My life in books

Doctor Who: “Listen”

Let me be up-front about this - I love the Doctor. I am one of those fortunate people who have been able to watch the show since the beginning, being both old enough and lucky enough to have lived in a place where it was aired in my childhood. And I do like this latest Doctor as portrayed by Peter Capaldi. It's been a while since we had a grumpy and fallible Doctor, and I think we needed to be reminded that the Doctor is not a romantic hero. But this is not my favourite of recent episodes. Yes, the themes - how to live with, and rise above, loneliness and fear - are powerful. Yes, there's a wonderful timey-wimeyness to this episode, what with zipping around from the youths of both the Doctor and Danny Pink to the end of the universe and back to the present. But... I found it overly contrived and disjointed, and all too much about the special super snowflake that is Clara. It's good Doctor Who, but it's not great Doctor Who.


The Flash: “Pilot”

The Flash is a fun TV show to be sure. It's got a nice, light, old-tine comic book feel to it that I enjoy, and the differentiates it from all the dark and grim comic book adaptions hitting the screens these days. Arrow, its stablemate, is much darker. The Marvel universe offerings are dark. The Flash is light and just a bit goofy. And as an origin story, this episode does all the right things - introduce the characters, the backstory, the crucial event that creates the Flash, and show how this is all going to work. But it's not great drama and it's not something I'd give a Hugo to.


Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper”

Games of Thrones is a fine TV show: it has good source material to draw on, the writing and direction is good, some of the actors are brilliant and none are less than competent, it has wonderful production values. And it is an excellent example of an epic literary fantasy adapted for the visual medium. I watch it for those things, even as I regret that "realism in fantasy" seems to mean lots of violence and gratuitous sex. At least there are powerful and believable women in it.

This particular episode was set in several places and advanced a number of the multitudes of plotlines, several of them significantly. Since this is true of most GoT episodes, it's hard to say why this one was seen as more worthy than any of the others. I might rather have gone with "The Lion and the Rose" or the season finale, "The Children."


Grimm: “Once We Were Gods”

Grimm is an enjoyable urban fantasy/police procedural to be sure, but in terms of acting, writing and overall production values, it's never struck be as something particularly special. Nor in my opinion did this episode rise to extraordinary heights.

The story did have some interesting things to say about the politics of displaying the remains of the ancestors of colonised peoples in the museums and galleries and private collections of the colonisers and their descendants - however, while I've been made quite aware at times that Grimm uses the wesen to tell stories about marginalised people, it is at least a little problematical to use half-human, half-animal creatures to tell these stories.


Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”

There is little doubt in my mind that Orphan Black is solid science fiction Clones, genetic research, alternative reproduction methods, and possibly (we'll know more this season) a program to develop genetically modified supersoldiers. These are all themes that science fiction has looked at before, many times and from many perspectives.

It's also one of the most amazing bravura acting performances ever seen on television. To say nothing of directing and technical production. Just think about the acting and filming of the sisters' dancing scene in this episode. Tatiana Maslany playing Sarah, Cosima, Helena and Alison, all interacting with each other, all so very different in their body language, all so very clearly themselves, filmed from multiple angles. And other cast members - particularly Maria Doyle Kennedy - regularly turn in excellent performances.

This particular episode, like all good season finales, gave us some high-tension resolutions to season plotlines, and introduced some new surprises for the coming season. In my opinion, this is the cream of this crop.

I'm sure everyone who cares, knows by now what happened at the Hugos. I'm noodling over a thoughtful post in response to the stated arguments of the Sad Puppies, which will likely be posted later, but this is more about what I'm going to be doing in the face of this.

I have purchased a supporting membership. I will be making every attempt to read, watch, or attempt to evaluate the 2014 body of work of all nominees. I'm going to post here my thoughts about all the nominees I am able to do this for. And I'm going to vote only for nominees that I feel meet my criteria for Hugo-worthy work.

I hope other science fiction and fantasy fans out there who, like me, have not taken out Supporting memberships before, will consider doing so, and voting for the nominated works that they find Hugo-worthy.

And then I hope that we will all pay close attention to what we see and read this year, and use our 2015 supporting memberships to nominate the best of what we read and see for 2016.