I am a weak, weak fangirl

[sholio]

So we watched the first two episodes of Dr. Who ...

It's fun! I love how they've captured so much of the feeling of the old show -- the theme music, the Doctor's cheerfully psychotic grins, the utter goofiness of the plots -- but with updated f/x and really snappy writing. As opposed to the sort of unintential hilarity of the old series, this one's got its tongue firmly implanted in cheek. Homicidal mannequins! Ferris Wheels of Doom! The reset button that just happens to be located at the end of a catwalk with spinny fans of death! (Was I the only one who thought of Galaxy Quest during that scene? "We shouldn't have to DO this! It makes NO LOGICAL SENSE! Why is it HERE?") And of course, there's classic Dr. Who Blind Spot Syndrome. (Dr. Who characters are phenomenally easy to sneak up on. My husband and I used to observe with the older series, that you could have a marching band and maracas and still walk up behind someone and clunk them over the head as long as you stayed out of their direct line of sight.)

But what makes it all work is an underlying sense of, well, reality, in the midst of all the goofiness. Rose's working-class life; calling her mom from the end of the world; the tears in the Doctor's eyes when the tree lady (waah! *mourns tree lady*) started talking about his homeworld. There's a feeling of wonder and hope about the series that really reminds me of the classic SF that I used to read as a teenager -- an old-school sort of melancholy beauty and hopefulness.

(Oh, and the second episode was just GORGEOUS! I just want to stare at the lovely shots of Rose bathed in golden light watching the end of the world. They must have blown the BBC special effects budget for a year. *g* I anticipate a couple of upcoming moneysaver episodes in which they travel to planets that look suspiciously like London...)

And since when can a human body withstand temperatures that can incinerate wood? Or are Time Lords that much more resilient than human beings? Okay, now I'm really over-thinking this...

Comments

[sholio]

Ooooh man, you're this fond of it already, after 2 eps? You are gonna fall hard.

*snort* Yeah. I think I am. You know how sometimes you can feel that it's gonna happen? I can feel it. Which just makes me even more confused about what it is that causes me to flip head-over-heels for something, because you'd think that Supernatural would have hit me that way too ... and yet in that case, it wasn't until "Faith" that I really started falling for it, and I never really flipped for it the way I thought I probably ought to. And I never thought that Dr. Who would be something that I'd like that much -- I mean, I enjoyed the original series, but not in a heavily fannish kind of way.

I suppose part of it is the lure of the unexpected. With SPN, it's pretty obvious from the beginning how the character relationships are going to shake out, and you can see how they'll get there. With Dr. Who, I really had no idea in the first episode how these people were going to relate to each other, and there's this lovely mental click for me when things start tumbling together and suddenly you can see that they're switching from strangers to friends.

admittedly I had no experience with the original series - am getting that now! ^_^

You know, I don't know if I'd WANT to experience the old series for the first time after watching this one! Much of the charm of the original was its utter low-budgetness ... all the props made of cardboard, the plots of the episodes apparently based around props that they found in the dumpsters behind the BBC studios. I mean, it was fun, yes, but it seems like it would be kind of like, I dunno, watching the X-Men movies and then going back and reading the really early comic and thinking, "My God, how did they get THERE from HERE?"

"It was a badly written episode! Whoever wrote this episode should die!" ^_^

Heeeeee~! ^_^

It's always fun when the crack is canon, isn't it? *looks forward to more crack*

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed what we've managed to d/l of the original series - I'm a Trekkie going back to TOS, I thrive on camp! The sis and I have been having a grand old time MST3King eps. ...also I am mad in love with the Doctor, in any incarnation, so that helps!

(for that matter I've read most of the very first run of X-men comics - bless Bittorrent! - and loved that cheese too...my tastes are...*ahem* special?)

I can't say why I fell this hard for DW - I enjoyed it very much through the first couple seasons, but somewhere around the end of 2nd season I flipped from 'whee fun' to 'totally scarily obsessed.' (The hugs help. With the Tenth Doctor they average more than a hug an episode!) It's Type A fandom for me, is the one thing; I can't handle fanfic. Though that's in part because the series is strictly gen for me (I like the Doctor as asexual, or practically...)

[sholio]

I love your type A/B fandom distinction, and so far, this one is definitely shaping up to be a very clear Type A for me -- no farther along than we are, we've already gotten SO much with Rose and her history and personal life and relationship with the Doctor that, like with SPN, there's just not a whole lot of need for fic. At least not for me. And I agree with you -- I *much* prefer the Doctor and Rose as friends (though I love the fact that everyone mistakes him for her boyfriend ... because really, it *is* the logical conclusion! but it wouldn't be funny if he really WAS her boyfriend...)

