spill, as even many of Prime Minister Gillard’s closest supporters lost faith that their party could win with her leading them.

The fall of Julia Gillard was not entirely about her being a woman, but as she said herself in her speech, “it didn’t explain everything, and it didn’t explain nothing.” This article by Katharine Murphy has a pretty good overview of some of our former Prime Ministers flaws and faults, and reasons why she put many of the Australian public offside, but also acknowledges the awful gender-based attacks, double-standards and criticisms against her on a near daily basis (though I think doesn’t go into that aspect in nearly enough depth). The whole experience has been, for me as an Australian woman, very demoralising, regardless of personal politics. I know many were disappointed in Gillard as a Prime Minister, and I can’t say I wasn’t one of them at times, but I am far more disappointed in what her time as our country’s leader has revealed about the ingrained misogyny still at play in politics and the media. Also very disappointed that we only started hearing solid, postitive coverage of her many achievements while in office ONCE she was safely gone.

Only a few weeks earlier, the public discussion of a gratuitous, vile joke about the Prime Minister’s body parts on a menu at an Opposition dinner led to her actually DROPPING approval points in the polls, among male voters. How can we fight that?

Twitter did a lot to make the night of the #spill bearable, though. Hoyden About Town also looked at some of the ramifications of losing Gillard as leader, with the comments continuing the discussion through the evening as the announcement came in. They also did a good job of summarising the bizarre media about-face whereby they all started talking about Julia Gillard with astounding respect and acknowledging of her achievements… once she was no longer in power.

I mean, it’s better than what I feared, which was Gillard going down in the history books as “She was the Prime Minister But (it didn’t count)” but it’s still frustrating to realise how much the media contributed to the distracting public perception of her as a woman who wasn’t feminine enough, or was too feminine, sometimes both at once, to be taken seriously as a political leader. The problem was NOT that she knows how to knit, people!

Speaking of Twitter and ingrained misogyny in politics, the other big story of Wednesday (OK Tuesday in the states but it was an afternoon thing for those of us playing along from Australia) was the filibuster of Senator Wendy Davis, who was attempting to prevent a new bill that would drastically limit abortions across Texas, closing most centres and preventing many women from getting desperately needed, life-saving healthcare. Senator Davis went viral as hundreds of thousands of people around the world tuned in to watch her deeply informative exploration of the ramifications of the bill, and abortion generally, and were thus watching when the Senate began using some pretty dirty tricks to stop her being heard.

Alisa has written a personal account of her observations of the filibuster and what the results tell us about the way women are held to different versions of the rules than men, in politics and indeed many other places. The Guardian also provided some solid coverage of the events that was a lot closer to my observations than MANY of the mainstream media interpretations of that night’s work. One of the most common tweets I saw from US citizens was a complaint at how little coverage Senator Davis’ filibuster was receiving in TV news that night, and indeed in many online newspapers until it was all over – and many of them got crucial details wrong when they did begin to report on it.

Salon hailed Wendy Davis as a feminist superhero, and Jezebel held a gif party of joy in her honour. Oh, and if you’re as sick as the rest of us about the constant reference to the clothing and style choices of women in politics, this Amazon page for the same brand of sneakers she wore in the Senate is full of marvellous feminist snark and commentary disguised as reviews. “I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals.”

Meanwhile, more exceptions are being made to ensure that Senator Davis’ filibuster was in vain. Because, you know, literally one law for men and a different one for women.

Gah, okay, all that was depressing. What does pop culture have to offer us, to make it feel better?

How about the awesomeness of the Carol Corps, the female fandom that has sprung up around the character of Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) currently written by Kelly-Sue Deconnick?

Liz Bourke at Sleeps With Monsters declares that the new Tomb Raider game is bloody awesome – and inclusive! Is this how men feel when they play games ALL THE TIME?

A high school student talks about why she set up a feminist society, and how people around her have reacted – yes that’s right, people, misogyny does start this early.

Ian Grey writes about how Star Trek: Voyager was a) much better than you think it was and b) the most feminist and subversive Star Trek series.

And oh yes, there’s this – a truly bewildering and self-involved article by a male writer on why the female characters he writes (omniscient breasts and all) are more realistic and simply better than the female characters that women write. Oh and he’s pretty sure women are doing so well in YA fiction because it’s not as hard to write, and because their ridiculous standards for characters fit better into works for that age group. Luckily for those of us likely to rise up in protest about such pure, close-minded, unexamined drivel, we don’t have to rageblog about it because Foz Meadows has your back. *High fives Foz*

I also wanted to draw attention to this fascinating piece by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the half-white, half-Korean writer/artist of the Scott Pilgrim comics, about his realisation through the movie adaption of his work that he had created a mostly white piece of pop culture, effectively whitewashing his own experience. He also discusses how whitewashing becomes more obvious on film than in comics/animation, because it’s easier to project yourself on to a drawing than to an actor – manga, for instance, often portrays characters that look white to Western eyes, and yet are clearly expected to be read as Japanese from the context.

