Maureen Flynn's Blog, page 3

Is C S Lewis any good today? Revisiting The Chronicles of Narnia

This July to August I did an epic re-read of The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s been years since I’ve read the series, though they were a mainstay of my childhood (to the point I even owned an activity and recipe book inspired by Narnia and spent my school holidays working through them). I’m now more aware of the accusations of Lewis’ sexism, racism and sledgehammering Christianity over children’s heads and wondered how I’d fare. From this white straight woman’s perspective (which is not the be all and end all by any stretch), it was in some ways better and in some ways worse than I remembered. I think I agree with Polly Toynbee of The Guardian, who wrote;

Narnia is a strange blend of magic, myth and Christianity, some of it brilliantly fantastical and richly imaginative, some (the clunking allegory) toe-curlingly, cringingly awful.

I’ve split my thoughts into categories for ease of blogging.

The oddly modern nature and humour of Lewis writing

Look, it’s not all the time, and there’s a lot of points in these novels where I wanted to fling my book across the room, but I had genuinely forgotten how readable Narnia is given its age. Aside from the occasional reference to things like the war or antiquated language around clothing or exclamations of feeling, the books read easily. There are also many moments which are laugh out loud funny (many of which I missed the humour in when I was younger). For example:

On our protagonists being stuck underground with no way out to safety: And you must always remember there’s one good thing about being trapped down here: it’ll save funeral expenses. The Silver Chair

(Pretty much everything Puddleglum says is A plus gold).

On Jill and Eustace’s school getting a makeover: When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head’s friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn’t much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after. The Silver Chair

On the folly of mice vs dragon:

Caspian: “A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they’re not at all afraid of fire.”

Reepicheep: “With your Majesty’s leave-” began Reepicheep.

Caspian: “No, Reepicheep,” said the King very firmly, “you are not to attempt a single combat with it.” The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

On girls vs boys:

Edmund: “Girls aren’t very good at keeping maps in their brains”, said Edmund.

Lucy: “That’s because we’ve got something in them”, replied Lucy. Prince Caspian

On education in Calormen (putting aside the slightly uncomfortable Orientalism): For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays. The Horse and his Boy

These are just examples and there are many more besides.

Hodge podge mythology and talking animals

When I was a kid this was a good deal of Narnia’s charm and damn the world-building and I have to admit I’m still the same today. Who could forget the time Susan and Lucy attended a bacchanalia (minus the sex), all those dryads and naiads, centaurs (and the quote about breakfasting with one being a serious business), Father Christmas showing up randomly in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, dwarfs, witches, giants and all manner of talking animals. This post on Tor.com explores this more thoroughly than I ever could. But I still love the riot of clashing cultures, myths and allegories today. Plus the food porn!

Pauline Bayne’s wonderful illustrations

When I was a kid, these illustrations were the bomb and now on a re-read, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic at the wonderful images throughout the Chronicles, with many of them so memorable, I recognized them instantly or in some cases even knew when they were coming. I used to try and copy the illustrations and paint them, and spent one school holiday drawing and painting Pauline’s White Witch. They are definitely lovely and add to the charm and imagination of the series for me.

Issues with plot structure and well-drawn characters

Even as a kid, I recognized Narnia was no Pulitzer prize winner on this front. It used to bother me (without me being able to articulate why) how Aslan always swooped in and solved all the plot problems with a deux ex machina (and I get it fitted with Lewis’ Christian worldview but it does not a good story make). This time around, I really noticed how this device undermined the grand finales of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy and Prince Caspian by taking any conflict out of the protagonist’s journeys. In addition, The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle seriously suffer in my opinion from too much allegory at the expense of good story-telling. Both of these books have some seriously cool moments that get overshadowed by evangelizing.

Interestingly as an adult, I found the Pevensie children seriously annoying. Where once Lucy was my ideal role model, this time it was Eustace and Jill who really shone, and I suspect that’s because they have proper character flaws that impact on the story as well as more of a character arc alongside Puddleglum (incidentally, The Silver Chair is by far my favourite Narnia book as an adult). The Pevensies (aside from Edmund that time he sold out his family for Turkish Delight) are that bit too good and proper and squeaky clean for my liking.

Gender Politics

So much has been written about this topic, I probably can’t say much that hasn’t already been said, but there’s no two ways about it; Lewis has a particular way of presenting women. They are all virginal and innocent children, scary house matrons, talking animal 1950s house wives, absent, or evil. Jadis and The Lady of the Green Kirtle as the devil stand-ins is more than a little problematic for obvious reasons, but then there is also The Problem of Susan (this link takes you to Neil Gaiman’s most excellent short story on this issue) to contend with. Susan does not follow her siblings and parents into Narnia because she has come to love the superficial and forget Narnia. This is the full conversation about Susan in The Last Battle often discussed:

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’”

“Oh Susan!” said Jill, “she’s interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

Though I don’t *think* I am a Narnia apologist, I tend to disagree with J K Rowling and Phillip Pullman who see this as Lewis being squicked out by women becoming sexual creatures and agree with those who see this more as Susan has become too superficial and placed her belief and love in the material which precludes her from Narnia. Lewis himself intended to write a sequel where Susan made it back to Narnia. He wrote in a letter dated January 22 1957:

The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way.

