Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

I've got one comment regarding the new Sarah Jane Adventures promo: ( which is cut for spoilers )

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead convinced me that all of the specials are going to be just marking time until the big blowout in which the Emo Lord from the tragically lost planet of Emofry in the constellation of ClusterEmoBus finally exits stage left, pursued by an Emo. Tongue cannot tell how anxious I am to see Doctor Who in the hands of Mr. "Everybody lives!" simply for the change of pace.

And then after Torchwood: Children of Earth derailed into a snuff film - RTD, dude, do NOT get up in my grill about drama; even Shakespeare's bloodiest plays don't slowly kill children onstage for my "entertainment" - I've been outright worried that there was going to be some horrible way that the Sarah Jane Adventures was going to be screwed into the ground.

Prisoner of the Judoon was cute; I adore the entire Chandra family the more we see them. Madwoman in the Attic was kinda meh. But my squee has been restored fresh and shiny by ( the episode I can't even name for spoilers )

There's already a vid for it.

ETA2: I totally want "Gita (or Gita & Haresh) meets UNIT" fic for Christmas. Fluttering around the Brigadier and giving romantic advice to Mike Yeats? Trying to set Liz Shaw up and asking Jo if she can grow anything for Dr. Jones? Oh, that would be delightful!

WD, and Sonic: lj user="neadods"> a href="http://neadods.livejournal.com/762685.html">with a ChicagoTARDIS report

This was one of the most fun, most packed, and efficiently run cons from the top through the volunteers I've been to in a long time. Y'all, ChicagoTARDIS is, at any level of membership one of the best fannish uses of your money in ever. (I was down among the great unwashed and still had a great time *and* got everything I wanted). Everything I hoped to get from the convention, from autographs to dealer's room stuff to chats with friends - I got. And that's a success by any standards.

Under the cuts for length are a series of strobe-light memories of the weekend.

( General panels: Isms, Girl Power, Sarah Jane Adventures )

Lis Sladen
The one, the only, the missing all Saturday morning because she went AWOL over to the mall, to everyone but her handler's amusement. (She is a pro to her diminutive fingertips and was back when she was on the schedule.) I got to be a blithering fangirl in the autograph line, and am grateful for the chance to tell her up close how much I love having a smart, sexy action heroine who is older than 17. And that I think the SJA is in some ways the best written of the shows because it cannot hide behind CGI or sex to make a point. She remembered me too; I'd seen her in the lobby and had been waiting a while for her to stop talking to Jason H-E, but after a few minutes I thought "You've gone from being patient to being a freakjob; walk away now.") At the signing she told me I should have waited, which is quite sweet of her.

( Notes from her talks on Friday and Saturday )

( Paul Cornell, Robert Shearman, Nick Briggs, Jason Haigh-Ellery, Simon Guerrier and bonus India Fisher )

Colin Baker
( Is just as much a sweetie as his reputation says. )

Masquerade
I'm already on record saying I prefer the harder-edged, more competitive East coast masques to to TARDIS' more mellow one, but it's the con's established culture and I'm the only dissenter. ( There were three things that really stuck out for me )

There were also a couple of election jokes. Someone doodled a cartoon of someone saying "I voted Obama, of course," while tapping out a rhythm. And there was the election costume, with Rose posing with her BFG while claiming to be a maverick, while the Master promised change.

ETA: I also did my bit to pimp Big Finish, and not just at the book panel. When someone from the local Shakespeare Theater is asking you what's good to listen to, what else to answer but "That's the one where the daleks recite Shakespeare. That's the one that's a parody of Richard III. And that's the one where the Doctor sings 'I am the very model of a Gallifreyan Buccaneer'," although the one I was pimping the hardest was The Doomwood Curse because damn, that's funny!

Sonic Lippy: lj user="neadods"> a href="http://neadods.livejournal.com/754693.html">squees over Mark of the Berserker, with side commentary on cast changes and minorities in the Whoniverse Spoilers

The uncritical part: Squee! I wasn't entirely sure last week, but this episode ended hitting on all cylinders and going strong, with everyone getting something to do. (Including poor Haresh, who seems to have taken both Clyde's and Alan's place as the butt of the jokes.) The moral was a little heavy-handed but not noxiously so, and it grew organically out of everything that had gone on before.

The critical part: by George, this season I think they got it. They finally, finally got how to handle families, minorities, supporting characters and ( things that belong under spoiler cut )

Tried a new podcast today: Word Nerds, as mentioned on the RSC podcast. The one I picked was rhetoric in famous speeches. Now, I could read a book on that subject, preferably one that went through the speeches with a fine-tooth comb for every obfuscation, logic flaw, appeal, etc. I could read a very thick book on that.

So that each speech got about two comments is why I won't be listening again.