I found the piece first through i09 and am linking to their take on it too, because I found the comments horribly compelling in how many people miss the point and are arguing/yelling at the author for something he has already taken responsibility for, and telling him how wrong he is about the movie industry being kinda whitewash-friendly.

Sure, the issue is kind of complicated, as O’Malley himself discusses, but it’s amazing how many people can read his words and still only take away ‘omg he’s bitching about that movie I love, make him stop talking about racial issues!’

Let’s finish up with an article I heard described as ‘nurturing’ – the Guardian on why your feminism is not beholden to anyone else’s definition.

If you all still need cheering up with some pro-women goodness I give you: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler!

Watching New Who: The Specials

The Next Doctor / Planet of the Dead /

The Waters of Mars (2010)

The Doctor: David Tennant

The Next Doctor: David Morrissey

Rosita: Velile Tshabalala

Miss Hartigan: Dervla Kirwan

Lady Christina de Souza: Michelle Ryan

Adelaide Brooke: Lindsey Duncan

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Series 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the “Doctor Who in Conversation” team, with a history in Doctor Who watching that goes WAY back.

We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points.

TEHANI:

Well, David, we’re on the final countdown with David Tennant’s run as the Doctor. For me, getting to these episodes was bittersweet, as I had already watched all Matt Smith’s episodes and had then gone back to start with Eccleston and work my way forward to where I started. After the lovely get together of all the gang in the last two episodes of Season Four proper, and then the hideous ending that poor Donna got, these specials are a really interesting change of pace, as the Doctor flits about on his own, essentially. The way it affects him, his decision making, his self-image, all that stuff, is what makes these stand-alone episodes wholly discussion-worthy!

In some ways, having just finished watching the last episode of Season 7, I have to suggest (to Tansy, cover your eyes David!) that these specials are almost the forerunner, stylistically, to the latest season – very much episodic by nature, grand scale, almost movie-like in presentation. What do you think?

TANSY:

In presentation yes there’s a similarity, though I was not very impressed with the year of specials at the time – after four years of regular, reliable Doctor Who, it was gutting to wait so long between episodes, and for several of them (I’m looking at “Planet of the Dead” in particular) to be so disappointingly slight. I think Series 7 achieved the movie event style effect far better, probably because I like the writing and characters better.

Without a regular character (and Donna in particular) to ground him, it felt like the Tenth Doctor was far more of a distant character, moving further away from us. Maybe not a bad thing because we had to think about weaning ourselves off him?

DAVID:

He seemed to be drifting, like he had lost whatever anchor it was that held him close to humanity.

TEHANI:

Do you think that was deliberate? They had to know they were working up to Tennant leaving, after all?

TANSY:

Oh, they knew. It had been announced he was leaving well before “The Next Doctor,” and I think Matt Smith was introduced to the nation (in an actual TV special) shortly after that. In a recent Verity we described it as being like an awkward, dragged-out break up where a couple split, but keep living together until the lease on their house runs out.

TEHANI:

We start out with “The Next Doctor”, the title of which I can only imagine sent the fans into spasms at the time! Actually the Christmas special that year, I have to say I absolutely loved it! I loved that the villain was a hard as nails woman, absolutely a product of the time but not afraid to take an opportunity when she saw it.

I ADORED the steampunk-ish elements of the story. I was completely enamoured with David Morrissey’s “Doctor”, and the story that went along with that. And I’m not a huge Cybermen fan, but I really did like this story.

TANSY:

“The Next Doctor” a style over substance kind of story for me – like most of the specials. Oh so pretty, but not a huge amount to it.

TEHANI:

Pretty matters!

TANSY:

I’m not sure anyone really bought that David Morrissey was really going to be one of our Doctors but it was fascinating to speculate on who the hell he really was – a very clever central idea. A little disappointing he didn’t turn out to be the Meddling Monk in disguise, though.

I am a sucker for ‘classic Doctor Who monsters in historical storylines’, so enjoyed that aspect. And I did very much like the way that the episode kicked at the mythology of the show – looking at what makes the Doctor the Doctor by creating another one and having our Doctor pretend to be his companion. David Morrissey felt very convincing as a Doctor – I think his “Victorian gent with panache” interpretation of the role is the sort of thing we expected when the show first came back in 2005 (it also reflects the style choices made around Paul McGann’s Doctor) and because of Blackpool, Morrissey was an actor much speculated as a front runner for the role.