Having said that, the lipstick and nylon bit is super uncomfortable in terms of having a particular sexist connotation and I do think others make valid points about Lewis being pretty mean spirited about Susan. For example, I think this Reddit commentator makes a pretty valid point:

In LWW they grow up. Into adults with adult worries (running a kingdom), adult desires, adult bodies, adult logic. They live full lives. Have friends, maybe lovers. Then suddenly they’re kids again. That’s got to be confusing at best, traumatizing at worst. They live two years in the real world. Get back to normal life, then bam, back to Narnia. They help Caspian, discover that thousands of years have passed, and all they knew and loved is dead. They start to hope they get to stick around, make a new life in Narnia, and then they get sent home and Peter and Susan are told they can never go back. How could you not try to forget? To pretend it was all a game, to focus on the real world, and lipstick and maybe boys and relationships and normal human things. Remembering would be painful.

This particular issue is why I think Gaiman’s story is particularly powerful and why excellent fan fiction pieces abound on the internet about poor Susan. This one from Tumblr is particularly great.

Race Politics

I am not a person of colour, but there’s no two ways around this, Narnia can get pretty racist, particularly with the Calormenes in The Horse and his Boy, with Lewis coming across as Orientalist in a lot of his world-building and descriptions (lest I forget the part about the city smelling of refuse, onions and garlic). All of the Narnians are described as ‘fair’ and ‘beautiful’ compared to their dark skinned treacherous allies and Aravis’ arranged marriage situation isn’t super nuanced. Plus, you could also argue that Shasta is the white saviour who gets Aravis safely out of this terrible situation (though Aravis does do quite a lot in the novel, which was written later when Lewis’ views about women were beginning to change). In The Last Battle, a Calormen does make it to Heaven, but no one else gets a speaking role and it is still clear that his way of speaking is ‘other.’

Then there’s also the uncomfortable colour coding of good and bad characters. The black haired dwarfs are coded as bad (or at least seriously flawed) in Prince Caspian and The Last Battle with Susan (who had dark hair) banned from Narnia and Lucy seen as the perfect child (with her blonde hair and blue eyes). Pauline’s illustrations also depict Jadis/The White Witch as having black hair (though this is never specified in the books themselves). Whether intentional or not, as a kid I definitely picked up on dark hair/darker skinned people as being flawed and/or the other while the fair skinned, blonde types were bound to be good. There is some pretty interesting defence of the books on the sexism and racism score that you can read here and an account of a Muslim man reading Narnia here.

That weird ending in The Last Battle

It’s quite strange. I oscillate on how I feel about the ending of The Last Battle. Some years I like it and other years I hate it as many others have done before me. These days I tend towards the latter. Mainly because as a kid, it was pretty damn traumatizing to read about a whole world being brutally destroyed after a bunch of misery and death and finding out everyone was dead for real and in heaven.

How you stomach that ending I suspect depends on your worldview. Personally, I find Pullman’s ending in His Dark Materials about the republic of heaven far more inspiring than that given to us in the Chronicles. It just seems pretty damn mean to end a seven book series with, Hooray kids, all of Narnia is brutally destroyed and you are DEAD but don’t worry, forget about your sister and friends and head on over to heaven. These days, I’d probably tell those who aren’t ardent fans to stop at The Silver Chair.

In conclusion …

Are these books worth a read? Definitely. Should that read be taken with a grain of salt? Absolutely. And if your kids are reading, prepare for some awkward conversations about Calormenes, the problem of Susan and when Christian allegory can interfere with good story-telling. But will I be watching the Netflix adaptations? You can bet the entire contents of my wallet.

The Hestia

This piece was originally published on my InkAshlings blog in 2015 as part of the If Book Australia project, but I recently re-shared the piece with my newsletter so thought I’d also re-post to my author website. Enjoy!

The Hestia

My hips wedge against the boat rim. I can taste the roughness of knotted rope at my mouth. Thick braids constrict my hands, feet, waist. With the movement of the boat, I roll into cracked and peeling painted edges.

The Hestia.

I had defined myself by him and me: Paul and grey stone pylons, pebbled sand underfoot, waves crashing, shoreline to shoreline. Back then, I imagined that our love would run free, our feet taking wing. Like Jesus we’d walk on water into sunset, coming out the other side, unscathed…

“Hestia, Hestia,” he said early in.

“Not Hestia. Ruthie, remember?”

Too dark. Too reticent to be flaming Hestia.

He stroked my cheek.“My island worshipping Hestia, darling.” His eyes burn smoke rings on my retinas as he flings liquid all over.“Sacred heart, sacred flame, burn bright for me.”

The boat lulls gentle on cresting tips. He hasn’t shared salt spray or the scaly damp of silver fishies. Rainbows reflect in slick oil.

He drops the match, leaps ashore and pushes the crackling boat into deeper sea.

Blistering skin. Obscured by smoke and flame.

Behind me, the pylons and Paul’s mad shadow. Ahead, the promise of blurry sunset.

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Homeless in Paris: A flash fic

I wake up on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe, the world full of sun and the scent of peppermint and roses, which is weird given when I’d fallen asleep on my patch of cardboard it had been blanketing snow. I close my eyes, open them, blink, but the road is still overgrown and green and peaceful where I’m sitting.

A tall woman towers over me, her hair done in intricate ringlets like the statues they have in The Louvre, a shining pomegranate balancing on her head. When she smiles, crimson juice stains her teeth. “Welcome,” she says as she extends me her hand.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Maybe it’s for the best. I’d had nowhere to go and no plan for the future when I’d run away from Andre’s drunken punches, but I’d soon found homelessness every bit as lonely and soul-biting as the newspapers said.

