Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Doctor Who battles the stone angels

I liked the two-parter Doctor Who that's just concluded, after having pretty much disliked the Churchill dalek episode. I get the impression that Moffat, like RTD, is marshalling cultural, fairy story and media references to give heft to the show. This 2-parter obviously draws on previous Moffat episodes that have worked well, and on Aliens and Ringu. Steal from the best. These allusions work because he uses the actual tropes, rather than simply referencing them, so they can be appreciated by the kiddies who have seen neither original. It's like he embedded what he stole rather than just hotlinking. There's also use of Red Riding Hood that kiddies would get.

I thought it was also influenced by 'Revelation Space' by Alistair Reynolds, in particular the sections set on the ship Nostalgia for Infinity, which in turn I thought was influenced by Dark Star by John Carpenter. This is not an allusion which most viewers would be expected to get, so it's not part of the weighting, I just think Moffat liked that imagery (and I did too - the darkening forest on the space ship is my favourite bit of Revelation Space and I often think of it).

I was watching the episode with my daughter and at the end we were both shouting at the telly 'Oh no you didn't!', not another bloody companion with a crush on The Doctor! However, in retrospect the scene redeems itself for me, in that it's nice to see a girl allowed to be sexually assertive and careless without being punished for it. It reminds me of that old Joe Jackson song 'No, not love she said; don't you know that it's different for girls'.
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  • 14 comments

  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.