the heliofugal worlds of MAC RA
the who ep on sat (“gridlock”) has divided the fans sharply (er WARNING — portals to LJ): — i really really genuinely enjoyed it start-to-finish and was initially totally surprised that anyone else didn’t: except on reflection it’s an ep which more than usual dicks around with the various reception registers and their respective comfort zones
viz immediately after one of the things i was thinking was “haha this did two things douglas adams was always trying to do” =
i. poking fun at SF cliches by turning them into self-evidently ludicrous and impossible devices (viz a DRUG that mutated into a DEADLY VIRUS heehee)
ii. creates isolated communities and alien worldlets which are gathered round a single blatantly unsustainable “idea”, building them up in order to flash goofily past them
except everyone knows i *hate* douglas adams and his horrible HHGttG >:(
which means (to me) that RTD was getting the delivery of this species of “idea lite” content right — NOT full of weary disdain towards “mere ordinary SF fans who are not as smart as d.adams” the way adams kinda always seemed to be (adams was to me very bad at locating useable emotional weight in — eg — the threat of the entire earth being destroyed) (i accept that plenty of ppl think RTD often overplays the “feelings” stuff — he’s no joss whedon — but i like that he doesn’t just hurriedly slide by it; i also think the “maximal yuk” some people feel towards some of these kinds of eps… the peter kay one was another one… is is much a reaction against genre moving outside preferred comfort zone as it’s an index of lame-idea-badly-done
which is bcz — i think — RTD is more than usually alert to the actual fact of a *comfort-zone clash* between the difft layers of fans which so long-running a series has inevitably gathered: he doesn’t just play “here’s an ep for the old-skool nerds, here’s an ep for the ultrateenies, here’s an ep for the (gay) dads, here’s an ep for 2000AD-heds, here’s an ep for the mccoy-lovers, here’s an ep for newcomers who aren’t still seven” — which would be one solution but not at all a coherent one — but here’s an ep for ALL THE ABOVE (and others i haven’t listed or thought out) and what’s more it’s a HIGH-SPEED THROWAWAY TRANSITIONAL ep
now to me that fact of the sharpness of the division is a sign that this episode MATTERS (even if it isn’t “good”): bcz it turns who into a terrain that has to be CONTESTED (even by ppl who DON’T REALLY CARE)
so er yeah OMG THE MACRA lolz }Ω{ }Ω{ }Ω{ }Ω{ }Ω{
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in Do You See /FT • TV • 645 views
“a reaction against genre moving outside preferred comfort zone” — ie this is how i would characterise my antipathy to adams, really
it’s not that i was temperamentally against his concept, more than iv wz just catastrophically the wrong age to warm to it, and i *really* have to adjust feelers to “get” what’s good about him (ie i can do it intellectually, but i can’t ‘feel’ it)
“bcz it turns who into a terrain that has to be CONTESTED (even by ppl who DON’T REALLY CARE)”
NOES I have fallen into RTD’s trap!
Contesting the episode on the thread (and in doing so realising my inner Macra fanboy) made me like it a lot more than my initial low reaction – every time someone mentioned a bit they liked (except the Boe/Gallifrey stuff near the end) I thought “oh yes that *was* good”, so maybe it was the lack of glue in the “ALL THE ABOVE” that I disliked.
My initial on-sofa reaction was “bit of a mess”: Isabel’s was “WORST EPISODE EVER”, and that it had made her lose faith in New Who entirely! (And she was horrified that I then spent an hour typing about it – “Who on earth is saying they liked it?”)
(She is not a sci-fi head by any means, in fact watching old Who vids with me was her first exposure to it.)
The BIG problem with Adams is his seeming glee that only he has noticed how clever he is in moving sci-fi outside of comfort zone, and thus inherent smuggery which comes with it.
I thought this was a terrific episode with some great redemptive moments (evil nurse cat), some great “normal” human performances, redeemed the bowler hat showed the indefatigable spirit of the human vs crab eternal struggle. And a paean for public transport too.
“a HIGH-SPEED THROWAWAY TRANSITIONAL”
high speed? first 5 mins were kidnap companion. Next 20 were “sit in a traffic jam”. the bulk of the plot was at the backend. liked the visuals and the pace of the set piece descending through traffic. rest was balls.
kittens >> macra (obv)
[i have no idea why you are on about d.adams, but I don't recognise the disdain for fans, and his ignoring of emotional weight was clearly a feature not a bug]
I never really read Adams as smug, it’s more that he has his own comfort zone – slightly donnish games-playing laced with undergraduate humour – and he doesn’t see why high SF concepts shouldn’t fit into that. So there’s a cosiness undermining his work, not a smugness.
