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Post by jjpor on Jun 24, 2009 20:20:47 GMT
Ah, the Idiot's Lantern... Yes, you're right - Ten and Rose's obnoxiousness in Tooth and Claw is as nothing compared to their annoying smugness back in the 50s...
I think that is one of the things about Doctor Who - even in a story that you might think of as bad, there's always something that makes you think "it's rubbish, apart from..." Mickey in the Cybermen stories, definitely - the Doctor's little Scottish interlude in Tooth and Claw. The Impossible Planet has some of the creepiest NuWho moments since the Empty Child and the voice of Sutekh...
I can't find it in my heart to like Fear Her, though...nope, sorry... ;D
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Post by clocketpatch on Jun 25, 2009 0:49:51 GMT
I don't actually mind Ten and Rose (which I mispelled as Toes lol) glomping on each other all that much. It's when he starts angsting on her that I twitch.
And Idiot's Lantren has the moped. I lovez the moped.
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Post by librarylover on Jun 25, 2009 23:25:46 GMT
I don't actually mind Ten and Rose (which I mispelled as Toes lol) glomping on each other all that much. It's when he starts angsting on her that I twitch. And Idiot's Lantren has the moped. I lovez the moped. I can actually live with everything on screen about Ten and Rose. It is the fan frenzy over them that bothers me. I am tired of the "Rose was the only one for him and someday they'll be together and have 14 babies" crap. Life doesn't always work out, get over it. The moped/scooter is one of the things I hate. My reaction was "get a motorcycle already."
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Post by jjpor on Jun 26, 2009 22:13:47 GMT
I am tired of the "Rose was the only one for him and someday they'll be together and have 14 babies" crap. Life doesn't always work out, get over it. That's sort of my feelings on the matter; I just tend to transfer them to onscreen Ten+Rose - my problem, I guess. ;D I'm with you on the bike thing...I have this vague, possibly historically inaccurate, feeling that the moped/scooter is more of a 60s "Mod" thing.... Now, I have a mental image of Ten astride this huge, roaring motorbike, with a leather jacket, running a comb through his enormous, greasy 50s-style quiff... Fonzie-style thumbs-up gesturing while going "Hheeeeyyyyy!" would be purely optional. ;D
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 27, 2009 5:33:55 GMT
With Idiot's Lantern and the moped and the 50s nostalgia, all I can think is, they actually chose "Delta and the Bannermen" to steal from! At least they included the scary side of the 50s and not just the supposed fun side, with that family and the father.
As far as I'm concerned, in the US it was just plain scary, the 50s. It was only in the 70s with 50s nostalgia that the fun image was created, I think. We had no Mods, just rockers and Joe McCarthy etc, though my view is slanted too.
I'm extremely unfocused right now, sorry. I thought unfocused rambling was better than no posting at all.
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Post by clocketpatch on Jun 27, 2009 17:45:31 GMT
I'm with you on the bike thing...I have this vague, possibly historically inaccurate, feeling that the moped/scooter is more of a 60s Mod thing.... Now, I have a mental image of Ten astride this huge, roaring motorbike, with a leather jacket, running a comb through his enormous, greasy 50s-style quiff... Fonzie-style thumbs-up gesturing while going Hheeeeyyyyy! would be purely optional. ;D I think you might well be right about the 60s Mod thing JJ. But then, at the end of the episode, when Ten gifts the moped, he tells the kid to keep it in the garage for a few years. That, and I'm pretty sure they were originally aiming for the 60s... and New York... The Doctor's driving NEVER improves lol
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Post by jjpor on Jun 28, 2009 0:20:35 GMT
Ah, Clocket; I really need to re-watch this episode again, then, despite it being one of my least favourites - looks like Messrs Gatiss and Davies pre-empted me on the historical accuracy thing...
Magnus, as an ignorant outsider-looking-in, my view of the U.S. 1950s is one of witch-hunts and Tailgunner Joe, and cars-with-tailfins, and Ike being all genial and stuff, and Stepford Wives (okay, I know the actual Stepford Wives were in the 70s), and guys in double-breasted suits and hats, going to work in their nine-to-five jobs, and white picket fences, and atom bombs, and big, shiny, missiles and bombers, and rebels-without-causes in leather, with Harleys, and G-Men in trenchcoats and fedoras bringing the Enemies of Democracy to justice... But that's just my general impression, as an outsider-looking-in... I like to think the British 1950s were much more grey and austere, and post-war, but maybe not quite so pathological at the very heart...I like to think...
And my view of Mods comes from the fact that my own father claims to have been one, back in the day, tooling around in bespoke suits and fake-fur-collared parkas, with his scooter, with a tank radio aerial on it, that he claims used to hit the underside of the railway bridge by what used to be my granddad's house when he rode under it... I have a vague idea that the mid-60s Mods in the UK had morphed into hippies by the late-60s; I don't know if the U.S. felt the need for an intermediary phase. Then again, I think the British versions were really just aping what was going on in the U.S.; I think they were more fashion statements over here than actual social movements or anything...