I think that camp/cheese/crack is tremendously fun. I have a big soft spot for old superhero comics -- though I recently got my hands on some of the really early Fantastic Four, and the gender roles are so MASSIVELY fucked up that it was almost more squirm-inducing than fun ... and I'm not usually a person who balks at that sort of thing -- but ... a female superhero serving tea to her male teammates in the middle of a FIGHT? And then turning invisible in a battle zone just to play hard to get and make her husband search for her? OMFGWTF;alkdsjfk;eklafjd...

Which of the previous Doctors are you watching? Most of the old episodes I've seen were with Tom Baker, who was THE definitive Dr. Who in my mind, at least up until starting to watch the new series, which of course is uppermost in my thoughts right now. But still ... SCARVES ...

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

The Doctor & Rose become...more than friends; love, definitely, and I can even see their bond as romantic in a way, but I never see them as lovers; the Doctor just doesn't play that way to me, and that makes the relationship all the more fascinating and intense! For me, anyway...(and then, Doctor/Rose/Jack is its own spectacularly special and totally undeniable OT3...! But again, not in the usual sense, not with the Doctor...)

Eheh...my only experience with Fantastic Four is the movie, and that rather frightened me off the whole franchise! ^^; But yeah, that sounds...eheh...

We're getting a mix of Doctors - I asked for recommendations, and from those we're getting mostly 3rd-4th-5th Doctor. Tom Baker is the definitive for most people, I'd say, so definitely need to see more of him! Even if the watching does make me rather miss the new show (ahhh there just isn't enough of it!!)

[sholio]

Actually, you've got a point about the Doctor and Rose, because "friends" is really not the right word -- in fact, thinking about their relationship (er, as of the episodes I've seen so far) it really isn't friendship at all, at least not as I think of friendship -- theirs is definitely a vertical relationship, not a horizontal one (as far as hierarchy; get your mind out of the gutter *g*), and they don't really know each other all that well yet ... but the love is there. It's more like they jumped straight to family, kind of like a father/daughter or big brother/little sister thing. The one thing I'm sure of is that I do see their relationship as strictly platonic...

[sholio]

P.S. You were a TOS Trekkie? How did I ever miss THAT? *waves Kirk/Spock/McCoy friendship flag happily*

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

*laughs* You too? Why a I not surprised! ^_^ (have you read any of the original official novels? my first exposure to fanfic, really!)
The heyday of my Trekkie days were mostly pre-internet, but yep - TOS and TNG both! My mother was a Trekkie back in the day, and one of my first h/c memories is the family catching an ep on reruns and my mom wanting to watch because it was an ep she remembered as a favorite. I remember watching it and understanding exactly why she liked it - the ep in question being "Amok Time" which really, you can't beat, when it comes to the K/S/M friendshipping! (well, except perhaps "The Empath" which isn't so much an episode as a fanfic that got filmed by mistake XD)

[sholio]

EMPATH! *swoons* I wonder, who did the h/c fanficcers have to bribe in order to get that script produced?

My love for TOS goes back to a VERY early age -- in fact, some of my very first introductions to h/c were the little scenarios that my sister and I would spin for the characters, back when we were in grade school. I remember adoring the episode where Spock and McCoy got sent back in time to the ice age, at the age of about seven or so, and not really understanding WHY ... just knowing that Spock swearing he wouldn't leave McCoy alone in the storm sent happy little shivers through me.

It's always been Spock and McCoy that really do it for me -- I think I mostly appreciate Kirk as an adjunct to that relationship. Because ... just ... Kirk, not really my thing. Whereas Spock and McCoy both still make me weak-kneed, together or separately. But it's nearly impossible to find fic that focuses just on the two of them, without Kirk being there (not that I mind him; it's just that he's not specifically what I read for).

[sholio]

Oh, and yes, I have read some of the novels, although fanfic just does such a better job of scratching that itch -- I haven't read tie-in novels in some time, except for a couple for SGA just recently. But, yes, back in my pre-Internet, pre-fanfic days (i.e. the Dark Ages), we used to have some TOS novels and I loved them, especially the one I still remember in which Spock fell off a cliff and went into a coma...

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

XDDDD you, get outa my head! I am about 99% positive that the Spock-falling-off-a-cliff was the very first ST novel I ever read ^^ My local library had a bunch of them, when I moved up into the adult SF section they were one of the first things I found.

The very first tie-in novels - not the series out now but the first run that's long out of print - were penned by fanficcers, from what I know. In particular there was a short story collection that was, as far as I can tell, culled from zines. That book was some of the first 'pure' h/c I ever read. Reading it now, the stories are pretty poorly written by the best fic standards, but I can remember reading this one story and being blown away by the h/c, having never read its like in such concentrated form. (Except maybe the last book of LotR...)

[sholio]

I am about 99% positive that the Spock-falling-off-a-cliff was the very first ST novel I ever read ^^

LOL! Why does that not surprise me...

Written by fanficcers, really? Hee! Even today, I know of a couple of fanficcers who've moved into writing official tie-in books, and I think most of the "official" SGA books are fan-written, which is why I tried a few -- but I still like the unofficial fic best.