“What a strange question,” the woman replies, and I can see she believes it, grey silk sliding about her arms as she pulls me to my feet. She extends me a black goblet. “You won’t die unless you drink.”

I hold onto the goblet, but I don’t do as she says. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“The Avenue des Champs-Élysées, silly. Where else? As to who I am? I’m a woman who’s lost her way.”

I glance behind me, through the Arc, at a world that’s white and full of magic from the fairy lights on the trees and laugh. “Join the club. Where are you trying to get then?”

“Aglea.”

“Never heard of it,” I say dismissively, leaning back into the Arc. It’s weird having no one crowding for snaps or yelling because you’re ruining the aesthetic of a national monument.

“Not it. Who.” She smiles. “You know I’m Persephone, right?”

“Sure, and I’m Hades.” Still, there is the fact I’m in some kind of second Paris so maybe it’s not as mad as all that.

“You’re not mad at all,” she laughs and I’m trying not to freak out that she’s somehow read my mind. “The world’s gotten everything wrong about me. They say I wanted the underworld to escape my mother, that Hades kidnapped me, and I made the best of it, that other Gods and heroes came to woo me. They say Hephaeastus was one of them.” She steps forward to grasp both my arms. “Bullshit. It was you, Aglea, I yearned for.”

“Come again?”

She tilts her head. “You truly don’t remember?” And before I can back away her honeyed lips are on mine and it’s intoxicating and frightening all at once.

“We walked through the Elysian Fields and we loved, but then you returned to Zeus and Olympus. You Charities were always too unselfish. I’ve waited so long for you to be reborn and to find me.”

My head feels like cotton candy as I let her take my hand and force the death goblet back to my lips. I’m thinking I’d rather stick with a goddess over Andre or begging and there’s the fact I remember someone who looked an awful lot like this Persephone in Algeria, when I’d bought my plane ticket to France. She’d given me money, told me some story about making a fortune in the city of love. Had it all been leading to this?

I’ll take the chance. I drink down to the bitter dregs.

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2020 Snapshot: Maureen Flynn

I forgot to let everyone know I was interviewed by Aussie Spec Fic Snapshot 2020! So cool! You can read the interview here

Lost Soul: A flash fic

I cling to the rusting bars as the ship veers to its side. The pirate guarding me topples off his barrel, his legs scuttling in the air like a beetle. I choke on laughter. He’s new. Anyone else would know to find something to cling onto in the middle of a storm. I smile as a rat scurries under my bars.

The imbecile rights himself, spits on the wooden deck a good distance in front of me. “None of your cackles, witch!”

“Witch? And me the Captain’s wife!” My tattered crimson dress, singed at the edges, brushes my ankles. As for the soul I’d taken such finery from-

“He ain’t calling you that no more.”

Fuck’s sake. Captain Johnny Three-Hands had guessed.

It’d been our third week at sea when Capn had tired of me and gone back to his ninny wife, Selene. He’d killed me and all. On another night lit with phosphorous.

I’d marked the voodoo man’s drunken mutterings as a kid on Tortuga. Whoever looks into the flame will switch souls with the first person they behold. Only that time, there’d been no soul to switch-er-roo with for I’d bled out too fast. I’d been trapped in the green light.

Months later, I found them again; the ocean roiling something terrible as my storm hit. Capn’s soft wife had tried to get below deck, but she’d tripped on a coil of rope. The sea had gone dreadful calm. My green fire tipped down the ship’s mast and along the deck, and wifey had stared deep into the light.

Oh, thinking about it makes me so happy.

The pirate shuffles on hands and knees now, groping for his precious barrel as the ship lurches yet again. He bumps into the thick damask clumsily covering the porthole and pulls to lumber to his feet. I watch hungrily as the makeshift curtain rips in his hands. Natural light falls in front of his barrel.

Soon. Soon it shall be time. The rat stands up on its hindlegs and sniffs delicately. It’s right in front of the pirate, but the pirate hasn’t noticed.
“Why you so quiet?” The pirate licks his lips and I can practically taste his nerves. He’s stepped closer without realising it. He’s almost on the rat. The light is growing from the porthole.

Warmth spreads through me as I remember how the Capn’s wife looked deep into my electric heart and then at the ship’s cat.

“You OK?” Another step closer.

My fists clench. One more step. One more.

I feel it brewing overhead. St Elmo’s fire waiting to make a comeback.
I’d enjoyed throwing Selene, the black cat, overboard, her claws raking blood. And this one? This one’d make a good rat.
 

Happy Easter!

One of the few good things about this lockdown has been long ambles through our local area, discovering paths and items and bridges and areas we’d never known existed before! One walk we even found a bee keeping society complete with bees!

Anyway, Tim and I went for a walk through our neighbourhood on the Easter long weekend and barely hidden in some long grass, what did we find but a very rained upon, dirty and stiff bear, with a Happy Easter sign stapled to its paws. Now that’s what I call inspiration for a horror short story!

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Daleks in Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks

Argh apologies all for the delay in getting this one up. Ben did his bit but I had some sad news about a friend and didn’t touch anything writing or blogging related for a full fortnight. Also, let’s be honest. We all know this Dalek two-parter sucks balls …

The Pre-Title Sequence

Ben: The pre-title sequence in Daleks was, well, kinda weird. It featured show girls, a sad clown and some very strong Noo York accents. Our loved-up couple Tallulah and Laszlo seem to have the best ahead of them, the world is their oyster! And then Laszlo goes and gets himself got by a weird pig man. Yeah … I wouldn’t say it’s one of the better openings to an episode.

