Unfeathered Notes

Just re-watched "Empty Planet" (SJA) which has to be one of my very favourite SJA stories. No annoying Luke, no annoying Sarah Jane, just Clyde and Rani, my two favourite characters, carrying an awesome story between them with absolutely no problem.

Have to admit, I thought the "Sun and air"/"son and heir" misunderstanding was a much bigger part of this, but presumably that's because I just love the idea of it. Also interesting this time that I was going, "But what about all the planes, and why aren't the streets filled with crashed cars, like in the Snap?" - right before Clyde and Rani explained it by saying all the 'moving parts', i.e. cars and planes must have been stolen too!

Ironically, chatting afterwards with my son, who is still my viewing companion on occasion, he mentioned we should watch "Flux" again and I was like: I was literally thinking about DW today and didn't even remember there was anything between the Captain Jack new year episode and last year's Sea Devils episode! I'd forgotten all about "Flux"!!! Probably for the best, really, but we decided we should probably re-watch all the Thirteenth Doctor episodes again (he's only seen them once) before next year's 60th. (Yes, I know there's one more new ep on 23 Oct. Can't say I'm holding out much hope though.) Anyway, that'll give us plenty of time then, to fight the boredom and make ourselves watch the Thirteen era episodes. After we've finished the awesomeness that is SJA.

P.S. I've been so busy lately I just realised I haven't checked in here for, like, at least a month or something. Have I missed anything important?

P.P.S I need an SJA icon. Clyde or Rani or younger Sarah Jane, preferably. Any suggestions???

I've been sitting catching up on some of the discussions in my flist about the RTD news (which is fantastic, by the way!) and came to a couple of realisations.

1. That virtually all the DW fans in my flist appear to be more Moffat fans than Davies fans, which made me realise that

2. There is literally no-one left in my flist from those wonderful few years I spent gushing about DW and TW with, and swapping fics and character discussions with. Okay, a handful are still occasionally active on Dreamwidth or LJ, but I don't think any of them watch Doctor Who anymore. I know it was only really a year or two, from 2007 to around 2009 before the joy started to taper out amongst a lot of my friends, but honestly a part of that I think was the fact that RTD was running out of steam, and then there was a year without much Who or TW, and by the time Moffat arrived most people either weren't watching any more or didn't like him much. Hell, I didn't like him much either, though he has grown on me a LOT over the years, especially with the help of lots of meta and explanations from people like elisi.

But I don't think there's anyone left here from that wonderful golden age of my first few years on LJ who I can squee with about the return of the man who made me love Doctor Who, and that makes me sad.

On the other hand, I have lots of newer friends here I can squee with and hope that RTD does even better this time around, now he's had a chance to grow and reflect and learn what works and what doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think he was ever perfect. I had plenty of issues with his writing, especially lack of attention to continuity, and second parts of two-parters that didn't feel like they delivered on the expectations set up in the first parts. But I came into the Who fandom off the back of the Buffy fandom, and Davies' Nu Who was definitely set up in the Buffy model, with a wonderful mix of drama and humour and feels, and that's what made me love it, and become a fan rather than just a viewer as I had been with the classic series. And, as I wrote recently, starting to rewatch the Sarah Jane Adventures after rewatching Chibnall's most recent season made me realise how much of that DW has lost.

I'm not expecting miracles, but I am hoping that RTD will deliver me stories that move me and characters I can care about, because that's what I've been missing the last few years!