I did the Sunday crossword puzzle today. I wasn’t impressed by it at all. You can read more about the puzzle, along with answers, here, if you’re so inclined. It’s come to this: I’m regularly — like, once a week, only very occasionally more — reading a crossword puzzle blog.
I watched yesterday’s season finale of Doctor Who. I thought it was entertaining, and did a reasonable enough job of bringing some big things to a satisfying enough conclusion, but…okay, minor spoilers here: I’m not so sure I like how they took what’s basically a running dumb meta joke about the television series — one that Moffat himself made before, actually, in “The Girl in the Fireplace” — and make it canon. See, it’s not like anyone calls him that; that’s just what the show is called. Minor quibble, so a minor spoiler. If you haven’t seen the episode, I’m actually still being really vague. Maybe too vague even if you have seen it. Have any of you seen it? Ultimately, I really enjoyed the episode, even if I feel like (more minor spoilers) Moffat went back to last season’s finale a bit much — “The Wedding of River Song” bears at least a passing resemblance to “The Big Bang” — and even if I’m not so sure splitting the season as they did really worked in their favor. “A Good Man Goes to War” is a good finale, and “Let’s Kill Hitler” is a good place to start again, but there’s a loss of overall momentum by splitting them apart. Still, whatever else, you certainly can’t fault Moffat for not telling ambitious enough stories.
I also watched another episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which I’ve slowly been re-watching (again). There’s not much to say about it — except that, even in the first season when it was still finding itself and defining its characters, the show feels true to itself and well defined. As opposed to, say, those other two Trek spin-offs, Voyager and Enterprise. I’ve slowly been watching Enterprise as well recently, for the first time, and there I do think I’ll have more to say at some point. It’s too problematic a show, despite my genuine appreciation for some of what it does, for me not to say something more. (I’m not sure I can bring myself to rewatch Voyager. I quit pretty early on the first time around.)
I played Portal a little more. I’m very late to the party with this, but it really is a great game. Maddening, challenging, often laugh-out-loud funny — I’d highly recommend it if you’re one of the few people who have yet to play it. (Or was I the last?) I’m very nearly finished, but I tell you: I could have picked a better time — like when I didn’t have an issue of Kaleidotrope to finish laying out — to download a really complicated computer game.
And lest you think I spent all day playing games and watching TV — oh, I also re-watched the pilot episode of Fraiser for some reason. But! I also replaced the air filter on my car, so there’s that — I wrote this:
The aliens built John Wilkes Booth to kill us all, but the man fell in love with the theater and became a celebrated actor of the American stage. It wasn’t until 1865 that the aliens were able to correct for the glitch in his genetic engineering, to overwrite the false memories they had implanted in the humanoid Booth, and redirect him toward their original course of action. By that point, though, the best Booth could do was assassinate a sitting president — which always seems like a big deal in theory, but in practice, in the greater scheme of things, doesn’t often amount to much at all.
And even there, Booth nearly gave the game away when he jumped to the stage and his new programming temporarily shorted out along with his broken leg. Eyewitnesses, and posterity, would later report that Booth had shouted “Sic semper tyrannis” — “thus always to tyrants” — but it was really the alien language of his creators that he shouted, not classical Latin, warning everyone assembled at Ford’s Theater of the giant mothership poised to descend upon the Earth and the alien armada lying in wait somewhere in orbit around Neptune.
It’s questionable what any of the other patrons of the theater that evening could have done with that knowledge even if they had understood Booth, or recognized the string of coordinates his fleeing outburst had inadvertently revealed. Even then, America’s space program was still in its infancy. The operational base on Mars was still manned only by automated drones — Seward’s Second Folly, detractors called it, none too originally — and the Civil War with the lunar colonies had driven Lincoln to distraction.
And yet the aliens called it off, their plans to destroy us all, to subjugate and terraform the planet to their liking, to infiltrate humanity with genetic spies sent to do their bidding. How close to that precipice we came in 1865, we may never know. We can only be glad that the aliens lacked the temerity for a full assault when Booth (and his robotic conspirators) failed to deliver on their earlier promise. What the aliens had cooking in their labs, America of that turbulent age would never know.
Only a century later, in 1963, when the aliens returned to unleash mechanical spiders to kill President Kennedy, would we meet the true face of this global threat.
Of course, they weren’t the same aliens. That accounts for some of it. Conspiracy theorists have tried for years to draw parallels between Lincoln and Kennedy’s assassinations, but the simple truth remains: the aliens that attacked them both were different.
Only the time-traveling werewolf Nazis were the same.
Yeah, I think there was maybe some Doctor Who on the brain there.
ETA: I finished Portal. It would appear the cake is a lie.
I’ve seen it! As of this morning, anyway, because I’m finally starting to get caught up on things after my vacation. And I enjoyed the heck out of it. Moffat has this astonishing talent for doing totally WTFish stuff that should not work and somehow making it work, anyway. I’d agree that it does echo last season’s finale a little too much, but it managed to make me not really mind (plus it seemed to sort of promise at the end not to do it again for a while :)). And — bit of a spoiler warning here! — the “meta joke” you’re talking about, I found amusing, even rather charming in its own utterly bizarre way, rather than annoying. But then, you know, Who does stuff like that sometimes, so I’m used to it. Plus, I like meta jokes. By the way, I’m not sure if you realize just how very, very meta it is, as it is almost literally the first question asked in the show, or at least the first thing we ever hear the Doctor say.
