Thursday various

  • There’s water on the moon. What are we waiting for? [via]
  • I have to admit, when people talk about Doctor Who continuity, I just laugh and laugh and laugh. Case in point, the tempest in a teapot over how many regenerations the Doctor gets. Russell T. Davies, who recently changed it to 507, says:

    There’s a fascinating academic study to be made out of how some facts stick and some don’t—how Jon Pertwee’s Doctor could say he was thousands of years old, and no-one listens to that, and yet someone once says he’s only got thirteen lives, and it becomes lore. It’s really interesting, I think. That’s why I’m quite serious that that 507 thing won’t stick, because the 13 is too deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. But how? How did that get there? It’s fascinating, it’s really weird. Anyway, that’ll be my book in my retirement!

    Frankly, I sort of feel about it the same way I do when I read arguments like this, that Stephen Moffat’s characters are all Mary Sues. That’s an interesting and amusing idea, but it sort of ignores the fact that he — and in the case of the 507, Davies — is creating the show. It’s not fan fiction, it’s canon.

    And it was a canon that was ridiculously, horribly, gloriously, convoluted when they were both just fanboys watching it from behind the couch.

  • Kate Beaton on Dracula:

    Here we have Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a book written to tell ladies that if you’re not a submissive waif, society goes to hell and ungodly monsters are going to turn you into child killing horrors and someone is going to drive a bowie knife through your heart/cut off your head/etc. As you deserve! Thanks Bram! I wrote it down so as to remember it.

    There’s a little more going on it the book, but yeah, she’s not wrong.

  • Money Talks Louder Than Ever in Midterms. Looking at how campaign finance works now, thanks to decisions like Citizens United. It isn’t exactly pretty. [via]
  • And finally, Terry Gilliam’s next movie? No, not that Don Quixote adaptation he refuses to let go of? A filmette for NASCAR.

    With this and the recent Arcade Fire concert webcast — as well the opera he’s reportedly going to stage — Gilliam does seem to be picking some very weird, much smaller projects. Maybe he’s just trying to keep busy until some new kind of funding comes along?

3 thoughts on “Thursday various”

  1. Have you seen the Sarah Jane episode where he mentions the 507 regenerations? It just aired on Tuesday, and it’s so obvious that the Doctor is just giving a flippant, bullshitty answer to the kid’s question that it’s not even funny. Except for how it’s actually freaking hilarious, given how worked up so much of Who fandom seems to have gotten in advance of actually seeing the thing. RTD, I think, is messing with us. He likes to do that sometimes. 🙂

    In any case, I personally have decided I don’t have a problem with ignoring the regeneration limit at this point, anyway. It makes perfect sense to me that the Time Lords might have just extended everybody’s regeneration capacity during the war. It’s been established that they do have the ability. So it’s justifiable even without having to resort to the (often perfectly appropriate) response of, “Continuity? Come on, it’s Doctor Who!” Although I do think RTD is being a little disingenuous with comparing it to the “thousands of years old” remark, because that was an offhand comment, whereas the regeneration limit was an absolutely crucial plot point. Some continuity is stickier than others for a reason.

    As for “it’s not fan fiction, it’s canon,” I think that while that’s certainly true as far as it goes, when you have fans running the show, it can take on something of a fan fictional sensibility, and while sometimes that’s fun, it can be problematic. I actually think RTD’s writing sometimes suffers from that a bit. So it’s not automatically a ridiculous accusation, IMO. And canon Mary Sues are certainly a familiar phenomenon. I do think, though, that fans are often way, way, way to ready to slap that label on any character they just don’t like, which really annoys me. And I don’t believe any of Moffat’s characters remotely qualify by any sane and useful definition.

    • I am hopelessly behind on my Sarah Jane episodes, despite owning the first two seasons on DVD, so I haven’t seen it yet.

      And how did I know that post would elicit a lengthy response from you? 😉

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