Bad Meme Hunting

School Reunion

2006-05-01T23:20:00.000+01:00

A cracking episode of Doctor Who, with one of the most beautiful lines ever:

Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.

Scott Matthewman has written a great review of School Reunion.

The reasons he likes it are mostly the same ones I do, though I get the impression he'd rate it 11/10 rather than 8/10 as I do! (Though on my rating scale 8/10 is very good, and not many things get higher!)

As he says, the reasons can be put in four words.

Sarah Jane Smith. K9.

BTW - do check the links to the Deffrey Vale High School site and others. Probably the most funny and detailed collection of fake websites so far!

I may add more of my own thoughts on School Reunion later.

For now - just to note there was another Torchwood sighting, as Mickey got a "Torchwood: Access Denied" message as he hunted for UFO info on the defence website he'd hacked into.

And the theme of Godlike power was touched on again.

Technorati tags: doctor who, torchwood

Torchwood Sightings

2006-04-23T17:56:00.000+01:00

It looks like Torchwood will be this year's "Bad Wolf" after all!

So it's time to remind ourselves of all the Torchwood sightings so far:

In the series one episode Bad Wolf, one of the quiz answers reveals that the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the remains of "the famous Old-Earth Torchwood Institute".

The Torchwood spin-off series has been described as being about a group of maverick investigators, a kind of British X-Files.

In The Christmas Invasion (TCI), Harriet Jones asks UNIT to contact Torchwood. They are a group so secret that she's not supposed to know about them, though they do seem willing to take orders from her.

At the end of TCI, the Sycorax spaceship is destroyed by a powerful weapon built using retrieved alien technology. The weapon is controlled and presumably built by Torchwood.

In Tooth and Claw (T&C), Queen Victoria's encounters with an alien werewolf and the Doctor lead her to realise that the Empire faces threats she'd never imagined. She decides to launch the Torchwood Institute to investigate mysterious phenomena, and protect the Empire from them. The Doctor is seen as one such potential threat, maybe not directly, but in his dangerous habits and casual attitude.

The Torchwood Institute is named after Torchwood House, where T&C is set, in gratitude to the MacLeish family whose efforts saved the Queen and the Empire.

In the commentary track for T&C, David Tennant confirms that there will be Torchwood references all through this series, and there will be a big payoff when they're all be pulled together in the two-part season finale.

Time to start keeping a lookout - and let the speculation begin!

Technorati tags: torchwood doctor who

Tooth and Claw - First Thoughts

2006-04-23T17:32:00.000+01:00

Tooth and Claw was an episode in the traditional Doctor Who mould, with a classic mixture of horror, mystery and sci-fi neatly put together. It was rather unlike most Russell T Davis episodes, and didn’t have the typical RTD weaknesses, but it also lacked some of that RTD magic.

The story was nicely atmospheric, with a remote Victorian estate taken over by evil monks, and our heroes besieged by an alien werewolf, all in a moonlit Scottish landscape. Throw in Queen Victoria, and the mysterious contraptions left behind by the previous Lord, and it’s a great setup for a Who story.

The plot drives along nicely, keeping you wanting to know what happens next. And for once, RTD’s plot makes good sense and avoids convolutions and a profusion of subplots. And as the plot rolls along, there are plenty of scenes of terror, and plenty of nice one-liners.

But what is missing from Tooth and Claw are those moments in Who that reach the parts that other shows seldom reach. Moments that are moving and thought-provoking, maybe even profound. Strangely, New Earth had many more of those moments, even though it also had more weaknesses than Tooth and Claw.

So, I think I’d rate Tooth and Claw as 7/10, good Whovian fare. One to watch and enjoy, but perhaps not come back to time and time again.

Related Topics:

For detailed comments on New Earth, see my earlier posts, including New Earth - Initial Thoughts and Lightweight Villains?.

For discussions of RTD’s strengths and weaknesses see the Tamino BadWolf topic: RTD - The Good, the Bad and the the Ugly, plus many other threads in the forum, such as episode discussions of The Christmas Invasion.

Technorati tags: doctor who

Lightweight Villains? - More on New Earth

2006-04-18T01:08:00.000+01:00

They say that drama is about conflict, and great drama needs a great enemy.

New Earth wasn't riveting because the enemies weren't formidable enough, evil enough, relentless enough, or chilling enough. And there were too many of them.

The zombie-like lab-rat humans were too sympathetic to work as a horrifying menace. And the chase scenes with them were played like a romp, with comedy-chase music.

Cassandra was too likeable, and not even close to being an enemy that could match the Doctor.

The cat-nurses weren't seen very much, and again it's hard to see them being any kind of a serious threat to the Doctor.

So the episode was enjoyable fluff rather than great drama like Dalek or The Empty Child.

The other side of the equation is that RTD seems to be attributing ever greater power to the Doctor. There were references to "a lonely God" and "if you want to appeal to a higher authority, tough, because there isn't one". Add to that the previous mentions of "the technology of the Gods" and "The Oncoming Storm" and RTD's Doctor appears so powerful as to be invincible.