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 28, 2009 3:01:15 GMT
I have a similar but probably worse image in my head of 1950s America, but I've been reminding myself lately that there was a sort of liberal '50s that to some extent was forced underground, but still existed, and they got the chance to express themselves creatively by the late 60s/early 70s. I have to admit that my information comes fromn media images and cliches too, since my memories don't start until the mid-60s. Same for early '60s Britain... for what it's worth, my information on mods vs. rockers comes almost exclusively from the Who film Quadrophenia!
In the US I believe there was a stage of people referred to as hipsters who bridged the gap between 50's beatniks and 60's hippies. This I only heard recently. It was something I'd been wondering about for awhile.
My best friend in high school... he and his family were from Liverpool. It was from talking to them that I built up an image of 50s Britain as probably not being the scary place the US was (or seemed to me to have been). Perhaps a little post-war reconstruction and shortages of necessities are good for the soul... the US on the other hand came out of the war prosperous, powerful, and supremely confident, almost to the point of insanity I sometimes think.
None of this accounts for the father in Idiot's Lantern... he seems very 1950s America to me.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 28, 2009 20:02:38 GMT
I suppose both nations were coming to terms with their new places in the world as a result of WW2 - the USA in a position of dominance and prosperity, and Britain...not... I guess it was Suez in 1956 that really drove it painfully home how things now stood.
I mean, again only really knowing about any of this stuff from pop-culture and some reading, I guess I've bought into that narrative, which is almost folklore as opposed to history, of the America in the 50s being this place of consumerism and conformity and the Mighty Atom, while Britain was still all bombsites and rationing and humiliating retreat from Empire. I'm sure it wasn't as simple as that really.
Idiot's lantern is strange in the way it has Rose urging the boy to give his father a second chance (with Ten's approval) - yet, up to that point it has never portrayed the man as anything more than a domineering, abusive ogre with scarcely a glimmer of humanity or sympathy (and I suspect the couple of little glimmers we do get are more down to Jamie Foreman surpassing the material. He is a good actor, having seem him in other roles; too bad he seems typecast as hardmen and scumbags). What I mean is, there's no evidence he deserves a second chance. It's as if the script wants to have its cake and eat it too, if you see what I mean.
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 29, 2009 5:41:13 GMT
I do, but I think it's great that they take the side of believing that everyone has some basic, inherent humanity that needs to be given a chance to grow. I don't think it's naive. People often have that humanity twisted beyond recognition, or buried so deeply that it can't ever be 'accessed', but if his son doesn't try, who else is ever going to?
At no point are they saying anything positive about the father. He's a wreck in every sense, but right at this moment, when he's being humbled for perhaps the first time ever in his control-obsessed, anal-retentive life, perhaps there's a chance for someone to get through to him. The son's obviously a cooler, smarter person, and he has every right to refuse to try, but I hope he does.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 29, 2009 20:00:07 GMT
I take your point, and I do think it is in line with what we were discussing a while ago concerning the "values" of Doctor Who, the idea of compassion and hope and the idea that even the worst monster, even human monsters, might have it in them to change and grow, given the chance. I kind of doubt that the father in that, story, as portrayed, would take that chance, but as you say the shock of being stood up to for once in his life might be the thing to do it, if anything could. I don't know if I share Rose's and the Doctor's optimism in that particular case, though...
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Post by primsong on Jun 30, 2009 0:05:40 GMT
Just catching up on this thread... .... Now, I have a mental image of Ten astride this huge, roaring motorbike, with a leather jacket, running a comb through his enormous, greasy 50s-style quiff... Fonzie-style thumbs-up gesturing while going 'Hheeeeyyyyy!' would be purely optional. ;D A 'Happy Days/DW' crossover? Does he still fix jukeboxes by kicking them? Are they secretly Daleks undercover? There's possibilities there, you have to admit! I'm with Librarylover too - the '14 babies' scenario... Wow, what would her figure look like after 14 babies anyway?
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Post by Stripes on Jun 30, 2009 0:19:34 GMT
Just catching up on this thread... .... Now, I have a mental image of Ten astride this huge, roaring motorbike, with a leather jacket, running a comb through his enormous, greasy 50s-style quiff... Fonzie-style thumbs-up gesturing while going 'Hheeeeyyyyy!' would be purely optional. ;D I'm with Librarylover too - the '14 babies' scenario... Wow, what would her figure look like after 14 babies anyway? In all honesty, round. Watch 18 kids and counting.
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Post by librarylover on Jun 30, 2009 0:45:28 GMT
Just catching up on this thread... A 'Happy Days/DW' crossover? Does he still fix jukeboxes by kicking them? Are they secretly Daleks undercover? There's possibilities there, you have to admit! Ok, this could be intriguing; after all, Fonzie and Ritchie have met an alien before. (Mork from Ork)
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Post by primsong on Jun 30, 2009 17:50:07 GMT
Good heavens, you're right! I forgot about that 'special' - egads, Robin Williams was SO young...
So, we have Fonzie, Richie and Mork. Which Doctor would join such a crew? It being this thread that's been hijacked, how about Six?
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Post by magnusgreel on Jul 1, 2009 7:28:14 GMT
It is my opinion that Six can be injected into any TV situation, and parody gold can result.
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