Castrovalva
Jul. 14th, 2012 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloThis on the other hand is lovely.
It's Davison's first story. His Doctor is regenerating and bumps around in a winning daze- synapses firing randomly- looking for his new self. We get to see some of the insides of the Tardis (it has a room full of cricketing memorabilia!) and visit the oh-so-charming-it-can't-be-true late medieval city state of Castrovalva. Escher is a source of inspiration, also Lewis Carroll. As with those two great artists there is a sense that we are getting baffled glimpses of a world that is larger, stranger, brighter than the one we know.
Davison is among the better actors to have played the Doctor. Perhaps the best of the "classic" era. This script gives him opportunities to demonstrate subtlety and range. His Doctor is boyish, charming, vulnerable, effortlessly commanding- and gets to do some mean impressions of his predecessors.
I don't care for Who when it goes all war of the worlds. Notice how, in my meanderings I have thus far avoided any story featuring Daleks or Cybermen. The stories I like are the ones that take us to places where anything can happen...
It's Davison's first story. His Doctor is regenerating and bumps around in a winning daze- synapses firing randomly- looking for his new self. We get to see some of the insides of the Tardis (it has a room full of cricketing memorabilia!) and visit the oh-so-charming-it-can't-be-true late medieval city state of Castrovalva. Escher is a source of inspiration, also Lewis Carroll. As with those two great artists there is a sense that we are getting baffled glimpses of a world that is larger, stranger, brighter than the one we know.
Davison is among the better actors to have played the Doctor. Perhaps the best of the "classic" era. This script gives him opportunities to demonstrate subtlety and range. His Doctor is boyish, charming, vulnerable, effortlessly commanding- and gets to do some mean impressions of his predecessors.
I don't care for Who when it goes all war of the worlds. Notice how, in my meanderings I have thus far avoided any story featuring Daleks or Cybermen. The stories I like are the ones that take us to places where anything can happen...
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 01:38 pm (UTC)A few years ago, in the DVD era, I did get a chance to see it and agree with you, it's wonderful.
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Date: 2012-07-14 01:46 pm (UTC)I always have a hard time not saying "Castrovulva".
This script gives him opportunities to demonstrate subtlety and range. His Doctor is boyish, charming, vulnerable, effortlessly commanding- and gets to do some mean impressions of his predecessors.
Yes. And later in his tenure they start throwing in a bunch of references to Errol Flynn which was when I realised Gods, he looks like Errol Flynn!
in my meanderings I have thus far avoided any story featuring Daleks or Cybermen. The stories I like are the ones that take us to places where anything can happen...
I agree. I think Daleks are kind of cute, and very early on were a little genuinely menacing. The Cybermen were a little more effectively creepy for me, especially during the second Doctor era, but they also had a moment in the sun for Earthshock in my opinion, but most Dalek and Cybermen episodes feel like watching kids play cops and robbers. My favourite moments are when the Doctor just can't take them seriously anymore--all Douglas Adams' silly bits in Destiny of the Daleks that Terry Nation got in a permanent snit about and I absolutely adore McCoy's "Rice Pudding" speech to Davros in Remembrance of the Daleks.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 02:24 pm (UTC)I'll look this one up.
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Date: 2012-07-14 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 03:28 pm (UTC)The Daleks are iconic, but I never found them scary. Their retirement is long overdue. I must check out Adams's "silly bits".
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Date: 2012-07-14 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 02:22 am (UTC)In The Awakening they even give him some lines directly from Flynn's Robin Hood.
I must check out Adams's "silly bits".
When he was script editor, Adams seems to have exercised the power of his position frequently. Nation left and never came back because of it, I can't say I mind.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 07:27 pm (UTC)