Maureen: Yep. Pretty much my thoughts. Egad! It’s Miranda Raison! Egad! Her bad accent! Egad! Le corny romance! Admittedly, the theater corridor and the creepy wax hand was good, but the pig thing ruined any credibility the story had earnt up to that point.

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The Companion/s

Ben: Poor Martha really doesn’t do much on her own in these episodes, unfortunately. And the stuff she does do … Well … On the bright side, she does have one rather sweet conversation with Tallulah where they talk about boys and Tallulah decides the reason he and Martha aren’t together is because he’s “into musical theatre”. Which, same. The next scene Martha’s in is just weird and unnecessary – while Tallulah is performing a cute little showtune number (Inkashlings interjection: I actually love this song on the soundtrack) she spots Laszlo in the other wing, and instead of going around backstage to find him she has to go across the stage and mess up the performance? Like, why? There are so many easier ways to get her kidnapped by a pig man. Hell, the only reason it happened was so she could be a damsel in distress, forcing the Doctor back into the sewers to rescue here so the story could move forward. Talk about lazy writing.

Maureen: Yeah, this two-parter felt a lot like a kitchen sink had been thrown at it. I’m not too sure the Tallulah sub-plot was at all necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Miranda Raison on Spooks, but she hung in the background for most of the first part of the two-parter for the story to catch up to her. The whole thing felt oddly paced and like a lot of the plot twists were sign-posted a mile off. I did enjoy Martha knowing her history, however. She really is one smart cookie companion which I find refreshing! Also, she got a traditional companion scream!

Ben: With The Doctor taken captive by the Daleks, Martha is left to figure out what to do. And like, The Doctor gives her his psychic paper but doesn’t tell her what to do with it? It’s been established in The Shakespeare Code that Martha is susceptible to the paper, so surely you’d use it to leave her a message? And then we get yet another “so tell us how you met The Doctor” Tallulah talk with Martha. It’s getting a bit annoying hearing the same “I don’t really know him etc etc” conversation episode after episode. What I would consider to be Martha’s one big contribution to the episode would be electrocuting a lift full of pig men, but even that made not one lick of sense.

Maureen: I hate the stupid Martha un-requited love bullshit. She is so much better than Ten. Just saying. Also, yeah, it was super weird that The Doctor was so unhelpful because … plot reasons …

Ten: I’m sorry Martha, but you’ve got to fight.

Frankly, Doctor, how un-illuminating!

Also, I felt like every time the episodes had an interesting idea, they’d run away from the idea five seconds later. Take, for example, the below exchange:

Martha: They were people and I killed them.

Laslo: No! The Daleks killed them long ago.

Well, Laslo, way to kill off an interesting concept.

Also:

Martha: And I’m telling you I’m not going.

Ten: That’s an order.

Martha: What are you? Some kind of Dalek?

And then it’s not discussed further. Fine then.

Ben: Frank (played unexpectedly by Andrew Garfield) was a real sweetie and does a much better job of world-building than Solomon in my opinion. He doesn’t do much this episode (not that anyone does, really) but this must’ve been one of Andrews first acting credits, therefore it’s worth a mention.

Maureen: I got Frank mixed up with Laszlo. There are way too many superfluous characters in this episode. I liked Frank, but yeah, he was just there. Also, I found it odd that everyone was sad about leaving Frank behind but immediately forgot about him when they joined Tallulah. Like, OK then.

Ben: Solomon was I guess created to be the two parter’s moral compass and boy did he have a lot to say. Not that they weren’t valid points, but it all came across as incredibly preachy. Also, not that I’m an expert in 1930s America, but is a black man leading Hooverville realistic? But then he isn’t really developed beyond that, and then he dies. Even his death felt pointless. Hell, the whole attack on Hoovertown felt like padding.

Maureen: So much padding! I found Solomon so over the top I couldn’t take his morals seriously. I’ve googled Hooverville and apparently one did exist, but I can’t find a reference to a black leader either. I’m assuming the name of Solomon is a biblical reference. As I said earlier, kitchen sink. Also, I did not give a damn about the humans vs. daleks conflict in the episode.

Ben: Tallulah and Laszlo were just so unnecessary too, although her assertion that some men are pigs but not her Laszlo was kinda funny considering how it was supposed to be all ominous and foreboding. It’s a shame because she was a really sweet character, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care about her. And then in Evolution of the Daleks we had Laszlo insisting that he was fine when we just had Dalek Sec explaining that the pig men only last a few weeks before dying. Like, I get wanting to be stoic and see the mission through or whatever, but just stop brushing off everyone’s concerns. And then of course The Doctor had to go and save the day and stabilise his biology or whatever. Like they’re gonna be 1930’s America’s version of Beauty and the Beast or something and have a happy ending living in Hoovertown. You just know that people are gonna get hungry and he’s gonna end up as bacon.

Maureen: A bad taste joke, Ben, but no doubt true!

The Doctor

Ben: The Doctor quoting the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty was a bit depressing, considering our current political climates. The huddled masses are forced to go elsewhere these days. Beyond that, in Daleks in Manhattan he doesn’t really do anything worth writing about. He does a bunch of generic Doctoring and investigating, but for most of this episode it seems like we’re just treading water until the interesting part of the story comes around. That happens around the start of the next episode, Evolution of the Daleks.

