This says it better than anything I could:

[captainsblog]

That's not the actual Youtube- that would be here- but it's what, mostly, all this Hub and Bub since 3:00 this God-blessed morning made me think of.  The rest of the reminder was Eleanor and I bailing on a Gerard Depardieu movie last night called Vatel. While it was brilliantly acted and gorgeously surrounded in both sight and sound, we just couldn't abide the predominance of that many upper-class twits (and more than a few of their twats) being put on parade.  As I watched the grounds being turned into a pageant of wretched excess, complete with prosthetic whales and dancers in blackface, I groaned and said, "Watch- this is what we're going to get when the Republicans take back the palace."

So instead we watched one of the three British pieces I mentioned the other day- Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel- and.... loved it. 




Story is king, always has been, always will be.  So they say early on, and so they prove. What makes this homage better than, say, Fanboys or the Scary Movie series (which Anna Faris came from and seriously transcends in this one) is that this isn't just a string of one-off sight gags and script cues that all the in-crowd will "get." Despite what it says on the tin about this crossing Doctor Who with Shaun of the Dead, there is, I believe, exactly one usage of the term "time lord," and the Shauny stuff is severely and rightly limited to a scene or two.  (If anything, there's more of an extended hat-tipping to Twilight Zone's "Time Enough at Last," which would be rather appropriate, too.)  It does establish "the rules"- sort of- and then proceeds to follow them- mostly- but it's Ray and Toby and Pete and Cassie who you care about, in any time and place, because of who their writers and their actors made them into.  Don't be fooled by the whiz-bang opening titles; they're as shallow, and in the end as useful, as you know them to be on your side of the fourth wall, and by the end, the guys all realize that, too.



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I'd also promised things to say about two other recent imports. Briefly, and without spoiler cuts, because one's so old and the other I've really nothing TO spoil:

This morning's festivities also reminded me of The King's Speech, as I wondered if Lionel's great-grandson was behind the altar, prompting the Prince: "And that’s all you say, four short responses. Kiss the bride. Sign the book. And you’re married. Easy."

This film also could've gone Big Bloody Royal Spectacle, especially at the end. And it would've ruined it. By showing "the" speech from such a minimalist perspective- starting literally in a bare room with a table, a microphone and a Saviour, passing through the back guts of the Beeb, and only then showing us a hint of the majesty of His Majesty greeting his people- and that only briefly, and from behind- said volumes about how Upstairs and Downstairs got topsy-turvied in this story.

We Redboxed this one, because Netflix was in Very Long Wait territory, but were pleased to find that their disk was not a stripped-down "rental" version without the special features. Do watch; the backstory of the real people behind the story is just as moving, as is listening to the recording of "the" speech from 1939 which is also included. If anything, the real one was even a bit more polished, although I did hear the slight stammer on one of the W's that Lionel and Bertie refer to after it is over; their exchange about this came from Lionel's actual treatment notes, found just before shooting began, and this last-minute injection of reality into fiction made this film even more beautiful than it would have been anyway.

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And then there's Who!

goin' wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, I-am-not-a-crook-defyin'....

Sorry. Got the theme from Maude stuck in my head there for some reason. Well, she hated Nixon about as much as I did, and that choice of character here makes it infinitely hard for me to love where this arc is going. That, and the Scream masks on the aliens; maybe it's Season Six that should be billed as "Doctor Who meets Shaun of the Dead."

I still loves me my gleesome threesome, but so much of their interaction seemed forced. Maybe that's a reflection of the time loop/leak/whatever that brought the Doctor back before the Doctor arrived, and maybe, now that we have the "real" one going forward I'll be back to feeling normal about him and them. I'm still not sure what to make of River; maybe having her so prominently featured after the death of the Alltime Companion is retroactively unfair to her, but there 'tis.

As for the rest of it, welcome to our country in 1969, home of our crazed "prime minister" who would be considered too liberal today to even have a remote shot at his party's nomination. (Also, Moff? The White House taping system back then was automatic and voice-activated; no need for him to be pushing buttons on the desk. Nice visual aid, though. And I expect at least one 1969-Mets reference before this arc is finished; it's the least you can do for stealing the TARDIS trademark from your version of the Met;)

It's just one episode. One small step for a Time Lord....

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Finally, I can keep up with you on Doctor Who, since they're airing in America at the same time as in Britain. Sadly, FAQ About Time Travel is NOT on Netflix, so it'll be a wait on that one, as well as The King's Speech Therapist.

Something to live for, I guess...

[plantmom.livejournal.com]

Oh Bill, I thank you many times over for the Slings and Arrows suggestion. The writing is superlative. Naturalistic but not natural, which wouldn't be anywhere near as fun. The characters have nuances and consistency - they repeat the same bits at least once, which is quite realistic to me. When Jeffrey parsed Hamlet for the lead actor's benefit ("it's six soliloquies"), it was amazing.