The two Davids worked brilliantly together – enough to make me sad that the show never really gave the ‘male companion’ thing a chance for more than a few episodes at a time … during the RTD era, anyway!

TEHANI:

What didn’t work for me? I wasn’t really sold on Rosita – I think I appreciated what they tried to do with her, but sadly, she just didn’t get fleshed out enough to do the character justice. And the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man-style robot creature stomping across the landscape made me laugh, rather than perhaps a more appropriate reaction!

TANSY:

Well, it is a Christmas special. Important to remember these are all designed to be watched after everyone’s been eating and drinking too much all day. Speaking of which, the big gosh wow moment was the time stamp which showed us images of all the previous Doctors – we’d only seen them physically represented on screen in the sketches in The Journal of Impossible Things back in “Human Nature/The Family of Blood”, so this was a big deal.

DAVID:

It’s funny you mention about it being a Christmas special, because for the first ten minutes or so I couldn’t get my head around this episode, then I realised that it was *meant* to be a little over the top and something clicked. I enjoyed it much more after that!

I was trying to work out why David Morrissey looked so familiar, and then I realised he is the Governor from The Walking Dead! That was a surreal moment. But, I really enjoyed his character, and I’d be happy if they brought him back to play Twelve – Astra style (though I am aware that won’t happen)! Rosita was an excellent Companion, and I enjoyed their dynamic. It was also interesting seeing the Doctor get to see what things must look from the outside.

TANSY:

Oh and Dervla Kirwan is brilliant in this, especially the scene with The Red Dress, but it’s a shame her character makes no sense at all. Almost everything she says is so bizarrely scripted, it’s hard to believe that the same person wrote those lovely Doctor-Doctor scenes.

TEHANI:

Oh yes, I liked her a lot!

DAVID:

I agree that Hartigan made absolutely no sense as a character. We don’t get any real sense of what her motivations are, what she wants, she could have been replaced by any stock villain with no impact on the episode at all (other than losing a brilliant actor). I assume that she was trying break free of a patriarchal society, but that was barely realised. They could have done so much more with her but she left me cold.

I liked the steampunk vibe of this episode, too. But, one area where they shouldn’t have gone that way was with the giant robot. It looked pretty awesome, but didn’t really fit in with the Cyberman style. Speaking of the Cybermen, I take it these were the “real” Cybermen, not the Earth 2 version? I liked the transparent brain case, a very nice touch. And, the Cybershades were a good addition, too.

TANSY:

I think they’re actually Earth 2 Cybermen because they have the Cybus logo. And the Doctor witters on at one point about them falling through a crack in the universes. So no real ones yet, sorry. Hang in there! Also, the transparent brain case looks awesome in not-Lego form. Raeli has one.

DAVID:

*sigh* Oh well, I will keep waiting. Though, was that a semi-spoiler, Tansy?!

TANSY:

Just because I said ‘yet’ doesn’t mean we’re not still waiting! You know there hasn’t been another Cyberman story since, right?

(Phew, I think I got away with that one)

TEHANI:

This “don’t spoil David” thing is getting harder! Hurry up and catch up!

DAVID:

One of the things I have found interesting is the legitimisation of the Eighth Doctor. For a while I got the feeling people were trying to forget the movie ever happened, but with the Eighth Doctor Adventures, he is definitely well embedded in canon. Showing him here, amongst all the others, reinforces that. And, how many memories did the parade of Doctors Past that bring back? Though, I was hoping they might do a Brain of Morbius and show some future incarnations!

TANSY:

The faces in Brain of Morbius are NOT future incarnations, they are Morbius’ other selves, right? (at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) It would be kind of hilarious if, in ten years time, episodes like this were re-edited, Lucas-style, to include future faces of the Doctor. Can you imagine the fan explosions if that happened?

TEHANI:

I have no idea what the two of you are talking about. So I’ll move on…

I’m a bit ambivalent about “Planet of the Dead”. On one hand I absolutely adored capable, confident, slightly criminal Christina and would happily have seen her travel with the Doctor for a while. I also really enjoyed Lee Evans’ performance as Malcolm, and seeing UNIT again. On the other hand, the plot was just a bit slight, for me.

TANSY:

I seriously hated Christina, which is so rare for me with a companion or companion type. It started out as mild dislike but honestly it gets worse every time I watch this one. The whole ‘cat-burglar with a heart’ thing is such an old-fashioned style of character type and we learn so little about her to move her beyond the stereotype. The posh accent and cavalier attitude towards everyone around her doesn’t do her any favours. I honestly don’t see why she earned her happy ending, and would have thought much better of the Doctor if he had let her be arrested for her crimes (COS CRIMES) and then met her when she emerged from prison years later, handing over the keys to the flying bus then.

