(no subject)

Good morning and happy first of May to everyone on this side of the international date line. It's definitely summer in Chicago; we had almost three whole weeks of spring, which I think is some kind of record.

I spent most of last night very, very sick, drinking lots of carbonated water. I feel better this morning, but I'm sticking with carbonated water for now. As soon as my laundry guy and grocery guy come, I'm going back to bed until Doctor Who Timez.

May had better fucking rule. Can we pass some kind of resolution?

(no subject)

It's Saturday, must be time for dry toast, fizzy water, and

Sam's Three Things About Doctor Who, 5.05: ( Flesh and Stone )

3a. It's been remarked on before that Moff has a thing about visual contact; the Angels and the Vashda Nerada are both aggressors who are in some way related to sight, light, and shadow to effectively frighten and stalk their prey. I keep meaning to go back and do some reading on this because I actually dealt with vision, visibility of eyes, and perception of gaze quite a bit in my thesis, when I was working with masks. There are theories both psychological and philosophical that the gaze is the one weapon we can never overcome as infants -- we can withdraw from touch or food but we can't stop anyone from looking at us. In this case, the aggressor is the victim of the gaze, rather than using the gaze as a weapon, but at the same time to look at a thing is to become part of it and to alienate oneself within it; we also, as infants, learn through mimicry, and we become who we are in part because of what we encounter, what we gaze on.

Even aside from all this, in Western culture we tend to equate facial visibility with honesty; if we can't see a person's expression, or their eyes, we tend to become nervous and mistrustful. A thing that has to be under our gaze in order to be "safe", but whose face we can't look on, that's a pretty hefty psychological whammy to put forward.

Mind you, I'm probably pulling some of this out of my ass, because it's been five years since I wrote the damn thing.

Aand some speculation about next week and the overall series arc:

( Spoilery for today's episode and preview, nothing beyond. )

(no subject)

I forgot to warn you, but I'm shooting some Epic Three Things in your face!

Long post and image-heavy. This is my commentary on series four of classic Doctor Who, as I work my way through it all.

( Three Things, Series Four: Doctor Who The Fuck Are You? )

( Post-Series Post-Mortem: Why Fans Are Awesome )