However, yesterday, I liked Staggering Stories. Today, having listened to the uber-cracky Fight Club: Lois Lane vs Sarah Jane, I adore it. I loved it from Team SJ asking "would you like to just surrender?" at the beginning through Fake Keith (a woman) saying "Sarah sets the sonic lipstick to Setting 12. You know the one, ladies."

And then there was the recap of Stolen Earth:
"Boom, Rose appears! Packing heat!"
"Packing big heat."
"Packing SERIOUSLY big heat."
"Rose is in heat?"
"Bad Crumbly!"

This isn't so much a newscast as a drunken interlude with some seriously silly fans.


Speaking of Sarah Jane: I endorse this fabulous Clyde and Luke vid to "Popular".


On the knitting side of things, I'm kicking around designing a lap afghan. But just designing it isn't exciting enough, oh no. Knitting it isn't enough. The question isn't even will I share it with the blogosphere. No, the question is *how* I share it. Just put it up on Ravelry and here? Put it up, but release the directions at a piece at a time, knitalong-style? Or make everyone take a leap of faith and simply collect the instructions a piece at a time, to be told at the end how to put it together? (This despite never having been part of a mystery anything... although there is a mystery shawl project about to start.)

[Poll #1249337]

Who Daily/T3/Sonic: lj user="neadods"> a href="http://neadods.livejournal.com/700594.html">has a liveblog of squee for all three shows

( Because it's half a story, this isn't a review, it's a liveblog. It's also lots of supersonic squee. )

AUGH! No trailer for next week!

GIP! Made it from art in bana05's place.

Also, y'all have GOT to check out Sarah, Warrior Princess. It's even funnier than Sarah, Vampire Slayer.

Gip!

Except that it's not just a gratuitous icon post, because there is some minimal content.

1) Fic rec: a very bitter/sweet Alan and Sarah Jane story, post "Lost Boy" and "Last of the Time Lords:" In the Quiet Hour. There's someone else now who understands. Someone else who has the same nightmares.

2) While cleaning my room this weekend, I discovered that I have a spare copy of the Christmas edition of The Jelly Baby Chronicles. This is seriously old school - a 1981 fanzine, in the fannish Before Time: before ubiquitous computers, before the Internet, before digital photography and its manipulation. It's 33 pages of Four and Sarah (with one Leela cartoon) in fabulous shape for its age - clean, white pages with no yellowing, and the previous owner even laminated the cover so it's nice and neat.

I'd like to offer it for free* to a new-school fan, as a taste of fandom back in the old days. It's not deep and meaningful (or flawless), but the stories are sweet, and the art is a quality that you just don't get these days, you young whippersnappers with your cameras and your photomanips without a zine as showcase.

Anyone interested?


*Except to an overseas fan, then I am going to ask for help with the postage

A large part of the discussion of racism in New Who has centered around the couples shown. While multi-racial couples are, I'm told, far more common in Britain than in America, black fans complained that all of the black characters in a romantic relationship were shown in love with white characters - worse, white characters who did not value them as partners. Rose abandoned Mickey, protested his inclusion on the TARDIS, and joked around with the Doctor while ignoring Mickey three feet away. Martha, who attracted a fair number of white characters that she had to leave at the end of each episode, was attracted to the Doctor, who alternately relied on her, flirted with her, and ignored her, to the point where she repeatedly said that she felt he couldn't see her or made her feel second best. These were the reasons she explicitly cited when she left. Even Martha's father, who had been part of a minority couple, broke it up to go chasing a shallow white golddigger, who reduced him to whining after her as she broke up and stomped out of his own son's birthday party.

I've read these arguments. I have been persuaded by these arguments. Since new Who has shown stable white/white relationships, I agree it's past time that they show a successful black/black one.

I hope you'll forgive the slight spoiler if I say that Clyde flirts with a black girl in one of the Sarah Jane Adventures. While pulling soniclipstick together, I found and linked to the Behind the Sofa review of that episode. Here's what they had to say about that moment. (Language warning, and some of it's mine):

Oh no. Not the "Black characters have to have black love interests" cliche. Not the "Keep yer damn n*gger paws off our whaaaaaht womenfolk" bullshit.

... the fuck? If that's the reaction, then the writers don't stand a chance in hell of setting up any relationship that won't get them accused of racism, unless it's possibly black/other minority.

But... IS that the reaction? I'm asking - is your gut reaction to watching a black character flirt with another black one in Who "Damnit, they're telling him to keep in his place!" or "About damn time!"

I can't say that the SJA has been free of the same racist attitudes that have threaded through Doctor Who and Torchwood, although I am encouraged by the most recent episode, which I think shows sudden, significant improvement - while Nos thinks it's being really egregiously racist yet again, so obviously there's a lot of wriggle room for interpretation. (Spoilers for Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane, pt 1, needless to say.)

But romantically - what do you think? What kind of romantic relationships do you want to see a black character have in the Whoniverse? What kind of romantic relationships do you feel will *not* carry a racist subtext?