TEHANI:

I know you’re right, morally and logically (and actually, I really wish we DID know more about her and her life and journey, which is kind of why I would watch more of her) … but I still loved her

TANSY:

Back in 1989 the plan was for the next post-Ace character to be a posh catburglar girl, with the production crew wanting someone like Catherine Zeta-Jones or Julia Sawahla to play her. So the idea has been around for a very long time … but I don’t think it works in the 21st century. Maybe if they’d set the story in the 1960s?

DAVID:

They really could have just called her Catwoman, couldn’t they? But, they did have great chemistry! My favourite “companion” in this was actually Malcolm! I thought he was hilarious – very Frank Spencer!

TEHANI:

YES! Frank Spencer, exactly!

DAVID:

I didn’t mind this episode at all, I liked the idea of creatures that had evolved into predators moving from world to world. We talked earlier about the idea of an ecosystem of time, well this an ecosystem on a interplanetary scale. And, I always enjoy non humanoid, hideous aliens that don’t turn out to be the bad guys.

TANSY:

I will admit that the aliens were quite good in this, and the filming looked spectacular. But it is, sadly, my least favourite Doctor Who story involving a bus.

TEHANI:

“The Waters of Mars” is the episode which won the Hugo in 2010 (all three of these Specials were nominated), and I think it’s probably well-deserved. The dramatic tension of the plot and excellent performances by all guest actors make it an all around fantastic episode that I continue to enjoy re-watching. That said, the ending MAKES NO SENSE TO ME! Please, someone explain how the heck this could still work?!

TANSY:

The ending of “The Waters of Mars” doesn’t work. It’s ridiculous – an insult of an ending. The ultimate tacked on (it was a last minute script change) gratuitous death because it turns the whole story into one big narrative mess.

TEHANI:

I’M SO GLAD YOU SAID THAT!

TANSY:

And it’s such a shame because otherwise “The Waters of Mars” is a fascinating, well made story. A very well scripted base-under-siege story which looks actively at the Doctor’s responsibility when it comes to meeting famous people in history. The cast is brilliant, especially our own Peter O’Brien (love him, love him always, ever since The Flying Doctors) sporting his Aussie accent loud and proud, and the marvellous Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide Brooke. (does anyone remember when there was a fan theory that the water theme for female companion/characters was significant because River, Brooke, Pond? Hilarious). The scene in which the Doctor tells Adelaide about her granddaughter’s destiny is one of the best bits of Doctor Who of all time – a marvellous Doctory moment.

DAVID:

What an amazing cast! Peter O’Brien is instantly recognisable, and adds a nice sense of history between him and the Captain, and has that air of capability about him, but the real star here is Lindsay Duncan. What an incredible performance, and what a great character. If we had written the report card after the specials she would have been my pick, by far.

And no, I avoided fan theories like the plague! lol

TANSY:

The situation where the Doctor has to LET people die because it’s a famous point in history, and then he decides to save them anyway … that’s such a perfect Doctor Who set up. Seeing the Doctor walk away from the base knowing they are all going to die … and then turning back because he’s the Doctor and he has to try and save them anyway. PERFECT DOCTOR WHO.

Likewise, him being drunk on his own power for breaking all the laws of time is a great moment, and should have been the note on which the story ended. It would have led far better into the finale. Adelaide bringing him ‘down to earth’ with her suicide simply spoils the effect as well as making NO SENSE AT ALL. It feels like it was there to hurt the Doctor and the viewers, regardless of what it did to the story.

If she was going to kill herself to save the future, why on earth have her do it inside the house where her family would find her, thereby affecting the timeline? If they’d shown that her gun dematerialised bodies at least that would work, but they didn’t. And what about the cute kids who ran off hand in hand, what changes have they wrought to the timeline by surviving? The co-writers wrote themselves into a corner and then failed to climb out again. Such a waste of an otherwise excellent production.

TEHANI:

I know! It made no sense, and otherwise, that story was so darn good. I’ve watched this one a bunch of times now, and each time I think, ‘maybe now I’ll figure out how it worked’, and each time I get to the end and go, ‘what the heck?’ I’ll stop trying to understand now!

DAVID:

It’s interesting you say that, because to me it made perfect sense. Even though the Doctor has always played a little fast and loose with the laws of Time, he has always operated within certain boundaries, both voluntarily because it is the right thing to do, and in an involuntary fashion, because Time protects itself and generally acts to bring things reasonably close to how they were meant to be, even if there are slight variations.

The idea of a Doctor who not only doesn’t feel any moral constraints to not go around changing Time, but actually has nothing stopping him from doing so, is a pretty scary one. Logically, where would it stop? I thought the idea of the ending, whether it was executed well or not, is that there are still consequences if you play with Time, even for the Doctor. Whether it was Adelaide showing a greater degree of wisdom of the Doctor and sacrificing herself to do what she saw as the right thing, or Time itself forcing the lines of history back on track, it shows that the Doctor is not God and above every law of the universe – moral or scientific.

