strange and random happenstance

The first question to ask when picking a tree for your Doctor Who Christmas is which color? In my mind you have two choices. One is TARDIS blue, the other is white. I wanted, no needed, TARDIS blue. Oddly enough it wasn't too hard to find a tree of this color, and a small one at that, for a nice table top tree. Seriously, I think Amazon does have everything you could possibly need. At $100, this was the big ticket item, everything else I bought didn't even equal this, which was very nice on my wallet. Also, this tree had some interesting fiber optic capabilities... which, well, they were odd when turned on and the tree would strobe green and red and blue, but when off, the little fiber optics caught the light really well and made it shine that much more.

The next question I asked myself is what does Doctor Who and the TARDIS represent to me. So I thought, blue box shooting through outer space to see the stars. Stars would therefore become a theme. So as for tree illumination, I wanted something faceted that would twinkle like the stars as Wilf looked through his telescope. I picked these LED lights up at target for a song.

After tree and lights, the next item on a tree is always the garlands. Because I had gone with the blue verses the white tree, then the garlands would have to be the white accents of the TARDIS, whereas if I had gone with a white tree I would have needed TARDIS blue garlands (which oddly I already own, but refer to them as my Cookie Monster garlands... which makes me realise that Cookie Monster is the same color as the TARDIS!) This white garland I found at Target for $3.50.

Next, there's the stars. I loved this garland I found and target, because not only was it a cheap $2.00, but because the stars seemed to be alive in a spinning vortex of silver. Like the TARDIS racing through the space time continuum in the opening credits.

I mean, seriously, look how cool this is!

And because one garland of stars is NEVER enough, I picked these up at Target for another $3.00. In fact, the majority of this tree's decorations were found at target for rock bottom prices.

This is how the tree looked once the garlands and lights were on. As you can see, it's very much the TARDIS in tree form.

After the foundations were laid (because really, lights and garlands are like a Christmas trees foundation garments) then the fun really starts! So, almost all trees have nice circular glass ornaments. They're silver and pretty and make it shine. But, to a Whovian, they have something else to recommend them. Do they happen to look a bit like the bumps on a Dalek? YES THEY DO! So pretty silver, spacey, and reminiscent of Daleks, sign me up for one box at $6.00!

Then, when I was ambling around Jo-Ann Fabrics, I found blue balls (no inappropriate jokes please)! The reason I had to get these (and really, you have to really really want something at Jo-Ann's because seriously, the check-out takes forever) is because these are perfect TARDIS blue, just like the tree, only with glitter!

As for the final touches. I decided to go with my two favorite Doctors, ie, David Tennant and Matt Smith. As the Christmas wrapping paper and bows are right next to the ornaments, I was wandering around and looked up and saw this box of red bows for $1.00. And what did I say aloud, rather embarrassingly, "I wear bow ties now, bow ties are cool." So instead of adorning presents, they adorned branches on my tree!

Still looking for cheap items I thought of one thing that reminded me of David Tennant that indeed turned out to be cheap. 3-D glasses! On Amazon you can get a 10 pack for only $2.00! I mean, that's insanely cheap!

As for the tree topper... well, it had to be a star didn't it? A nice big silvery one. Ideally it would have been a TARDIS, but, I didn't think the top of the tree could hold the weight. So instead I settled for this topper which was only $3.00 at Target. So let's look to see how the tree is progressing... TARDIS blue, check, time and space through starry vortex, check, hint of Dalek, check, nods to 10 and 11, check, all at a reasonable price ($138.50), check! But where's a Doctor when you need one?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 3-D Glasses, Bow Ties, Christmas, Daleks, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Matt Smith, Stars, TARDIS, Target, The 10th Doctor, The 11th Doctor, Themed Christmas Tree, Wilf

Beautiful Chaos by Gary Russell
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: December 26th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 242 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Donna has asked The Doctor to take her home so that she can be with her mother for the anniversary of her father's death. The Doctor doesn't really do families well so he tries to stay out of the way of the bickering that ensues once the Nobles gather together. Plus, The Doctor has always gotten on well with Donna's granddad, Wilf, so it's easier to just spend time out with him in the allotment looking up at the stars. In fact there's a few new stars in the sky. Wilf was the first to find one of them and he's getting a dinner in his honor which he hopes The Doctor will attend. The Doctor doesn't seem so fussed about the dinner, but the other new stars, the ones that seem to be coming into alignment, well, they worry him.