Maureen: Yeah, I feel like this should have been a one shot story. So much felt like random padding and the audience being five steps ahead of The Doctor and Martha because the story contrived it so.

Ben: We open the second episode with a great confrontation between the Doctor and Dalek Human Sec, perhaps the highlight of this two-parter. They have further conversations once the Doctor is kidnapped, all of which I feel could have been used as the seed from which to build a more interesting episode where humanity and Daleks and their similarities and differences are explored.

Maureen: Again, I can’t help but agree. Moffat did take up these seeds in some of Twelve’s better Dalek stories and it made for a more thoughtful time. As I said earlier, every time something interesting happened, the episode shied away to the next thing. I really enjoyed the part where the Dalek was talking to megalomaniac foreman saying something about how humanity was fascinating because we hide from the dark yet build great cities and have out-lived the Daleks. I wanted more of that dialogue!

Ben: But then in the end his dramatic solution to stop the new human daleks from being created in the gamma ray strike didn’t make a whole lot of sense. How did Time Lord DNA get spliced in from the lightning/gamma strike? And how was the Time Lord part of them so strong that it overwhelmed the Dalek part? And to make matters worse, the Dalek controlling them could have destructed them at any time, so the two Daleks died needlessly. Hell, they didn’t even need to attack them! The hybrids could have been killed remotely, and then the Doctor and his companions would have been defenceless. And then in the most BS of endings, he saved Lazlo from death – and condemned him to life as a pig/human hybrid. It was a nonsensical end to a nonsensical two-parter.

Maureen: I have to be honest. I have no idea what happened at the end. It was a lot of shouting and explosions and hand waving to me. My notebook comment was, ‘how does any of this denouement make an iota of sense?’ Also, why is Ten cool with helping a Dalek-human hybrid, but not Harriet Jones #stillbitter.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: Well, they sure didn’t waste any time introducing the Daleks as the baddies of the week, but what interest do they have in the Empire State Building? And why the pig men? Mr Diagoras has shown that the threat of unemployment is enough to keep the builders risking life and limb. They do make for a rather scary enemy to be chased by through sewers.

Maureen: I think the pig people were failed Dalek hybrids or some shit. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention to the logistics of the plot pretty soon in.

Ben: Anywho, after a bit of back and forth between the Daleks about how the humans are weak but also strong and how Daleks have to change to survive but also have to remain pure, Dalek Sec finally unveils it’s plan to further the Dalek race! Merging with Mr Diagoras and creating a new type of Dalek. It looks like it would have been very painful for Mr Diagoras, that’s for sure. Well, at the end of the first episode we get introduced to the new human-Dalek hybrid in a very dramatic matter, but honestly, I wasn’t paying attention to anything but the truly horrific design they came up with for the Dalek Human.

Maureen: That design was so distracting. Also, his voice got on my tits.

Ben: Admittedly, things did get a little interesting in the second half of the two-parter when Dalek Sec decides to spare the Doctor, because having him on their side is better than having him dead. Again, something that could have been more interesting to explore in another setting. Unfortunately, the other Daleks decide Dalec Sec is an enemy of “true” Daleks, so things quickly became less interesting. Even when the new human Dalek army awakes, it ends with more of a fizzle than a bang. There’s just so much potential in these episodes. It’s maddening to see it squandered like this.

Maureen: I know right? It’s like there’s about five good ideas here buried in total dreck.

Ben: Yeah, this new hybrid storyline could have been so much more interesting in the right setting, especially with the old Daleks questioning the new hybrid. Instead the episode ends with one dead Human Dalek (and honestly, considering how annoying I found his cadence when talking, I was glad when it happened), a bunch of dead Human-Dalek-Time Lord hybrids, and one regular Dalek making an emergency temporal shift.

Maureen: Basically, everything sucked. Also, the human Dalek learning empathy was so bloody predictable. Oh, like 90% of this episode actually.

Final Thoughts

Ben: Bad. Just so bad. There was no reason for this to be a two-parter – the number of scenes that existed purely to pad out the episode’s lengths can attest to that.

Maureen: OMG YES. The stupid scene where Tallulah looks at the New York sky from atop the Empire State Building and says stuff that’s meant to be insightful and touching but just sounds dumb for example.

Ben: Furthermore, why even are the pig men necessary? They have enough humans working on the Empire State Building, and the foreman, Mr Diagoras has shown he can keep them under thumb working 24/7. Surely you could have just taken over a few gangs and put them to work? The number of extras in these two episodes, and they couldn’t find a couple extra dumb looking white guys with bad NY accents? The large cast of extras and ensemble characters this episode seemed to really dilute down the opportunity for individual characters to move the story forward in substantial ways, or play anything other than a stereotype. I really do think if they’d cut this down to one episode and eliminated a bunch of characters and then completely overhauled the story there could potentially be a good episode in here somewhere.

Maureen: Yeah, I started losing track of characters relevance to the story which is a bad thing. No one had time for any flesh to their bone.

Ben: Also, the elevator had some awfully erratic trip times; in the first episode it brought one of the daleks up in 10 seconds flat, but the elevator trip carrying the pig men up took 6 minutes! And the final egregious act was the Doctor somehow magicking up a potion to save Laszlo in 30 seconds flat, showboating the whole time. I’m giving this stinker of a two-parter a 1/10.

