I recently — last Saturday and tonight, to be more precise — watched a couple of movies: Timecrimes (aka Los cronocrÃmenes) and The Man from Earth (aka Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth).
Both were solidly entertaining, Timecrimes for the enjoyable time travel puzzle it creates, and Man for the intriguing ideas it raises. In fact, it’s essentially nothing but ideas: 90 minutes of very good actors just talking to one another. Man has the feel of an old-school Twilight Zone or Star Trek episode — no wonder, given its late author’s background, and the fact that it was first conceived in the 1960s. But that’s not to say it feels padded out to feature length. I think it’s exactly the right length.
Timecrimes was a solid B, B-minus, and I think I liked it better before it was clearly a time travel movie. In its opening scenes, when you don’t quite know what’s going on, it’s actually quite atmospheric and scary. But it’s entertaining beyond that, if never entirely surprising or scary afterward.
(I did like how binoculars and rear-view mirrors were used — maybe intentionally, maybe not. I don’t think this qualifies as a spoiler. In theory, we use these things to see further, to magnify, but they cut off our peripheral vision, the binoculars especially. Anything that fall out of frame can sneak up on us. And in a movie like this, they often will.)
I’d recommend both movies. Both short and entertaining, interesting in their own ways.
Other than that, I’ve mainly been watching some television, including old-school Doctor Who. Having finished Peter Davison’s run on the show (well, aside from Snakedance, which I had trouble finding until recently), I’ve decided to risk Colin Baker’s interpretation. I’m worried, though, that Betty may be right about the character, certainly in her problems with his first episode. Still, it would be hard to disappoint after The Caves of Androzani, Davison’s last. Aside from the always low production values — and a completely superfluous man-in-rubber-suit monster — that was some really excellent work.
Coincidentally, I just watched Timecrimes a week or so ago, myself. I suspect it’s a little more surprising and effective if, unlike me, you haven’t already encountered five or six hundred time travel stories with more or less the same structure. But it is very solidly put together.
“The Twin Dilemma,” IMHO is a serious contender for the title of Worst Who Episode Ever. It is, I suppose, helpful to know that there’s pretty much nowhere for Colin Baker’s Doctor to go from there but up. And I will confess that I’ve finally gotten to the point where I no longer dislike his version, but instead feel rather pleasantly nostalgic about him. Still, even apart from the characterization issues — about which legitimate differences of opinion are certainly possible — that particular era had some terrible scripts, a fact which I don’t think anybody disputes. Alas.
So, yeah, cling to the memory of “Androzani,” because that is a fine piece of television. 🙂
I’m actually sort of liking Baker’s interpretation. I think it’s hopelessly out-of-place for the Doctor, and I can see why fans at the time didn’t like the mentally unhinged, sometimes homicidal version of the character, but I do suspect that’s largely not Baker’s fault. I liked Davison better, but I can understand where they thought they were going with the new version.
Everything else about that episode, though…
“Caves of Androzani” actually surprised me by being so good.
No, I don’t really think it’s Baker’s fault, either. He’s actually quite a good actor. I can understand where they thought they were going, too, and it wasn’t necessarily bad in principle — a slightly darker, edgier, more arrogant Doctor could have been very interesting after Davison’s much gentler performance — but they took it several notches too far. By the way, I haven’t listened to many of them, but I understand that the sixth Doctor audio plays are generally highly praised as being more what that era of the show should have been.
And didn’t I tell you “Androzani” was wonderful? I do seem to remember putting it in that “recommended episodes” list. 🙂 I think it may well get my vote for best Classic Who episode ever, although “Genesis of the Daleks” might just force a tie.