TEHANI:

No, see I got that that’s what they were TRYING for, but it still doesn’t make any sense, for the reasons Tansy says above. It’s not the same as dying in an unknown way on a far off planet, not by any stretch…

DAVID:

But, that’s the thing – that’s how she was meant to die, but the Doctor interfered. Adelaide was willing to do what needed to be done, even if the Doctor wasn’t. It may not have been the same, but in the end it had the same effect and the timeline was preserved. However, I may just be giving the writers WAY too much credit!

Of course, there is something problematic about a strong woman character being killed off to motivate the male lead. Isn’t that the definition of fridging?

TANSY:

Yes it is absolutely. And I do think you’re giving the writers too much credit, David! They evidently intended to do what you suggest, but I think they wasted the opportunity with a dodgy dismount.

This one is the only Doctor Who of the RTD era which I categorically will not let my daughter watch (she has also self-selected not to watch “Blink”). The combination of the horror imagery, the lingering and I think indulgently violent deaths during the evacuation, and then Brooke’s suicide makes the whole thing entirely inappropriate for family viewing as far as I’m concerned. The prosthetics look astounding but they are so creepy! A very adult piece of science fiction, in the end, which feels disappointingly less like Doctor Who than I want it to.

TEHANI:

I think that’s absolutely a fair assessment. And with that, I think we’re ready to move on … to the end of Tennant’s reign as Doctor *sniff*

PREVIOUS “New Who In Conversations”

“Rose”, S01E01

“Dalek”, S01E06

“Father’s Day, S01E08

“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10

“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13

Series One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani

“The Christmas Invasion,” 2005 Christmas special

“New Earth”, S02E01

“School Reunion,” S02E03

“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04

“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, S02E12/13

Series Two Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

“The Runaway Bride”, 2006 Christmas Special

“Smith and Jones”, S03E01

The Shakespeare Code & Gridlock, S0302-03

Human Nature/The Family of Blood S0308-09

Blink S0310

Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Timelords S0311-13

“Voyage of the Damned,” 2007 Christmas Special

Series 3 Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

Partners in Crime, S0401

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, S0405 S0406

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, S0408 S0409

Turn Left, S0411

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, SO412-13

Season 4 Report Cards: Tansy, Tehani, David

Blood, Sex and a Hot Tub [Xena Rewatch 4.16-4.19]

Another long gap between Xena posts – it’s not a coincidence that this season has been the main thing stopping me from pushing on through my Big Chronological Rewatch. But the light is at the end of the tunnel, the show is about to get seriously good again, and Season 5 brings with it the exciting potential of a handful of episodes I’ve never actually seen…

But in the meantime, there’s peace, love, the way of the warrior and a whole lot of meta involving hot tubs.

4.16 The Way

Xena and Gabrielle are almost out of India, but they’ve still got time to offend a whole religion in their most controversial episode of all time!

When word began to spread that this episode depicted Krishna as a fictional character, many Hindu organisations protested the move which represented an extreme religious taboo. The episode was shown with a disclaimer and a public service announcement up front, and then removed from syndication after its first screening.

The main argument against treating this episode differently was that Xena was simply treating Hindu mythology with the same cavalier disrespect it showed to other mythologies… including many religious symbols or figures which are still a part of modern worship today. To which the obvious response is: you know that isn’t the killer defence you think it is, right?

What I remember most about the controversy of the time (this was also the first year I became aware of online fandom as an observer, my main pop culture interests at the time being Xena and Buffy, a show which also had two episodes pulled from broadcast in the same year, in response to the Columbine school shootings) is that fans were distressed about being deprived of an exceptional episode, possibly the best Xena episode ever.

Yeah. Looking at it now, without the pressure brought to it at the time – it’s not all that.

In many ways, “The Way” is the weakest story of the India saga. Xena and Gabrielle spend far too much time agonising about philosophy, and Eli has made the disappointing metamorphosis from ‘slightly roguish sidekick’ to ‘incredibly smug Jesus archetype.’ Oh, sorry, I mean ‘avatar.’

There’s even a gratuitous use of soft focus when Eli does his healing. And let’s not get into scene where all the grateful brown people are bowing down and worshipping Eli who is – despite his fancy Indian clothes – really quite white.

Plus extra yuck with his ‘disciple’ Gabrielle threatened with violence, in order to make Eli feel bad. AND it really doesn’t help that every time he talks to Gabrielle, he looks like he’s faking his spiritual credibility in order to discreetly crack on to her.

NOW I REMEMBER WHY I THOUGHT THE INDIA EPISODES SUCKED.

