The Past and the Slightly More Recent Past

I’ve been published again! I wrote about the Quiz of Rassilon for Syfy Wire and I really enjoy how it turned out. You can check it out through my portfolio, or you can just click the link here.

This past weekend was also the quiz (we placed third!), so I spent Saturday night watching “Death to the Daleks.” Third Doctor has never been my favorite, and I’m famously unmoved by Sarah Jane, but there was some really intense and effective aesthetic choices for the set design and lighting. The entire serial definitely had a mood even if the pacing was a bit wonky. The idea of Daleks being on a planet where they’re just as helpless as the humans was really interesting but didn’t go far enough into exploring Dalek psychology. It’s not just that they’re all fascist ruthless murderers but that it’s part of their identity in a fundamental way that stripping them of that ability should have been really interesting. Instead they just chose to self-destruct because a single prisoner escaped.

I’ve mainly split my watching this week into two very different sections. One was finally, FINALLY getting started on the Quatermass stories from the 50s. It’s been on my list for years and years but it was difficult knowing exactly where I wanted to start. So far I’ve seen what I could of the first serial, Quatermass Experiment (last 4 episodes are missing but I watched recaps), all of Quatermass II, and the 1955 Hammer Horror film version of Quatermass Experiment. Quatermass II is what I spent the longest time on, which is a shame because I hear it’s the worst one and I wasn’t very taken with it. The premise was okay but it had a ridiculous amount of filler, and the actor playing Quatermass took his gravitas too seriously, I think. He tried to play Quatermass as a know-it-all action hero instead of a know-it-all scientist. I had a similar problem with the Hammer film making him more of a noir anti-hero, but at least I liked the character more with better dialogue and patter. The change they made with the Judith Caroon from wanting a divorce in the first serial to blaming Quatermass for all her troubles in the film was massively upsetting to me. Especially since the writers felt the need to have Quatermass spell out to her, “emotions have no place in science!” (Incorrect and also fuck you.)

Quatermass clearly had a huge impact on British sci-fi and sci-fi in general. In reading Inside the TARDIS, Chapman points out that most sf books were idea-based, little thought given to character or personality. Quatermass was one of the first sci-fis to layer over sf ideas with television drama. I’m a little skeptical about this assertion since dramatic science fiction and horror stories were already very popular in radio with shows like “Suspense” and “Inner Sanctum.” The added bonus/horror of it being on television was that you got to see the alien-plant-blob creature climbing over the walls of Westminster Abbey just two years after the first filmed Coronation had been televised there. It’s both a fear of globalization (the rocket bringing something foreign from the unknown reaches of space, the emphasis on television and media) and a marvel at the advances those technologies bring.

Waaaaaaay on the other side of the television spectrum, I’ve also been digging back into The Goldbergs. I have a real affinity for the ABC line-up of oddball family shows (RIP Speechless) and Goldbergs is one of my favorites. No relation to The Goldbergs of 30s and early television fame, but I don’t hold that against them. My friend made a joke about how it’s easy to enjoy a show about Jewish people because, “hey! their grandpa reminds me of mine! of course I’m laughing!” which is true (I’m a sucker for Jewish humor) but the show also has a great knack for observational humor and asides. The characters are frequently self-aware and yet go on doing dumb things anyway (I relate). Barry and Adam get into bickering matches about the correct way to mimic ocean sounds or the difference between a slow or sarcastic clap. Observational humor IS a staple of Jewish humor but it’s not just the manischewitz jokes I’m laughing at. The show does lean a bit too hard on pop culture sometimes but I also understand how so much of the show and humor is about the 80s era specificity. I wasn’t feeling great last week so a binge on wholesome sitcom humor is what I needed. My roommates argued about its wholesomeness after I described Adam using a vaccuum cleaner to fake hickeys and then having a friend pelt him with paintballs to cover the mistake but I maintain that well-intentioned idiots are wholesome.

That’s about it from me this week. I’m working on a new project that requires me to revisit almost the entirety of the Second Doctor (oh the affliction) so expect a lot more of that in the near future.