A hero who so out-classes his adversaries doesn't make for a gripping battle.

Then there's the added complication that David Tennant doesn't actually project the awesome power that is implied, so it is only talked about, not felt. So mostly the drama feels like a lightweight Doctor matched against lightweight enemies.

Next week might be very much better... from the trailer, those werewolves might be just the kind of enemy that makes great drama.

Technorati tags: doctor who

New Earth - Initial thoughts

2006-04-17T17:54:00.000+01:00

New Earth was fun and enjoyable, but I felt a lot more could have been done with it.

It was a good idea for a story, but I'd have enjoyed it a lot more fleshed out over two or three episodes. There were many strands that I'd like to have seen explored more:

New Earth - What kind of society is it? The Duke of Manhattan? What is humanity like in the year Five Billion? etc etc

Engineered Beings - Cassandra's sidekick, and the lab-rat humans. (Bit like the cow that wanted to be eaten in HHGG.) Raises lots of interesting ideas, echoes debates about genetic engineering, animal experimentation, abortion etc.

Cassandra - What was her story? How did she come to be there? The whole thing about her wanting to be beautiful. And wanting to live forever, and there being a time to let go. Her body hopping and experiencing the world from other people's skins.

Boe - We heard practically nothing of his story, which was set up as highly intriguing, and was what fetched the Doc to New Earth in the first place.

All great material for SF, but not delved into enough for my liking.

New Earth was also not as emotionally engaging as it could have been because the various moods weren't sustained for long. The scarier people-in-peril parts would have been more powerful if they'd been under siege longer. And the poignant moments would have been that much more moving if built up to slowly and lingered over.

Cassandra's death was affecting, but her progression from egotistical villain to redeemed soul was too sudden to fully draw us in.

One thing about these hurried RTD endings is they are Textbook Anti-Climactic.

I was so looking forward to hearing Boe's message for the Doctor. That was really built-up, and I was extremely disappointed that at the moment of climax instead of something wonderful being revealed, Boe just says he'll tell him another time and vanishes.

So overall I'd rate it as something like 7/10. Fairly good, but missed the opportunity to be awesome.

Technorati tags: doctor who

Tenth Doctor, Second Impressions

2006-04-16T01:30:00.000+01:00

New Earth was our second chance to see David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. My second impressions of the character were much more favourable than the first.

In The Christmas Invasion (TCI) the Doctor didn't make much of an appearance until the last few scenes, when finally he recovered from his post-regeneration illness, made a dramatic entrance, and saved the day.

Although I enjoyed TCI there were a number things I didn't like about that portrayal. I didn't take to the manicness, his cockiness, or his seeming preoccupation with his looks -right bang in the middle of a world crisis. And while the sword fight was fun, I'd hate to see the Doctor turn into just another handsome action-hero.

I was much, much happier with the Doctor we saw in New Earth.

Cheery and cheeky, but not cocky or arrogant.

Slightly bemused at being attractive to women.

Intelligent, curious, and compassionate.

Much more the Doctor we know and love, somehow the same man, despite all the changes.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the Tenth Doctor develop.

Technorati tags: doctor who

Hunting Bad Wolf Hunting

2006-04-16T01:20:00.000+01:00

Bad Wolf Hunting, a blog post by Scott Matthewman, was the one of the first places on the net for Bad Wolf speculation and discussion. Another blogger rightly called it "the best Doctor Who forum ever, except it's some poor bloke's blog"!

Scott Matthewman has redesigned and migrated his blog since then, and it is not quite straightfoward for me link directly to all the orginal conversations there.

The Bad Wolf Hunting link now takes you to a list of all his posts about Doctor Who, and by going through the older posts from April - June 2005 you will find all the original material. To see the full conversations with the hundreds of comments, you might need to click through to the permalinks.

There are several different posts, all good, with titles like "Bad Wolf Hunting", "Bad Wolf - Part 2" and "RTD on Bad Wolf".

Hope this helps those of you coming new to Bad Wolf, as the show airs in the US and other places.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: doctor who

Season Two approaches...

2006-03-20T02:32:00.000Z

Season Two of Doctor Who is fast approaching.

The BBC has not finalised its schedules, but everyone is expecting the series to start on the Saturday evening of the Easter weekend, just as it did last year.

I haven't been updating this blog very often, but have been participating in LiveJournal (LJ), and on Tamino BadWolf. (See the TorchWolf and Tamino links in the sidebar.)

I recommend the LJ Doctor Who communities to anyone that wants to keep up with Doctor Who news, and read fan-fiction. Some of the LJ fiction is very good indeed!

You can find the Doctor Who communities by using the search-by-interest function, and see which ones I personally like on my user profile page. (Some of them are time_and_chips, multi_who, who_daily and torch_wood.)

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: doctor who

Torchwood Revealed!

2005-10-17T22:48:00.000+01:00

The BBC has revealed that a new adult-oriented series called Torchwood will be spun off from Doctor Who.

Torchwood will be about a group of investigators tracking alien activity and solving human crime in present day England. It will feature John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, from Doctor Who, and will be shown post-watershed on BBC3. Russell T Davies describes the flavour of it like this:

"Torchwood will be a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour - the X Files meets This Life."