At least “Devi” had a sense of humour, and “Between the Lines” had some intimate female bonding. “The Way” is entirely humourless, reducing the characters of Hindu mythology to a simple story of demon versus demon. Or, large talking monkey versus demon. It’s proof if nothing else that it’s time for Xena to haul herself back to Greece.

Also, I’m not yet sold on Gabrielle’s short haircut, but am quite enjoying Xena’s new ‘fringe pinned up’ look. Yes, I’m really that shallow.

The good news is that the message Krishna had for Xena is that she should stop beating herself up about not being peaceful and serene, and follow ‘the Way of the Warrior,’ AKA the path she has always been on. Well. That was certainly worth 16 episodes of angst, then, wasn’t it?

Meanwhile, Gabrielle throws away her staff (wah!) and dedicates herself to ‘the Way of Love’ but refuses to leave Xena’s side because ‘all paths lead to the sea.’

Peace out.

4.17 The Play’s the Thing

Finally, a comedy! (and FINALLY, we’re back in “Ancient Greece”)

Frankly after all the pious whining of this season, poking a little fun at Gabrielle feels more than warranted. In this case, she and Joxer get tangled up with some theatrical con artists who convince Gabrielle that her latest scroll about her relationship with Xena would make a brilliant stage play.

Cue all the cliches of writerly pomposity… and of course the rather alarming revelation (again) that Gabrielle is not actually a very good writer. Which is a bit sad considering that it’s been such a central element of her character for so long.

But, you know. It’s still hilarious.

I can’t help enjoying the fact that Gabrielle’s play, intended to share all the wisdom she learned in India, is in fact a pile of preachy, culturally appropriative claptrap. There’s… a point being made here I think? About how maybe the white girl who spent a fortnight backpacking through India isn’t the best person to spread its cultural message to the world?

Jennifer Ward-Lealand, last seen as a spectacular Boadicea in Season 3, hams it up here as a glamorous schemer who feeds Gabrielle’s ego with expert skill. Minya, Xena’s whip-toting fangirl, also shows up to lampoon our hero, just in case having Gabrielle choose a bad actress deliberately because she’s good at backflips, wasn’t cute enough. The centaur who refuses to play four legged creatures because he doesn’t want to limit himself as an actor is also pretty awesome.

In a comedy that’s largely about incompetence, I also rather like that Joxer turns out to have hidden skills in theatre management, particularly when it comes to producing a show that will appeal to ordinary people, while Gabrielle is wailing about her artistic vision. Of course, his competence is expressed through easy corruption, so maybe that’s not as positive a message as it could have been…

But the bit with the cat is quite funny.

4.18 The Convert

Xena’s fringe is back! Does this mean we’re back to good old fashioned bash and slash stories?

In an interesting twist on the Xena narrative so far, this time it’s Joxer’s turn to be blooded. Turns out, for all his warrior posturing and trying to live up to his horrible warlord family, he’s never killed anyone before this episode.

Unfortunately, he does it to save a woman who turns out to be flipping Najara, back for more Gabrielle psychological warfare. As if “Crusader” wasn’t torture enough, here we are for a sequel.

Najara has escaped prison, and Xena is determined to put her back there, but Najara swears that she is only doing good in the world now, having laid aside the sword. Oops, so basically like a less violent version of Xena?

Hypocrisy ahoy!

When Joxer discovers that the evil warlord he killed in their road scuffle had a son away at school, he is determined to confess his crime to the lad, and suffers hallucinations of his victim taunting him. This, at least, is something Xena can help with – talking him through the guilt and how to live with yourself after taking a life.

To Joxer’s dismay, it turns out that the boy Arman has always believed his father to be a hero, and that if he confesses what he did and why, it will break the kid’s illusions. Gabrielle and Xena worry about Joxer as he builds a big brother friendship with Arman instead.

Najara, meanwhile, reveals to Gabrielle that she has discovered the Way of Not Killing People, via Eli. So the two creepiest smug people in Ancient Greece have joined forces? Wonderful.

As with her first appearance, Najara story is so heavy on the subtext that honestly it doesn’t make sense unless it is about romance. Najara is quite explicitly out to win Gabrielle’s ‘friendship’ for herself, and steal her away from Xena, and she does so in quite icky, undermining ways that lead to them basically fighting over her.

Yes, there’s at least one bath scene.

Both stories come to a head when Najara breaks the bad news to Arman, destroying the (admittedly false) trust that had been growing between he and Joxer. Najara, of course, did this entirely as a snarky metaphor about ‘telling the truth to the person you love,’ AKA as part of her campaign to mess things up between Xena and Gabrielle.

Thankfully, Xena is able to convince Armand that his Dad was evil, and Joxer’s a pretty swell dude. But what about Najara?