At the dinner the other astronomers are grating and Donna is actually a little relieved when Wilf's lady friend, Netty, has an episode. Netty is dealing with Alzheimer's, which means that Wilf and Donna's mom are also dealing with it. Yet when The Doctor fully realizes the impact of the alignment, he has an even better excuse to leave the dinner, Donna in tow. With a cunning use of computers, astrology, genealogy, and astronomy, an old evil that The Doctor has faced before is going to use the human race to launch it's empire across the stars. Something The Doctor seriously wants to avoid happening.

I don't like to read about illness and despair, I have enough of that in my own life, thank you. This isn't the place to talk about it really, but I must touch on the issue so that you'll understand why this book made me want to get up in the author's face and explain a few facts to him, possibly with my fists. When I was in grade school my mom had two bouts of Cancer, which she survived. Though surviving took a toll. The chemo and other therapies sped things up so that while she is only thirty years older than me, her body thinks it's really fifty years older than me, which makes her the same "age" as when her mother got Parkinson's. My mom has Parkinson's. This is a daily struggle. Therefore, I think you can see why I use reading as an escape. I want to be anywhere and anywhen then here, and a book that dwells on these issues, no thank you.

While Russell's use of an incurable illness, in this case Alzheimer's, as the real evil is apt, he goes too far into the braveness of the battle. Netty dealing with her chronic illness bravely and nobly (sorry, I HAD to use that pun) just felt like some sort of propaganda for dealing with this kind of crisis in a stiff upper lip, keeping up appearances way. The message was heavy handed. People who talk about fighting this kind of battle as "brave" or "courageous" just make me want to scream. These are platitudes designed to make you, yeah, you, the one who doesn't have to deal with this shit better. To people in my position, well, it makes me want to punch you. Do you all not understand that there's your public face and your private face? That there's what you should to the world, what you show to the patient, and what you show to yourself? Yes, sure, I guess we could say that at least Donna's mom deals more with the reality of all this, but in the end, no, she doesn't because Netty joyously declares that she wants to go into a nursing home. Please (insert me rolling my eyes)! Show me one person out there who's like, "Nursing Home, SIGN ME UP!" No one will even want this, even if they know they can't handle their life in their current environment. My great aunt, she's 89, and she's steadfastly vetoing any kind of help or assisted living. And she's just the most recent of my family members to do this.

I had such hopes for this book because Donna Noble is my favorite companion in the new series, hands down, perhaps even in all the series. When The Doctor lost Donna, that was really the end of this Doctor. His life after that was filled with sadness and loneliness. The heartbreaking scene when Donna has to have her memory removed has taken on a fuller life her and made into a staggeringly heartbreaking novel. By bookending a story about Altzheimer's with Donna's own memory lose, it's a punch to the gut, that's what it is. But more then that, by showing the struggles that Donna's mother and grandfather are going through, it makes Donna's decision to travel in the TARDIS seem callous. Russell has taken my favorite character and put a spin on her that I don't like one bit. If I where just to say, fuck it and up and leave, well, I don't know what would happen, and that's a fear that I live with all the time. I admired Donna before, now... now I see someone in my position being heartless and unfeeling. Ug, just someone, remove this book from my mind, I want my Donna back.

As for the "plot," well, take out the struggle with family and illness and do we really even have much of a plot? No we don't. The author has made a flimsy story about Mandragora returning, which, for those of you not inculcated into every medium The Doctor appears in, television, written, and audio, well, you might be more then a little lost, but Russell doesn't seem to care or even want to explain for those new to this evil. Not every reader knows everything Doctor Who! A book like these needs to be written for all levels of readers. Also the evil computer/world domination bid with some little kids helping out, well, it made it more like a saccharine episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures if it had be touched up by Michael Crichton. Also, the Doctor is more then a bit bitchy and down on humans, oh, and, seriously, authors, don't have the title of your book used like fifty times throughout the story, it's annoying. Ok... I think my rant is over... can't be sure, these episodes are unexpected, much like Netty's... gaw, Netty...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alzheimer's, Beautiful Chaos, Cancer, Doctor Who, Donna, Gary Russell, Mandragora, Michael Crichton, Nursing Home, Parkinson's, Sarah Jane Adventures, The 10th Doctor, Wilf

The Doctor is dead, long live The Doctor. Regeneration is one of those givens in Doctor Who... it doesn't mean I have to like it. The end of the 10th Doctor has been immanent for some time, and in the intervening months I have had much denial followed by anger (last week)... but I think I've reached acceptance, of a kind. The episode, while overall not the best, did have it's moments where David shined and made me repeat his utterance "I don't want to go." I don't want a new journey, I don't want to go to a new Doctor, I want him to stay. I'm going to sound old, but this young guy looks too flash, too, not David Tennant. Oh no... it's not the denial coming back again is it? Because me and denial, we're good friends... for example in my world, Jonathan didn't die on Buffy, neither did Anya, Zander is a pirate though, which seems kind of impossible without the others, and Wes and Fred are happy as can be over on Angel... and how may years has that been? Six, seven... see, me, denial, friends! Especially when it comes to Joss Whedon shows, and Russell T. Davies is kind of the British Joss. Also Wash didn't die in my world, come join me!

