Sunday, November 24, 2013

NuWhoReVue... but first, rape

I forgot the actual reason for writing about Christmas until just now.

The reason was because I realize that a cherished holiday song from the past is actually kind-of a song about date rape.  Seriously.

Baby, It's Cold Outside has been a holiday classic forever, and everybody from Dean Martin to CeeLo Green have covered it.  Recently, we did what's called "flipping to Christmas" at my radio station, which basically means a fairly popular station in our cluster "flips" its format to all-Christmas, all the time.  The first song we played was BICO.  I got there early to listen to the "flip" live and fix any small glitches that might appear... luckily there was only one, easily fixed, which is surprising because I had to build the imaging for it from the ground up... usually it's been our Soft AC station to do it (think James Taylor and The Carpenters... basically Doctor's office background music.  However, earlier this year we flipped that station to New Country, so the only one in our cluster who we could viably flip was our Hot AC (Maroon 5, Pink, Lorde etc).  This is a huge risk, but I think we were right to do it, because all of our other stations either had week signals or were too grounded in their audience to do it.  (In my eyes, anyway... I have no actual insight into these decisions.)

So this was the first time I actually paid attention to the song, and it was just so unsettling.  I'd only heard it as I've heard most Christmas songs, kind of in the background.  Now that I paid attention it was fucking creepy.

First, I had thought the guy was the one wanting the girl to let him stay because of the weather.  It's the opposite--she's trying to leave, he's the one trying to talk her into staying because of the inclement weather.

It just gets creepier and creepier.  He talks her into staying for just half a drink more, but soon she's asking, "Say what's in this drink?"  HULLO ROOFIES.  And he's having none of her reasoning for why she doesn't want to stay... never mind that her family might get worried or she might be shamed by spending the night with somebody she's not married to, he's got a peen going and he's too lazy to just fap it himself at his laptop on Fleshbot.  He eventually guilts her into staying, with a dismissal of her reasons, "get over that holdout."  Then presumably he shame-screws her and high-fives all the guys in the office over his achievement, while the girls in the typing pool tut-tut the woman's lack of chastity.

Oh and... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anyway...




So I went back and rewatched Day of the Doctor (spoilers).  It was actually pretty decent when I could focus on it and not setting up my Xbox One, as I missed a lot of really good stuff.  

I will say that Tom Baker's inclusion at the end was unnecesssary as far as I was concerned.  It was nice, but not needed.  Also the whole is-he or isn't-he Baker's Doctor really didn't work for me.  The story was over and it felt a little tacked on... plus, his age was a bit of a hindrance, kind of like when Dad started declining in health.  It more made me sad to see him so different and not the Doctor I'd grown to enjoy occasionally after school if Dusty didn't take the long way around.  

I thought the MacGuffin of Rose being The Moment's user interface was good but she was still sporting quite the overbite.  I do think it was proper and right for The War Doctor to be the only one who could see her.  I knew it would be something like this, as Rose is pretty much out of the story now.  That was fine.

I do wish Martha Jones had been able to do a bit part.  Or Sally Sparrow.  Or even Joan Redfern, for that matter, the last two being the saddest potential Companions who never were.  But, it didn't suffer from their absence.

On second view, only two things really bugged me:


  1. Stephen Moffat's a one-trick pony who knows a really great trick.  You take a strength and fine a way to make it a weakness.  Think about it:  the Weeping Angels freeze in a quantum locked state if anything looks at them, including each other.  The Silence can implant a post-hypnotic suggestion in you, which activates once you forget them after you turn away.  Beat them by planting a suggestion of genocide spoken by one of their order and then hiding it in the most famous and viewed television broadcasts ever so that every human ever is conditioned to kill them on-site.
  2. This time?  Zygons are using Time-Lord artwork to invade Earth, so of course use that same trick against them.  And the weakness of a Time Lord, rebooting every time they die... but their bodies reboot, not their technology (sonic screwdriver).  That was actually a really funny scene that I missed the first time around... Clara just opening the door to their prison just as they realized the scan the War Doctor performed would still be analyzing the prison door in the Eleventh Doc's sonic.  Pretty cute.


The one big unexpected twist was ALL of the Doctor's iterations showing up at the end to seal Gallifrey in a slice of time.  Sure, they just used generic b-roll-ish type footage, but that's to be expected.  I'll never know if they asked Christopher Eccleston to do just ONE scene, a la Paul McGann's mini-sode, to bridge the Doctor's transformation, but if they did and he said no, he was being a bit of a dick.

Anyway, I'd like to see it without commercial interruption, so maybe I'll go see it in theatres tomorrow night.  But it was "good enough," for me, although I still don't see how this was a "game changer."  Although I am excited from  the brief footage of Peter Capaldi about his Doctor.  Would be great if they let him drop F-bombs left and right.

So, that.



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