Her smarmy nice girl act breaks down in a fight when her “djinn” supposedly start talking to her again after a long absence. She grabs Gabrielle’s hair to stop her running to Xena’s aid (proving what was always implied, Najara would be such an abusive girlfriend) and then she and Xena get into into a very satisfying pummelling-each-other-while-hanging-from-vines fight which demonstrates that the whole show really, really misses Callisto.

Xena stabs Najara in the fight, leaving her in a coma. Despite Najara’s prediction that Xena would do something violent enough to force Gabrielle to leave her forever, this is not that day. Gabrielle finds it pretty easy to forgive Xena.

Gabrielle’s takeaway from this is that “when push comes to shove, sometimes you have to shove back… but with this path I’m on, I can’t do that.”

Xena replies that Gabrielle doesn’t have to, as long as she’s around.

That’s… not quite what pacifism means, right?

For all the ‘way of love’ storyline irritates the hell out of me, I do appreciate that they are past Gabrielle making Xena feel bad for her own choices, and that it’s pretty clear Najara didn’t have a leg to stand on this time around – Gabrielle and Xena are too secure in their relationship to let a petty interloper chip away at it.

Also, a nice touch towards Gabby’s “no weapons” policy was the bit where she blew sand in Najara’s face to get away from her when they were brawling. Just because she doesn’t have her stick anymore doesn’t mean you can push her around…

“I want to share a life of peace with Gabrielle, you want to share a violent death. You tell me who’s the villain here?”

4.19 – Takes One to Know One

A dark and stormy night, Xena and Gabrielle’s closest loved ones all gathered together in Cyrene’s tavern, and oh yes: there’s a murder mystery to be solved.

A bounty hunter lies stabbed on the floor, and the gods promptly get involved – Ares’ punk princess offsider Discord demands retribution, which means Xena has to discover the murderer by dawn.

The suspects include Xena’s mother, Gabrielle’s sister, Autolycus, Joxer, and Minya, as well as Gabrielle herself – everyone, in fact, except Xena. The group turn on each other with accusations and suspicion, with outlandish theories piling up.

A rather sweet side effect of this story is the blended effect of their friends and family having gathered in the first place to celebrate Gabrielle’s birthday – it makes them feel far more like a couple than ever before, and shows development from the last time we saw Xena and Gabrielle together in a family context, that being the creepy and hostile situation of “A Family Affair.”

Also, the solution is very clever and adorable, as is the look on Discord’s face when she is thwarted. But I am a bit distressed that there is a throwaway plot point about Lila having a thing for Joxer, which he happily reveals to everyone, though we never actually see Lila herself discuss or refer to this in any way.

The revelations about Autolycus are far more charming and character-developy.

CHAKRAM STATISTICS:

People who want romance with Xena: 13

People Xena allows to romance her: 7

Xena dead lovers: 4

Gabrielle dead boyfriends: 2/7

“Adorable” children: 39

Babies: 7

Babies tossed humorously in the air during fight scenes: 6

Xena doppelgangers: 4

Xena sings a mourning song: 6

Gabrielle sprained ankles: 2

Xena dies: 3

Gabrielle dies: 4

Characters brought back from the dead (incl. ghosts and visits to the Underworld): 51

Ares loses his powers and goes all to pieces about it: 2

Xena or Gabrielle earns money: 2

Xena or Gabrielle spends money (or claims to have money to spend): 8

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

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, Boadicea, Cleopatra, Crassus, Pompey, Sophocles

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

Hide the Hestian Virgins!

Lunatic with Lethal Combat Skills

Coping with Your First Kill

Sweet Hestia, I’m In a Den of Filth

The Bitter and Sweet of It

Because Caesar Was Taken

Armageddon When??

Rolling Around Like Weasels

You Killed Me?

My Fungus Is Spreading

Virtue is Its Own Reward

Mr Stinky, I Presume

She’s Responsible For Your Death!

Chris, Roz and Original Sin [WHO-50—1995]

New companions! Yes, again!

With Bernice Summerfield well established as the Seventh Doctor’s companion (Ace had returned a hardened Dalek killer in black leather, got cranky a lot, shot things, and eventually renamed herself Dorothée and disappeared into the 17th century), the books had built a steady readership.

One of the elements that made the Virgin New Adventures stand out was the open submission guidelines – unlike pretty much every other media tie in property ever, unpublished and unknown writers could submit novels (or even proposals) on spec. From Paul Cornell onwards, many got their first publishing break through this system, and that meant a variety of new and fresh voices.

Now it was time for another change – additions to the regular cast. Enter new companions Chris and Roz, who made their debut appearance in Original Sin by Andy Lane. He had previously written a few other books for the range, notably introducing the Doctor and Bernice to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in All Consuming-Fire.