Maureen: I think I’m with Ben on this. Some potential, but too many characters, a refusal to explore interesting ideas, a weird propensity for filler, bad acting and stupid hand-waves make this a tough two-parter to stomach. Still, it’s less shit than the Season Two cybermen two-parter so there’s that I guess. 1/10 inky stars

Doctor Who Re-watch: Gridlock

Ah Gridlock, the intense traffic jam episode with bonus Face of Boe, how I’ve always enjoyed you! Really, this season is quite good!!! Fair warning re this review: Ben got a bit carried away with his write-up and was so enthusiastic, I let him dominate in this week’s review

Doctor Who Re-watch: The Shakespeare Code

Boy do I enjoy these historical throw-back episodes. I didn’t remember how this one panned out to be honest, though I remembered it dealt with the colour of Martha’s skin early on in and was pretty funny. Ben and I had a blast watching this one!

The Pre-Title Sequence

Maureen: Some witches! First rate cackling after a rather violent death! A witch who reminds me vaguely of The Master’s wife, Lucy Saxon, and it turns out, was in Casino Royale for a couple of seconds. What’s not to enjoy?

Ben: This whole sequence was giving me strong BBC Merlin vibes, to be honest. It’s very supernatural entity of the week, and it culminated in a good evil laugh, which I appreciate. The question is, how will they make it sci-fi …

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The Companion

Ben: Martha continues to be so inquisitive! The Doctor may not appreciate her curiosity at how everything works, but I love her and her keen scientific mind. She does have a point about the causality of time and the butterfly effect … And she continues to have witty comebacks for every occasion! Her joke about getting sectioned for telling people she’d met Shakespeare, for one.

Maureen: I’m pleasantly surprised by how funny Martha is. It’s not something I’d remembered about her run at all. I also lol’d at the sectioning comment. I like her innate toughness too. She’s completely unfazed by sewerage everywhere, citing her experiences in A and E as good training for the situation she’s found herself in, for example. I also laughed at Martha’s enteprising nature when she finds herself able to get her hands on an original Shakespeare play.

Martha: We can sell it when we get home and make a mint!

Then there’s the odd Shakespeare/Martha shipping in-show, because this episode is having a ball and wants you to have one too!

Ben: Yeah, wow when Shakespeare calls Martha … well a lot of words that I’m impressed the BBC let the scriptwriter include.

Maureen: I thought it was pretty funny later when Martha said she couldn’t bring herself to kiss Shakespeare because of his bad breath. This chick takes no shit and gives no fucks. I forgot just how likeable Martha is.

Ben: The scene with Martha and The Doctor in bed was painful to watch, with poor Martha getting her crush squished in one blow. Ahh well, better to get it out of your system early so you can enjoy your adventures through space and time.

Maureen: I really wish the Rose spectre had been laid to rest around this point. Alas, it haunts all of the RTD era. My comment was, ‘no moon-eyes Martha. Bed-sharing is lame.’ And The Doctor claiming Rose would know exactly what to do and how to comfort can fuck right off.

Ben: Now, Martha doesn’t do a great deal in the last half or so of the episode except sit back and enjoy the ride, but she does get to contribute at critical moments (again with the CPR, expelliarmus, etc etc) and generally have a good time. And! She get’s compared to a summer’s day. Now that’s a story worth getting sectioned over.

Maureen: I loved the Harry Potter episode. It dates the episode, but in a fun way for this millennial who grew up waiting for each new book to come out.

Martha: It’s a bit Harry Potter!

Ten: Aw, you wait till Book Seven. I cried all night.

Final thing I want to say: Martha’s tats are damn hot. Bite me.

The Doctor

Ben: I did quite enjoy how much the Doctor was having the time of his life showing off for Martha, giving her the Doctor Who special and all that. Although it wouldn’t be a Doctor Who special without everything going wrong in the first 10 minutes. It’s just as Martha said, you shouldn’t meet your idols, and there’s no reason why Shakespeare would be exempt from that rule given his swarmy racism.

Maureen: Yes, though I liked that the scriptwriter (I think this one was Gareth Edwards?) was brave enough to mess with the Shakespeare deification. It’s a risk, but I think it pays off. Shakespeare doesn’t feel overly liberated and a-historical here.

Ben: Yeah, and he does quickly redeem himself, seeing through The Doctor’s psychic paper for one. Then, with a drowning on dry land the mystery is properly afoot, and The Doctor is in his element. Investigating ensures, to the detriment of Martha’s romantic overtures. But! Shakespeare got enough flirting in for everyone. The Doctor’s confrontations with the Carrionites were very Merlin, with the naming and the rhyming and all that jazz. And that brings us to the final confrontation! It was all very over the top, with a tornado of evil witches and their laughter, with a dramatic final sonnet to undo what was done, and to top it all off, a JK Rowling reference. End scene, cue applause, off with his head and all that. Maureen has informed me that the bit with Queen Liz was only properly explained quite recently in an episode I haven’t yet seen, I am quite curious to see what he could have done to deserve such a warm welcome.

Maureen: How the fuck did you not see the 50th anniversary, Ben? HOW? Anyway, I feel like The Doctor and Martha didn’t actually do a lot this episode to solve the alien of the week problem. The focus was more on light froth fun (which I was down with) and then revelations thick and fast towards the end. In addition to the J.K references, I kind of liked the trip to Bethlam. It reminded me of Sweeney Todd, and anyone who knows anything about me knows how much I love that musical.