Re. emo Adams – I think he spent the later, unfunny HHGTTG books trying to make more of the emotional weight: the casual nihilism of the earth-destruction was one of the things that most impressed me about Hitch-Hikers (at an age to be impressed).
Interestingly one of my favourite emo moments in Old Who is in an Adams episode – the Doctor’s confrontation with the Pirate Captain in “The Pirate Planet” – though it’s not really in the script, more in Tom B’s sudden switch to a very unfamiliar (for him) register of anger and genuine outrage.
“he spent the later, unfunny HHGTTG books trying to make more of the emotional weight” OTM
i. the plot was not particularly important to the content of this ep (hence high-speed and throwaway) (it was high-speed at the end rather than the middle)
ii. the “world creation” = the “slow” (and best) 20 mins given over to something that who doesn’t do anything like as much as it used to (it re-uses old aliens mostly, which is the old-skool way to create a wokable worldlet)
iii. d.adams is someone outside MY comfort-zone — and i’m arguing this is as much bcz of ME (as a fan at a particular age) than it is him…
iv. disdain may be the wrong word — at the time (given the age i was) i reacted against what i took to be disdain but is actually more what pete just said
v. what i’m saying is i liked this ep bcz it did enjoyably (for me) something that adams did in a way i have only ever “appreciated” — cf the two elements i listed (deliberately silly devices; instant “civilisations”)
vi. so RTD brings these elements inside *my* “comfort zone” (me = big reader of 60s ‘new wave’ SF, which this concept, described prior to actual delivery (world reduced to unending motorway) very much reminds me of)
vii. er yes the end stuff was a bit wearisome — i am hoping partly a set-up for more FoB-action back at the arse end of time
i need to get what i mean abt “feelings” clearer — it’s not abt “feelings vs no feelings”, and yes back in the day i too was inclined to be unbothered by entire galaxies exploding
it’s more like chuck eddy’s gladys and the pips rule, i think — and whedon is the recent god of it: setting up a deliberately trivial or cheesy and playfully self-aware situation and then twisintg it into something with real emotional weight (which is powerful bcz unexpected, genre-wise)
(a now somewhat whiskered example from elsewhere is the final scene in trenches-era blackadder)
but what i like abt dr who and RTD’s approach to it is, where buffy is highly preplanned and controlledly executed “as a work”, nu-who is so work-in-progress scrappy — you can so see the thrown-together joins (there’s been a “let’s put the show on here” rush and risk to it even since eccleston) (which to me is why it doesn’t matter when he tries stuff which doesn’t really come off — in fact, it adds to the fun)
“comfort zone clash” is a replay of “seven ages of pop man”, for those keeping score
BACK TO EMP
Sorry if anyone reads the above as me saying that Adams WAS smug, just that what he was doing had an inherent smugness to it. I devoured Adams as a kid for most of the reasosn Tom mentions above – nine year olds love casual world destruction and bouncing from one seemingly random adventure to the next (hence the gear changing crunchiness of this episode being great).
The problem I had much later with Adams (and therefore the real niggle I also have with this series of Who) is using the trappings of SF (spaceships etc) to tell fantasy stories. Whilst there are some great ideas in Adams, and also in Who: there also seems a willingness to throw out plot logic and fairness to the audience too, which I am less happy with. I am a storytelling rockist I guess!
I thought this was a terrific episode in Whovian terms i.e. in the tradition of Pertwee/T.Baker eps (= my Dr Who). But it was also pretty good in nu-Who terms, especially the way it further developed the Martha-Doctor relationship. Definitely a 10 out of 10 ep.
Indeed my only criticism (and I watched it Sat and again Sun) was that Martha was rubbish at looking scared when the Macra were attacking the car – and was generally out-acted by Sugar out of Sugar Rush.
This is why I don’t watch or join diggerdydum. I have such a highly personal interaction with the programme and ex post discussion just ruins it. (I may still stop by and vote though heh.)
I was actually confused by the pacing because of the time switch, but also because Nu-Who tends to do slow build-up, very rapid resolution, whereas here we got v. short intro, then very rapid change in situation, then 20 mins of motorway, then much longer resolution. So by the end the motorway made much more (narrative) sense, and I agree with mark that the world building aspects of it were impressive, perhaps more impressive than the giant-plot-arc elements.
By time switch I mean from 7.00 to 7.45. Also the clock in our living room is unreadable so the episode seemed to go on much longer than it actually did.