More details can be found via the BBC link above, and this article in The Independent gives in-depth information.

Torchwood will also be referenced in the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and Series Two of Doctor Who.

Technorati tags: torchwood doctor who

Adam and the Cybermen

2005-09-01T23:40:00.000+01:00

A speculation in story-form…

Adam Mitchell loved working for Van Statten, cataloguing his alien artefacts. For an uber-geek who loved to tinker with unusual technology, it was the perfect job. Adam wasn’t evil. He would never think of himself as a bad man. Just the same as most people - willing to bend the rules a little to suit himself. Nothing that would hurt anybody.

Like keeping a few trinkets for himself to play with. Nothing big, and nothing spectacular. Nothing that anyone would be likely to notice. Van Statten wouldn’t miss the odd rock, the odd claw. Van Statten had the metal head. He wouldn’t miss a little metal finger.

And then The Doctor came. And Rose. And the Dalek came to life, and everything turned upside down.

Was it just a few weeks later that Adam found himself back home, with no job, and a strange device buried in his forehead?

But Adam was a genius, and he still had references from Geocomtex. Soon he was back in business, and going from strength to strength. A PhD from Cambridge, and then working in government labs. And finally, Doctor Adam Mitchell, a Senior Fellow at the world famous Torchwood Institute.

Torchwood studied everything that was exciting and important.

It was when Adam saw a demonstration of the nanofusion cell that he had his brainwave. Somehow, it seemed like just the right power source for that little metal finger, so long forgotten.

He sneaked one of the nanofusion prototypes into his pocket, and took it home.

He dug the finger out of a dusty box where it had lain for years, and hooked up the cell. It jerked almost imperceptibly, or so Adam thought, and started to grow very slightly warm.

“Recharging perhaps?” he thought. “I’ll leave it overnight, and take a look in the morning.”

Adam was awoken by the scream of his daughter.

“Mummy!”

He flung himself down the stairs towards the shrieking, into the kitchen.

His wife, but not his wife, turned. Her body seemed half-eaten by metal.

Her head something like a head he’d seen in a glass case, long ago.

For the second time in his life, Adam fainted.

Technorati tags: torchwood doctor who fiction

"Grown men with a gleam in their eye..."

2005-08-23T17:28:00.000+01:00

Christopher Eccleston commented in one of his interviews that:

There was a different energy on the set the day of the Daleks. Grown men with a gleam in their eye, because of this thing...

That could apply to Doctor Who as whole, not just the Daleks.

As I create this blog, I'm asking myself what it is about Doctor Who that makes it so appealing that a grown man like me finds it worthwhile to write about it.

Part of it is that it captured our imaginations when we were very young, and it has a special place in our lives because of that. Part of it is that the new series is often funny, thought-provoking and moving. It satisfies adult tastes as well as entertaining young children.

But perhaps there is more to it than that. The Doctor is an archetypal hero, of a kind that appears in many myths and stories throughout history, and which seems to find a resonance with all cultures. Perhaps these stories meet some deep need in us.

In any case, Doctor Who is loved by people of all ages, and it provides a meeting point for an interesting and fun community, where adults and young people can talk together as friends.

Technorati tags: doctor who

Torchwood Speculations

2005-08-20T08:20:00.000+01:00

The Doctor Who community is buzzing with talk of Torchwood. It looks like this will be the hidden meme spanning season two, just as Bad Wolf did through the first season.

Russell T Davis has said that the new season's meme has already been mentioned, and that it's an anagram. One of the answers to the Weakest Link quiz last season was that the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the ruins of the famous Torchwood Institute.

I'll leave you to spot the anagram.

We - the folks from Tamino BadWolf - think the Torchwood Institute will be involved in a Cybermen story, as part of the season finale.

Our reasoning: Torchwood will be an arc that spans the whole season, and so will culminate in the season finale. And the Cybermen will be so looked forward to by so many people as the highlight of the season that they too will be saved up for a big climax!

Possibly the Torchwood Institute studied extra-terrestrial life, possibly it studied cybernetics.

Perhaps a visit to the Great Cobalt Pyramid will reveal entombed cybermen, and a journey back in time to the Torchwood Institute will be needed to investigate further.

Maybe the institute was somehow involved in the creation or later development of the Cybermen. We'd love to see a Genesis of the Cybermen type story!

What do you think?

Technorati tags: doctor who torchwood

Welcome!

2005-08-20T07:30:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my newly created Blog!

Bad Meme Hunting will focus on the Torchwood phenomenon in Doctor Who, with occasional pieces on other Doctor Who matters.

I am new to blogging and Blogger, and my first few posts will be experiments to learn how to configure my blog, and use the tools available.

These will be replaced by meaningful content shortly.

In the meantime, you might want to check out the Torchwood discussions in the Tamino BadWolf Forum. The title of my blog was inspired by Scott Matthewman's "Bad Wolf Hunting", and many of the people from that group now hang out at Tamino Badwolf.

Happy Hunting!