Reading, Listening, Watching

[purplecat]

Reading: Both After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals by Donald Prothero and Ninefox Gambit by yhlee mostly because although the former is above the latter in my "to read" pile, Prothero has a habit of getting a bit list-y in places and only really perks up when it gets an opportunity to denounce those who think mass extinctions are caused by asteroids.

Listening: I upped my podcast selection in order to listen to reviews of the latest Who season, so was adding Radio Free Skaro, This Week in Time Travel and The Ood Cast to my list. That was a bit much so I've dropped This Week in Time Travel mostly because I prefer the more free-flowing presentation style of Radio Free Skaro and The Ood Cast is worth it for the songs (and sometimes for the comedy sketches).

Watching: Doctor Who which I will no doubt finally get around to reviewing long after it has finished showing. In general though I'm feeling about this much as I felt about the Eccleston season. A couple of standout episodes, but a lot of the stories, particularly those written by the show runner, leave me a bit cold - I mean, I can see why the people who love them love them, but they are not really my sort of Doctor Who.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

it gets an opportunity to denounce those who think mass extinctions are caused by asteroids.

Yeah, I mean, everyone knows it was Adric!

[purplecat]

To be clear. Prothero is against Impact theories (though I think he may have accepted the K/T one) and, Adric definitely impacted...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I'm sorry, I was just being flippant!

[purplecat]

:)

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

I've got mixed feelings about this season of Doctor Who too. I think it started reasonably strongly and most of the individual episodes are good, but overall it's lacking something, although I'm not quite sure what. It's telling that the big dramatic moments that stand out have been historical, rather than science fictional, and none of the foes have felt weighty enough to really challenge the new Doctor, who still seems a bit under-defined. I think most of the stories have been solid, but unspectacular 7/10 stuff, except for Rosa (which was almost perfect) and The Witchfinders (which I absolutely could not stand, although I know I'm in a minority there), but overall it feels like a season comprised largely of what would be lightweight filler episodes in a Davies or Moffat season.

[purplecat]

Well I'd say most of the Davies stuff in series 1 was solid but unspectacular, and the series is notable for the way the Doctor never really deals with the villains himself, mostly other people do it for him. Dalek is stellar, Father's Day is good if flawed, I like the Moffat two-parter less than many people though its still a solid piece of work, pretty much everything else that series is forgettable.

Here I'd say Demons of the Punjab was stellar, Rosa is good if flawed, and everything else is, as you say, solid but unspectacular with, on the whole, the episodes not written by Chibnall being a bit stronger than those written by Chibnall - though, on reflection, The Woman who Fell to Earth is probably my favourite of them.

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

I think I must like the Eccleston season more than you do; OTOH, I didn't like Demons as much as most people, although it wasn't by any means bad.

The impression I got from DWM is that there has been a more collaborative writer's room approach to scripts this year, hence Tim Price's credit for the Pting. But it's probably too early to tell how this impacts on the scripts, or how it differs from previous new Who seasons where (in later years at least) it was fairly openly acknowledged that the showrunner did a lot of redrafting on scripts credited to other people and was basically co-author.

[purplecat]

It's kind of hard to know what is meant by Writer's Room. Chibnall has clearly done a lot of the writing, but then there is a distinction between his co-write with Malorie Blackman and the solo writes of the others so... I don't know. As you say, hopefully we will learn more in due course.

[liadt]

That's a lot of DW podcasts, I'm not surprised you dropped one!