In other news, I liked The Doctor being a bad TARDIS driver reference too.

Martha: Isn’t there a driver’s test?

Ten: Yeah. I failed it.

Oh, River Song. I can’t wait for your later zingers.

Ten got to be quite funny again this episode with his introduction as ‘Sir Doctor of TARDIS’ and Martha of ‘Freedonia’ where black skin and tight clothes aren’t blinked at (we can dream). Also, in a repeat of Eccleston in his period piece episode with Dickens, the many times Ten ‘inspires’ Shakespeare with his own lines.

The Alien of the Week

Maureen: These Carronites were pretty nasty critters. I counted the body count at three about ten minutes into the episode!

Ben: It’s an uncommon episode where the aliens are so heavily featured in the pre-title sequence, that’s for sure! Right from the get-go you know they’re Bad News and that they also have Unknown Powers they can bring to bear at the blink of an eye (although this is really just making me nostalgic for BBC Merlin again). The death of the head play person was well done, honestly, I found it pretty horrific. Drowning on dry land, what a way to go. Anywho, they continue to speak in rhyme and cast magic with abandon to further the plot while the Doctor does his investigating. Turns out they’ve been planning this for quite some time! Putting little ideas in the architect’s head while he was sleeping. And then, with their name comes their history, a species older than time, locked away by the Immortals, using the power of words to break once again into this reality. It’s a great fantasy storyline, that’s for sure. And they got a great fantasy ending too! With their spell cut off by Shakespeare they all ended up trapped in their crystal ball for all eternity.

Maureen: Sometimes The Doctor can be unbearably cruel, but this time, I think the Carronites, despite their lonely last of our kind attempt to win The Doctor over, deserved his ire. To be trapped screaming in the TARDIS for all eternity though? So harsh. It is a great fantasy storyline, Ben, but unfortunately, this is where the episode falls apart a bit for me. It went too far into fantasy for believability to hold. I didn’t really buy those witches as aliens. They looked and acted like, well, witches.

Final Thoughts

Ben: This episode can most accurately be described as a fun romp of an adventure. The aliens this week were very much magical and non-sciencey. I know The Doctor uses that quote about any sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. The lead witch lady even refers to it as magic herself! Still, the three wicked witches were really fun to watch. On top of the witches, just having Shakespeare around as a character was good fun, and all the jokes referencing his works or the theatre were well done. In the end, I really enjoyed this episode, but it loses points for being an episode of the wrong show (and also some clunky acting at moments). I’m going to give it a 7/10.

Maureen: I’m the same as Ben. I really enjoyed the episode’s ride and the light-hearted laughter-filled romp the scriptwriter achieved, but it isn’t as good to my mind as Gatiss’ The Unquiet Dead in terms of moving character and drama forward. I also feel like the plot went for frothiness over substance so that Martha and Ten didn’t always feel that necessary to the story. I did enjoy this more than last week’s episode however, so I’m going with a solid 8/10 inky stars.

Doctor Who Re-watch: Smith and Jones

And it begins. The Martha Jones series. Back in my teen years, this was where I hit the height of my RTD era Who obsession. I don’t like Doctor Jesus in Last of the Time Lords, but otherwise, I think this was RTD’s strongest run of episodes and strongest over-arching story arc. Freema Agyeman wasn’t the strongest companion in my memory, but a lot of that was the writing, rather than the actress herself, and I found her humour quite refreshing and her Series Three exit awesome. Onwards to Martha’s pilot …

The pre-title sequence

Ben: LOL. In a shocking twist, there was no pre-title scene this episode!

Maureen: I wonder if Rose was the same? I can’t remember. If not, how random!

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The Companion

Ben: From the get-go Martha demonstrates herself to be an intelligent, capable woman. She deftly navigates family drama (what a tosser her dad is) while weaving her way through crowds of commuters.

Maureen: I’d forgotten about the whole Jones family dynamic with Martha stuck in the middle. It made a nice breakaway from Rose’s family, even if Martha’s mum upholds the whole RTD has mummy issues thing. Also, the second wife thing was a bit much with, “she’s spending all our inheritance on fake tan.”

Ben: Also, she doesn’t immediately go blabbing on about two hearts when she tries to listen for the Doctor’s pulse!

Maureen: I found this scene eerily relevant. I’ve read about three articles in as many weeks about Doctors bullying junior Doctors in the workplace.

Ben: I love that Martha takes her sudden transportation to the moon in her stride while everyone else breaks down in a panic. It’s easy to see how The Doctor is intrigued with her. And we get an explanation for Freema Agyeman’s first appearance in the Cyberman arc of the finale.

Maureen: I lol’d at the Freema explain away line (I had a cousin). But more seriously, as a teen, I didn’t give Martha enough credit for being a smart companion. I think I was too bitter about Rose leaving, but Martha certainly holds her own in this pilot. I loved that both Martha and The Doctor are, well, doctors and I loved that Martha put Ten in his place when she needed to do so.

The Doctor: Very clever. Brilliant in fact. Fancy going out?

Martha: Okay.

The Doctor: We might die.

Martha: We might not.

Also:

Martha: As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got to earn the title (of Doctor).

And:

The Doctor: I’m a Time Lord.

Martha: Right. Not pompous at all.