(OK, end spoiler warning.)
Being in the middle of an off-and-on rewatch of DS9 myself, I’m not sure how much I agree that the show already feels like itself in season 1. It’s sort of true and sort of not, if you ask me. Among other things, there are episodes in there where it seems not to have entirely grasped the concept that of not being TNG, although even in those it sometimes does interesting subversive things to the usual TNG formula. In any case, the jump in quality after it does find its feet is pretty amazing.
And here I thought I was the last person on Earth to play Portal! Which I will admit I loved beyond reason. Portal 2 is also well worth playing, although I didn’t get quite the same enthralled experience out of it.
Also, keep this kind of writing up, and I think you’re a shoo-in for the Doctor Who writing staff. 🙂
By the way, I’m not sure if you realize just how very, very meta it is, as it is almost literally the first question asked in the show, or at least the first thing we ever hear the Doctor say.
Fair enough. There’s no way I’m going to compete with you or Moffat for biggest Who fan. He’s much more steeped in its history, obviously, than I am. I didn’t find it especially annoying, and overall I really liked the episode. There was a lot to like about it. I’m just not sure I’d rank it with my favorites. (“The Girl Who Waited” and “The God Complex” — for that final heartbreaking scene between Smith and Gillian in the hotel alone — are probably it this half-season.) But good fun. Moffat definitely likes to throw everything at the wall to see what will stick…or send the wall crashing to the ground. You really can’t fault his ambition. You can’t claim he’s playing things too safe.
I am curious, of course, what you think about the complaint Peter David levels at the episode here — namely that the episode, while fun, really never had to happen…and never having to happen kind of contradicts everything else we were told.
I’m not sure how much I agree that the show already feels like itself in season 1.
Oh, there’s definitely a learning curve, some not so great episodes — I’m no great fan of “Run Along Home” — and a few characters (Odo particularly) whose back stories still seem pretty much up for grabs. And there’s, of course, a preponderance of guest stars — although the Q episode is fun, and I think Majel Barrett actually turns in her best work as Lwaxana Troi. (True, she’s competing against some fairly dire TNG eps, but still.)
So the show isn’t fully itself, or the show it would become, that first year, but so far there’s not a lot that strictly breaks continuity, contradicts anything that’s to come later, and it’s less rough around the edges than I remembered. It gets better, but when you stack it against its predecessors like TNG — which is often pretty lousy its first year or so — or its successors like Enterprise — which clearly had a crisis of faith in its premise mid-way through and redefined itself — I think DS9 stands apart.
Portal 2 is also well worth playing, although I didn’t get quite the same enthralled experience out of it.
Oh, I’ll definitely play it. But I won’t make the mistake of downloading it while I still have lots of other things to get done. Maybe in a couple of weeks. I’ve heard good things about it, but most seem to agree with what you say: a lot of fun, some more story, but not as much fun as the first.
I am curious, of course, what you think about the complaint Peter David levels at the episode here
Hmm. I think he likely has a point, although the logic and the timeline of episodes like this make it really hard to untangle questions of exactly what could have gone differently when. But, well, I think the episode manages the nifty trick of making me not actually care about whether it holds up completely under scrutiny. I’m always pleased when a show pulls that off for me, because when I’m not engaged enough with the story, I can nitpick with the best of them. So I’m afraid what I think is mostly, “Eh, whatever. I liked it.” Which is probably not very interesting. 🙂
and I think Majel Barrett actually turns in her best work as Lwaxana Troi.
I get the impression that it’s fashionable to diss her appearances in DS9, but I actually quite like them, too.
But so far there’s not a lot that strictly breaks continuity, contradicts anything that’s to come later,
I think the only thing that rather jarringly fails to fit is the characterization of Dax, which changes massively after season 1, but it made for such a tremendous improvement that it’s hard to mind.
But I won’t make the mistake of downloading it while I still have lots of other things to get done.
Smart man. 🙂
I think the only thing that rather jarringly fails to fit is the characterization of Dax, which changes massively after season 1, but it made for such a tremendous improvement that it’s hard to mind.
Wait, does Dax have a characterization in the first season?
It’s really been a few years since I’ve watched these episodes, so I may not remember some of the subtler character changes. I was just struck by how few there really were. Clearly a little uncertainty what to do with Odo or the Gamma Quadrant — I doubt the Dominion was even a thought in the background of the writers’ minds that first year — and certainly Rom gets a bit of a makeover from the pilot. But the other changes feel more organic to the show, less like the show stumbling to rewrite their original intentions than just normal character growth.
It is, of course, easy to over-think these things. Trek has also never had the greatest relationship with continuity and consistency. But I like DS9 most, I think, because it comes the closest to doing away with the reset button while staying true to the characters as originally envisioned.
Heh, well, for Dax they were clearly going for the “wise, serene old alien” thing, which was a) incredibly boring, and b) so not Terry Ferrell’s forte. And you’re right, they did add layers to Rom, too, and not just from the pilot. He’s much less of a complete idiot by season 3 or 4, at least in some respects. There may also be some things in Bashir’s character that seem a little odd in light of later revelations about him, but I think most of the changes in his character feel like development, rather than retconning. But I wouldn’t sell DS9 short on the continuity front. It was was indeed way more heavily into that than its predecessors. That’s one of the things I always liked about it.