Downton Abbey 2x01 and Dr. Who 6x11
Sep. 19th, 2011 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ariadnes_stringOkay, I know everyone is eagerly anticipating the return of Hawaii Five-O tonight (and no one more than my six-year-old, who is Steve McGarrett’s biggest fanbody), but I have two words for y’all: Downton Abbey.
Which is back, and as glorious as ever.
Omg, it’s 1916 and Cousin Matthew is at the Somme!
He’s muddy and people are shelling him, but he’s just as good-hearted and well, dour, as ever. This being WWI, he also still has a valet, or whatever they called those guys who helped you with your personal toilette in the trenches.
Meanwhile, back at Downton, everyone is exactly the same—or, shall we say, responding to the war in characteristic ways. Carson is polishing the silver because the only way to defeat the Hun is keep up standards. Lady Sybil is going off to train as a nurse (leading me to hope for some excellent Regeneration-type action). Miss O’Brien is fucking with people as much as she possibly can.
Mary and Matthew are still hopelessly in love and impossibly brittle and heartfelt with each other. They have such a poignant conversation before Matthew goes back to the front that it’s hard for me to believe he’s long for this world. :(
And, yes, Maggie Smith steals every scene she’s in—looking like she’s having more fun in each one than the rest of us have had in our lifetimes. War cannot get her down, and she lends her support to Sybil doing the nursing course. It’s somewhat unclear why, until she’s gets off this zinger, arguably the best line of the night:
The Dowager Duchess [to Sybil]: Take care, dear and remember your Great-Aunt Roberta.
Sybil: Why—what did Great-Aunt Roberta do?
The Dowager Duchess [sweeping from the room]: She loaded the guns at Lucknow.
They should send her to the front line; the Hun wouldn't have stood a chance.
The boys and I also watched the “The God Complex,” and I enjoyed it very much, even if they were disappointed that it turned out more sad than scary. I think you can guess from my user name how much I love the Minotaur story, and Matt Smith stroking its fuzzy little soul-eating face while it died was all kinds of touching (and it reminded me of the first Amy episode, with that other incredibly old, trapped creature—was it called a star whale?).
I also loved the Rory was totally immune to the hoo-ha the prison planet was dishing out. Not because he has no faith in anything, presumably, but because his faith can’t be accessed through fear (or it’s not in some kind of compensation for fear/emotional pain). I actually thought Rory was through with the whole shebang last week when he told the Doctor he had no desire to travel with anybody who did check the fucking quarantine status of the planets he apparated into—or words to that effect. That was actually my favorite line of 6x10, which was also incredibly touching, but got there through a plot of extreme contrivance (even for DW, imo).
And the Doctor sacrificing Amy’s faith in him in order to save her life was also very moving. I was a little thrown out of it, though, when he told her they had to learn to see each other as they really were, and then called her “Amy Williams”—as if the gist of the thing was that she was being transferred from one man to another (something that also seemed apparent in the way he seemed to be deciding to scoop up Rita as the next companion after he realized that Rory already had him in the past tense).
I’m sure better Whovians than I can clarify what exactly was going on.
I will probably watch H50 tomorrow, when I can share the joy with my six-year-old. The fandom is so big now, and so intense, that it all makes me a bit nervous—everyone seems to have so much riding on it….
Oh, and happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Which is back, and as glorious as ever.
Omg, it’s 1916 and Cousin Matthew is at the Somme!
He’s muddy and people are shelling him, but he’s just as good-hearted and well, dour, as ever. This being WWI, he also still has a valet, or whatever they called those guys who helped you with your personal toilette in the trenches.
Meanwhile, back at Downton, everyone is exactly the same—or, shall we say, responding to the war in characteristic ways. Carson is polishing the silver because the only way to defeat the Hun is keep up standards. Lady Sybil is going off to train as a nurse (leading me to hope for some excellent Regeneration-type action). Miss O’Brien is fucking with people as much as she possibly can.
Mary and Matthew are still hopelessly in love and impossibly brittle and heartfelt with each other. They have such a poignant conversation before Matthew goes back to the front that it’s hard for me to believe he’s long for this world. :(
And, yes, Maggie Smith steals every scene she’s in—looking like she’s having more fun in each one than the rest of us have had in our lifetimes. War cannot get her down, and she lends her support to Sybil doing the nursing course. It’s somewhat unclear why, until she’s gets off this zinger, arguably the best line of the night:
The Dowager Duchess [to Sybil]: Take care, dear and remember your Great-Aunt Roberta.
Sybil: Why—what did Great-Aunt Roberta do?
The Dowager Duchess [sweeping from the room]: She loaded the guns at Lucknow.
They should send her to the front line; the Hun wouldn't have stood a chance.
The boys and I also watched the “The God Complex,” and I enjoyed it very much, even if they were disappointed that it turned out more sad than scary. I think you can guess from my user name how much I love the Minotaur story, and Matt Smith stroking its fuzzy little soul-eating face while it died was all kinds of touching (and it reminded me of the first Amy episode, with that other incredibly old, trapped creature—was it called a star whale?).
I also loved the Rory was totally immune to the hoo-ha the prison planet was dishing out. Not because he has no faith in anything, presumably, but because his faith can’t be accessed through fear (or it’s not in some kind of compensation for fear/emotional pain). I actually thought Rory was through with the whole shebang last week when he told the Doctor he had no desire to travel with anybody who did check the fucking quarantine status of the planets he apparated into—or words to that effect. That was actually my favorite line of 6x10, which was also incredibly touching, but got there through a plot of extreme contrivance (even for DW, imo).
And the Doctor sacrificing Amy’s faith in him in order to save her life was also very moving. I was a little thrown out of it, though, when he told her they had to learn to see each other as they really were, and then called her “Amy Williams”—as if the gist of the thing was that she was being transferred from one man to another (something that also seemed apparent in the way he seemed to be deciding to scoop up Rita as the next companion after he realized that Rory already had him in the past tense).
I’m sure better Whovians than I can clarify what exactly was going on.
I will probably watch H50 tomorrow, when I can share the joy with my six-year-old. The fandom is so big now, and so intense, that it all makes me a bit nervous—everyone seems to have so much riding on it….
Oh, and happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!
