Reading, Listening, Watching

[purplecat]

Reading: Doctor Who: The Target Storybook Short stories for each Doctor by a variety of authors including Colin Baker and Matthew Waterhouse. It contains Terrance Dicks' last story which, you know, is fine but it is also yet another sequel to The War Games. I have a feeling that somehow Dicks reached a point where all he was interested in writing were sequels to The War Games and I wish his final short story had been something a little more ambitious. TBH, so far, all the stories have been fine but not particularly exciting. There seems to have been a slight remit to favour episode tags or missing scenes and I don't think that is necessarily helping.

Listening: I listened to an episode of The Intersection of Things today. Normally this podcast is quite an interesting look at the interaction of technology and intersectional issues but somehow today's episode moved away from that to talk about Ritual in modern secular society. An interesting topic but somewhat divorced, I would say, from the presenters' core expertise.

Watching: Somewhat to my surprise, the teenager is quite taken with The Prisoner. We'll have to see how she manages as the episodes become increasingly odd. My clearest memories from a watch through I did about 30 years ago are of the first two or three and then the last two or three. Maybe I'll remember more as we progress through them.

Comments

The Prisoner

[a_cubed]

The first time I watched the Prisoner it was as an undergrad and we binge-watched (not a term then so far as I know) them over a weekend. That's a real mind-fuck way to be introduced to it.

Re: The Prisoner

[purplecat]

We watched Free for all last night which I remembered as a wierder one. At the end of it she was a bit "I'm not sure about that one".

Re: The Prisoner

[a_cubed]

My recollection is that it mostly gets weirder from there on. The General and Living in Harmony are the ones I found most bizarre.

Re: The Prisoner

[purplecat]

I have memories of Living in Harmony (I think, and which I think I liked - though possibly I'm confusing it with Do not forsake me oh my Darling). The General - I got nothing...

Re: The Prisoner

[a_cubed]

The General is the brainwashing/quick learning.

Re: The Prisoner

[purplecat]

Having just read the episode synopsis The General on wikipedia I can state with confidence that I remember the end very clear but absolutely zilch about the rest of it.

[gervase_fen]

Jenny Colgan's story in the Target Storybook is something else altogether. Terrance Dicks' story seems to foreshadow Chris Chibnall's The Division I thought.

[purplecat]

I read the Una McCormack and Jenny Colgan one's last night and quite liked them both. Una McCormack's was particularly strong. I liked the characterisation of the handy Doctor in Jenny Colgan's but, TBH, wasn't keen on the whole pregnant Rose bit.

[romanajo123]

That Target book has been on my wishlist for awhile. Matt’s story has me intrigued.

Oooo The Prisoner! I admit what little I know comes from the Big Finish series. But it sounds interesting. :) ( I’m just over here watching Red Dwarf and Nickelodeon while trying to track down Press gang or Wizards vs. Aliens 😃)

[purplecat]

Matthew Waterhouse's story is fine, I'd say, though I don't know enough about slave owning in the southern US to speak to whether he's messed up at all there.