Like Bernice, Chris and Roz were professional adults from a gritty, hard-edged science fictional future. Coming to the book for the first time in (gulp) 20 years, I was impressed by the rigour and detail of this late 30th century Earth. Roz is an experienced Adjudicator, still mourning the death of her former partner who was killed by aliens. Earth has many floating cities in this era, populated by the privileged, while everyone else scrabbles for crumbs on the surface beneath.

It’s all a bit different to the gleaming, sterile “future” we glimpsed before the Doctor whisked Zoe away from The Wheel in Space in 1968!

Roz Forrester is cynical, ground-down and hurting. She’s struggling to do the right thing in a world where honour is hard to find. There’s also some intriguing hints that she’s privately wealthy, which are not addressed in this particular book.

The last thing Roz needs is to be paired with a new Squire, let alone a wide-eyed rookie with his heart on his sleeve and a spring in his step. In other words, Chris Cwej (pronounces Shvay when not pronounced Cwedge). He’s adorable, just plain nice, utterly (apparently) untouched by the harsher realities of life and oh yes, did I mention he looks exactly like a six foot teddy bear?

“Body bepple” is the 30th century equivalent of a tattoo – DNA manipulation that allows people to take on weird and amusing physical changes. And apparently it’s completely okay to do this even at work. Even when your job is being a cop at the tough end of the planet.

Possibly this tells you everything you need to know about Chris. When he’s not choosing to be a giant teddy bear, he’s a six foot blond bloke. The book features two illustrations of Chris and Roz together, as well as the cover painting, which conveys their physical appearance as well as something of the vibe of their working relationship.

I love male-female partnership stories, particularly when gender traditions are subverted, so the Chris/Roz scenes were all pretty damned readable. It doesn’t hurt that when someone has to be damsel’d for the plot, it’s him. They spark off each other and liven up the story considerably – so much so that you half forget that they don’t seem to be intersecting with the Doctor and Bernice, right up to the moment that the Doctor becomes their prime suspect.

Benny’s friendship with the Doctor has deepened considerably and I really enjoyed their scenes together – I like how relaxed they are in and out of each other’s company, and that they take it for granted that the other will always understand what they need them to do (ashtray the ipshay!).

Being so used to the recent version of the show, I have to say that it’s lovely to see a Doctor-Companion relationship that isn’t immediately being flagged as problematic, or flawed, or something that has clues embedded about how it’s all going to go horribly wrong by the end of the season. Doctor Who just plain travelled at a slower pace back then, and I miss that.

HEY YOU KIDS, GET OFF MY LAWN!

Ahem. All in all, Original Sin is a fun mystery with plenty of Doctorish science fictional stuff thrown in for good measure. I enjoyed the set up of Chris and Roz to the point where joining the TARDIS crew became inevitable. More great adult characters with potential that would be explored across many future stories.

ELSEWHERE ON 1995:



The Sorcerer’s Apprentice [Doctor Who Book Club Podcast]

The Ghosts of N-Space [Doctor Who Book Club Podcast]

Downtime [Wife in Space]

PREVIOUSLY:

Listen Now to Splendid Chaps (and Verity!)

OK I’m a day late posting this, but given that I’m about a month behind everything else in my life, I think I’m doing OK! (that sounded better in my head)

The splendiferous Splendid Chaps episode “Six/Clothes” that I recorded in Melbourne the other week is now up and available to be listened to! John Richards, Ben McKenzie, Petra Elliott, Zen Fletcher and I gather around some alarmingly tall microphones to discuss the Sixth Doctor, Peri, Mel, 80′s fashion, Glitz, Trial of a Time Lord, why the Doctor’s clothes are important, whether the New Who companions’ clothes date them or not (they do), and whether New Who costuming is just a little too… dare we say “safe”?

The episode is capped off by Tim Cav from Dave Wright and the Midnight Electric, doing far greater justice to that well known 1985 hit “Doctor in Distress” than it honestly deserves.

If that whets your appetite for podcasts talking about Doctor Who, sometimes involving me, then check out these recent episodes of the Verity! podcast:

Verity! Extra! – We’ll Tumbl for Ya (Deb, Erika, Kat, and Tansy talk about the wonderful world of Tumblr & Doctor Who fandom)

Verity! Episode 17 – Six, Six, Six, the Number of Colin Baker? (Deb, Erika, Kat, and Liz discuss the Colin Baker’s reign as our favorite Time Lord, with particular reference to The Mark of the Rani)

Verity! Extra! – Matt Smith, Adieu and JN-T Ado (Deb, Erika, Kat, Lynne, and Tansy discuss the impending departure of Matt Smith, and review new biography The Scandalous Life & Times of John Nathan-Turner by Richard Marson)