But I think I'll let the 10th Doctor have his death. It was a good death, it was a noble death, not some lame ass spider bite, it was a death. I think that's what hits home more then the other regenerations, and it's what Russell T. Davies tried, and I think accomplished, doing, he gave the Doctor a death. Before it was always more a moving on not a full stop. The man goes on with just a different face, but it's not that... it's more. It's the death of a man the world loved and this new guy, we're not sold on. When Christopher Eccleston died, it was a kind of transcendence and a glory, here we are left with sadness.

Coming up in the next paragraph, as River Song would say: "Spoilers!"

We begin were we left off, the "Master Race" has taken over the world and there are no more humans. After some more Master ranting The Doctor, Wilf and the two cacti retreat to outer space to regroup. All this is inter cut with more Star Wars prequel Timelord delusions of Russell T. Davies which are saved from being pure tack by Timothy Dalton being awesome. He was made to play villians, he never worked as Bond because bad is in his bones... Hot Fuzz anyone? So the Timelords have gone major bongo crazy and have actually created the drumming in The Master's head so as to escape the timelock that was created for the Time War. What's even more crazy is that they don't seem to care that they would bring about the end of time, quite literally, when Pandora's box is reopened in the form of this timelock, because they all believe in the Rapture and ascending to another plane. To put it simply... The Master even thinks they're a little not all there. Of course things work out as they should, but not without some more Star Wars references thrown in. Gallifrey falls again and The Master Peter Petrelli's his way out, which made me think that he was going to go nuclear and The Doctor would die of radiation... I was right on the radiation, wrong on the why.

The prophecy of doom, the knocking of four, turns out to be Wilf, trapped in the radiation chamber... he's the Doctor's doom. A person he loves and would willingly die for, is his death, not the Timelords, not The Master. He could live if he wanted, he could let Wilf die, but that's not The Doctor we know and love. The soliloquy of David's is heartrending. You know he'll save Wilf, it's what The Doctor does... but for once he breaks down, rages against the world, how he, someone who is a Lord of Time could die to save a no one. But it's those who deserve saving all the more. And Wilf knows what's coming, he begs The Doctor to let him die, he knows how important the Doctor is to the world.

What Russell T. Davies leaves us with is just designed to tie up loose ends while pulling at the heart strings. Because we're having a changing of the guard at Doctor Who, Russell and Julie are leaving with David, and hence all those companions are too. It's, presumably, the end of Wilf and Mickey and Donna and Martha... we'll see Sarah Jane and Jack, but what about Jackie and finally, what about Rose. I'm beyond pissed that apparently Mickey is with Martha... icky icky, I hate Mickey and Martha deserves better. Donna, while getting what she wanted pre-Doctor, still is so unrealized as a human and looses out the most. Jack... I should have seen that Jack would be in some Star Wars dive bar and then run into Alonso, aka Russell Tovey, and that, they would say, seems the beginning of the next season of Torchwood... Jack has his new Ianto. Allons-y Alonso! And Rose... it's a farewell without her ever knowing, and that's what makes it all the more powerful. Russell didn't reunite them to fight a common enemy, he didn't have them all flying the TARDIS and banishing the foe, he had The Doctor, alone, watching over his friends, some of them without them ever knowing, as his final goodbye. It was the quiet that was needed and lacking in the first part. I will miss the 10th Doctor, but hopefully the 11th Doctor won't be all bad, he just won't, and can't be David.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Angel, Buffy, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Donna, Gallifrey, Joss Whedon, Russell T. Davies, The 10th Doctor, The 11th Doctor, Time War, Timelords, Torchwood, Wilf

You'd think that Russell T. Davies would really have tried to write the best possible ending for David Tennant... well, you'd think that... but if part one is anything to go by, I'm not sure that he can pull it all together. For those who watched it last night, or for those who will be watching it shortly stateside (it airs tonight), I will be very interested to see what you think. I was thoroughly unimpressed. There were moments when it was perfect, but these were fleeting and we were left with something that was just too much.

Coming up in the next paragraph, as River Song would say: "Spoilers!"