Ben: Things start to get really exciting when Martha discovers Mrs Finnigan standing over the body of the dead douchey doctor and has to literally run for her life. In amongst all of this, it’s clear Martha is having a blast, running more on adrenaline than oxygen. She ends up playing a critical part in getting Mrs Finnigan apprehended too, actually taking one of the scanners off of a Judoon. And she successfully revives The Doctor after he’s had who knows how much blood sucked out of him.

Maureen: I don’t know if it’s the script or Freema’s unadulterated excitement at being cast in New Who, but her joyous love for everything she’s doing is infectious. I love the shot towards the end of Martha looking out on the moon, followed by this exchange:

Martha: Blimey, it’s a bit bumpy.

Ten: Hold on, Ms Jones.

Martha: With pleasure, Mr Smith.

I’m less keen on the Martha crushing on The Doctor sub-plot, but it plays a minor part in this episode thank God. Final thoughts on Martha: God, I identify with her so much more now … passing medical exams, paying rent, dealing with family crap. She’s so much more adult than Rose in many ways.

The Doctor

Ben: We come across one John Smith (ie. The Doctor) at the hospital Martha works at. He immediately has a good banter going with Martha, which leads to them having a proper introductory conversation on a balcony overlooking the Earth. The discovery that the Judoon are hunting for an alien entity really gives the Doctor the motivation to get Doctoring, and his hair seems to be trying to engineer it’s own escape for parts of this episode too. The silliness continues with the Doctor expelling a whole lot of radiation into a shoe using a rather silly jig. And then throwing the other shoe away ‘caus wearing just one shoe is silly. So much silliness, which continues when the Doctor gives Martha a big sloppy kiss to distract the Judoon with alien residue on a human. Like, you couldn’t pull out a tuft of hair or something?

Maureen: I quite liked Ten this episode. Perhaps it’s that David Tennant feels more comfortable in the role or he isn’t saddled with the true love sub-plot of him and Rose, but I enjoyed his humour and found Ten less douchey than I normally do. I liked the shoe scene, though I agree the kiss was a bit of an un-necessary ship-tease.

Ben: I did rather enjoy the Doctor playing dumb with Mrs Finnigan. Stupid dumb self-sacrificing Doctor ends up as a blood thickshake for Mrs Finnigan, who played right into his little plan! I don’t know how much he expected her to drink, but I’m kinda suspicious that after straight up dying from blood loss he could be revived with a little poorly done CPR? Ahh well, who knows how Time Lord anatomy works. Anywho, the Doctor saves the day at the last second, everyone (mostly) lives, and the Doctor gets a new companion! And gets to show off the TARDIS with a cheap trick involving a tie (linking back to the first time we saw The Doctor this episode).

Maureen: Re that TARDIS scene, my only note is ‘re The Doctor mouthing “bigger on the inside?” Wanker.’ Otherwise, there were so many great Ten exchanges, like the one below, to love.

Martha: What else do you have? A sonic spanner?

Ten: I did, but Emily Pankhurst took it.

And:

Ten: A platoon of Judoon on the moon!

Also, I thought Ten’s plan was genuinely clever for once.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: We get two aliens this week! What a treat. In one corner we have the Judoon, come to apprehend the alien in the opposing corner, one Mrs Finnigan! And the Mrs Finnigan actress is quite the powerhouse, turning a little old lady into quite the terrifying bloodsucking alien. One who supplies her own straw too! The Judoon seem to have good intentions, even if they lack bedside manner, and also any sense of moderation. They go, for example, from 1-100 when hit over the head with a vase. And they can only operate within the jurisdiction they’ve been assigned, hence bringing the hospital to the moon before they can invade.

Maureen: I saw a lot of The Eleventh Hour in terms of the alien plot in this episode (got to love all those Moff call-backs). Prisoner Zero is similar to Mrs Finnigan with The Judoon the prison ship aliens. I too, found Mrs Finnigan every bit as creepy as say Olivia Coleman in TEH. What a brilliant actress clearly having the time of her life!

Ben: It turns out Mrs Finnigan is an internal shapechanger assimilating human blood to pass through the Judoon’s scans. Clever, but not clever enough to assume there’s another alien who can pass as human in the hospital. Interesting that her last line is that she’ll see the Judoon burn in hell with her. I guess she spent enough time around humans to pick up some concepts. That or hell is the English translation of whatever concept of eternal punishment plasmavores have. She did successfully engineer her final revenge in the MRI going critical, which of course The Doctor was able to thwart in about 15 seconds. All in all, a successful mission for the Judoon, with only two casualties (that we know of) during the operation. But it might not hurt to splash out on some more intelligent militia next time.

Maureen: I quite liked that the alien of the week wasn’t straight bad (The Judoon) and that RTD explored the concept of a space police force and how morality and justice for an alien race might work. I also understood Mrs Finnigan’s motivations even if I disagreed with her actions. I thought the aliens here were more nuanced than most RTD ones are. It’s a nice break from the hundredth earth invasion plan.

Final Thoughts

Ben: On the whole I enjoyed this episode. It’s definitely a better companion introduction episode than Rose’s. But to be fair, Martha didn’t have a Mickey to contend with. Martha and the Doctor immediately had good banter going, and some sparks flying too! It wasn’t a perfect episode of Who, but it was a fun, silly (if over silly at times) romp. I’m giving it 7/10

Maureen: I agree with Ben. Because there was no Mickey, this episode felt more consistent than Rose. It also was funnier and I’m not sure if that’s down to Freema, a more comfortable Tennant, better writing or all of the above. I’m giving this 7/10 inky stars.