36 Hours

[poliphilo]

The night before last I kept waking up to discover I'd forgotten to breathe and needed to rectify the mistake pretty damn quick. Stupid old body.

Yesterday I spent in a reclining armchair watching stuff on TV. I watched Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix- a turbo-charged account of a leisurely novel- and the last three episodes of the BBC's new Torchwood series- which more than fulfilled the promise of the first two by turning all political and state-of-the-nationy. Russel T. Davies is a classic writer. He's produced a lot of tosh- much of it in the first two seasons of Torchwood- but when he gets things right he's outstanding.  Torchwood: Children of Men is a masterpiece- bitter, shaming, heartening, kinky, sentimental, morally challenging, subversive- also very exciting and funny.

 Last night I slept for 12 hours straight.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Like you I can forgive the perfunctoriness of the solution because of (a) how shocking it was and (b) the fact that the sci-fi stuff was really only a McGuffin.

Davies has overstretched himself recently. A lot of his work for Dr Who and (especially) Torchwood was shoddy, but I've never really doubted that he's a major writer. Have you seen his Casanova- with David Tennant and Peter O'Toole? It's brilliant!

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I've just noticed that I wrote 'adult' when I meant 'writer' in my description of RTD; on reflection, I'm going to leave that somewhat Freudian slip stand.

The first series of Torchwood was teenage; occasionally brilliant, often purile, desperately wanting to be grown-up without knowing quite what that meant. And oh so earnest in its beliefs. (I can identify, or maybe just project. That's certainly how I felt as a teenager.)

CoE was mature.

I saw Casanova, but don't recall being grabbed by it - O'Toole was fantastic, as he always is - he's a magnificent old man (by which I mean he portrays loss, dignity, irritation and joy with complete aplomb) - have you seen Dean Spanley?

As for McGuffins - Science Fiction's strength has always been that it looks at today with a slightly distorted lens. It's why it's both a great record of, and also a commentary on, the times it was written in.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember Torchwood getting better as it progressed. Even so, very little of it has stuck with me. It always seemed like a neat idea that should have spent longer in development. As it was they learned on the job and CoM was brilliant.

I loved Casanova. It was funny, sad- and the frocks were gorgeous. It was also my first real look at David Tennant. I guess I have a taste for historical farragos that don't take themselves too seriously.

I haven't seen Dean Spanley. Peter O'Toole seems to be having a distingished late career- with lots of decent roles in decent projects- which is excellent.