As the narrator's voice comes up, we learn that it is the last days of the human race... but The Doctor is not there, he has been delaying meeting the Ood and by the time he arrives, it might be too late, the nightmares that people can't remember are of The Master, he is returning. But Donna's grandfather, Wilf, is on Earth and he remembers that which others cannot, he is also seeing visiosn of a lady telling him what is to come. Wilf sends out a reconnaissance mission of randy geriatrics and they discover The Doctor moments after he lands and has had his first encounter with The Master. The Doctor unburdens himself to Wilf as Wilf begs to get Donna back to what she was... but that's not possible, she'll have to make due with her new fiance and just getting by. The Doctor and The Master have yet another showdown and then mysterious forces, controlled by an eccentric daughter dotting billionaire, capture The Master and all hell breaks loose due to the technology that the billionaire, Joshua Naismith, scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood. As part one reaches it's climax, as one viewer commented, was the whole episode just written for the one groan inducing joke about the "Master Race?"

This episode just had too much of Russell T. Davies trying to be the biggest and best sci-fi show there is. And you know what? Taking bites and pieces from every other show and badly integrating it into your own do not a successful hour of television make. I have several big gripes, the main one being, Russell apparently thinks Doctor Who is now Heroes. First off, Heroes had maybe one good season and is facing cancellation on a daily basis, so why'd he think it was a good idea to emulate it? The narration is a little nod, but when did The Master go all mutant x on us? The episode is more like some really lame origins comic for how The Master was reborn and developed superhuman powers... even if he wasn't really human to begin with. He can now FLY! And shoot lightning out of his hands! How Awesome... wait... I mean LAME! I love that they obviously didn't reign John Simm in at all, he's brilliantly over the top and ravenous to boot, plus the blonde hair, loving it! But his performance is what makes The Master work, not the special effects and flying and lasers, it's his terrifying screams of "Dinner Time" and his lament about the sound of drums and his interaction with David Tennant that ground this high flying baddie.

Then I have guest star gripes... mainly due to the fact that they hired some of my most hated British character actors ever. Joshua Naismith is none other than David Harewood, Friar Tuck from season three of Robin Hood, otherwise known to me as the reason Robin Hood was shuffled into a quick cancellation grave due to his overacting and overbearing attitude to all of Robin Hood's men. Superiority complex much? Plus, he's more than just a little creepy with his daughter, who can't act at all, don't believe, watch the Confidential. But more importantly, Addams, played by Sinead Keenan. Sinead is most known for being George's girlfriend, and also a doctor, on Being Human. There's something about her that I just hate. I have a nickname, it's Piggy. Yes it might be mean, but she can't act and the only hope I have for season two of Being Human is that she dies during the transformation the first time she wolfs out. Her appearance on Doctor Who was not a welcome surprise.

But what got me most of all is that this was so timely. It was of our time! Doctor Who usually strives for ambiguity and has their own heads of state or vague references to presidents and leaders elect. But not this time. It was Barack Obama this and Barack Obama that. It not only took you out of the world of Doctor Who, but it also lacked credulity. When was the last time a President did a big speech about how they're magically going to fix the economy on Christmas? As Russell said, they took a risk with this and they hoped that the recession would still be around. Personally I think you took a risk of destroying the fabric of the show. Where Torchwood could conceivably do this better than Doctor Who, they didn't throw out political names left and right when the children of the earth were at stack, so why did Davies do it now?

Overall this episode displays one thing... it's good we're getting ride of Russell T. Davies. He has a love of bringing villains back again and again, and a tendency to make "specials" bloated and unwieldy, and in the long run, boring. Though I will say this, he has surrounded himself with the talent that tried to make the best of a bad script, and occasionally they succeeded. John Simm gave some of his best as a hungry hoodie in the wasteland and the scene where David Tennant told Wilf he was going to die, I don't think David had to act those tears, it is heart wrenching. So for a few scenes it was worth it, but as to the finale... I hope Russell delivers, I really hope that this underwhelming first chapter was a way to lower our expectations in order to then blow us away... but I have a feeling it wasn't. Also on a final note... true Doctor Who fans know that the Timelords and The Doctor have never seen eye to eye and that they're kind of bureaucratic baddies, we did not need to be told this Russell, plus, when the scene ends up looking eerily similar to the galactic senate scenes in the Star Wars prequels, you better hope you didn't jump the shark like Lucas did.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 4:12 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Barack Obama, Being Human, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Donna, George Lucas, Heroes, Hoodie, Robin Hood, Russell T. Davies, Star Wars, The Doctor, The Master, Timelords, Torchwood, Wilf