MIND. BLOWN.

OH. MY. SILMARIL.

I don't even want to admit how many times I screamed aloud while watching this week's episode of Lost, ha ha. So. Much. Craziness. And while I was always against FakeLocke to begin with, now I'm dead set against him! FakeLocke = Evil, and I don't care what anybody else says!!!

SPOILERS BELOW:

1) I can't wait to get back to the Richard/Ben/Miles group, because they're gonna be like a walking comedy troupe. Their personalities are gold together.
2) I laughed when Ilana blew up.
3) I was yelling "Run him over!" at Des when he's in the car at the end, and then was totally surprised but pleased when HE DID.
4) I was terrified from the moment I saw that well that I knew where Desmond was gonna end up--and sure enough, I was right again. That was one of the scream moments, btw.
5) I'm secretly happy that mad freak-out Richard is back again. He's gone through more emotions in the past two days of his life than he has for two centuries, methinketh.
6) FakeLocke's weird head-tilty thing when he looks at people scares me. I get scared by the weirdest things.
7) I was sad to see Black Rock go.
8) Imagining Desmond eating fried chicken is one of the funniest things ever. So is his new "I'm wearing sunglasses" attitude. Melikey. But get him out of the well.
9) OHMIGOSH CHOCOLATE FACTORY:



And that is all. I am gonna watch that again. And again. And then watch "The Constant" to cheer myself up. Bwaaah . . . .

Things are finally moving, and that's proving to be nothing short of pure awesome. I'm going to go do homework now because I'm too excited to sleep. I'll take this opportunity to thank Professor Littman and Anna for persuading me to watch this show over a year ago. Consider yourselves each gifted with a virtual cookie and sonic screwdriver.

"The Waters of Mars": My Review

Note: I'm trying to keep this post spoiler-free. Minor spoilers, such as brief talk of characters and interesting themes, will be discussed, but no significant plot devices or happenings will be given away.

 

I just finished watching "The Waters of Mars", the newest Doctor Who special and the last one before Tennant's final two-part story later this year. Now, I have to say that while I've been eagerly anticipating watching this episode ever since it was first announced last year, I did go into it a bit wary. I absolutely hated the Easter special, "Planet of the Dead". It was really boring, lacked any real substance, and even Tennant's marvelous-as-ever portrayal of the Doctor and a few cute one-liners couldn't save the fact that it was nothing but fluff. So, since "WoM" has been hyped for months now as a super-scary story and a lead in to the Christmas special "End of Time", I was desperately hoping it would be superior to the last special.

Was it? 

I answer with a great, resounding "YES!", thank goodness.

Not that it was perfect. I love a 'base under siege' story just as much as the next gal, but as far as that scare factor goes this one didn't really affect me as much as the classic ones did. The robot was, frankly, annoying (though the fact that the Doctor says as much at one point was enough to make me endure it for the entirety of the episode). And the monsters weren't at all as scary as I had hoped they would be, but that's probably due to the fact that I had watched my own fair share of promos and such in the days leading up to the actual release of the episode, and therefore the shock-factor was gone. I have learned my lesson, and as tortuous as it will be, I will refrain from watching any promotional footage of the Christmas and New Year's specials now.

I did not mind that the monsters themselves were not super scary, though, because I still finished watching the episode with my heart pounding like mad with fear. The monsters were fine, but the real scares here were psychological--the scariness of having to come to grips with difficult moral quandaries, and of suddenly having accepted rules of the character and show I've loved for so long turned briefly on their head in a sense--and the scariness of it still making sense in a horrid way. In the end, what really scared me was the nature of time itself, and most surprisingly, the Doctor himself. Which, in my opinion, is absolutely brilliant. Enormous kudos and applause to Tennant for his breathtaking acting throughout the episode, but especially towards the end.

Because it was the last five minutes that really elevated this story from a regular 'good' episode with slightly superior psychological play to a really fantastic episode. Those five minutes were flawlessly done. I was left on the edge of my seat (figuratively speaking; I watched the whole episode while sprawling on my bedroom floor, haha) and holding my breath and very nearly crying. And I don't cry often for filmed stuff, and certainly not for television. I am left waiting for "The End of Time" with bated breath and am making a mental note to stock up on the tissues, because if merely that last five minutes leading into the final story could sucker-punch me so hard, I'm going to be a bucket case come New Year's, alas. David Tennant, I'm going to hate to see you go.

To put my Tennant-praise aside for a moment, I must add that all the supporting actors did fine jobs as well, and as a second-year Russian student in particular it was rather enjoyable to have a Russian character. Also, that this is not an episode to show your kiddies if you are trying to get them to eat their vegetables. If you watch the episode, you'll see what I mean.

If you haven't already, I insist you go to Combom's Doctor Who blog (which you will find a link to in my sidebar) and follow the link he has there and go watch the episode! It's dark, thought-provoking, and definitely one of the better ones thus far. I am left with both extremely high hopes as to the quality of the Tenth Doctor's final story, and absolutely shattered, because now there's nothing between us poor viewers and the end of an era, and the sense of swift-incoming, crushing doom was beautifully built until it was almost palpable at the end of "WoM".

To sum up: Stellar acting by Tennant, good supporting acting, decent monsters, original and compelling psychological drama, and a killer last few minutes. This doesn't equal my top three favorite classic episodes of all time ("The War Games", "Caves of Androzani", and "Genesis of the Daleks"), but it's definitely among my favorite episodes of the new series. If it had been filmed in the style of the classics, with four separate installments, it would probably have been up there in quality. Sigh . . . a pox on the modern audience's lack of a proper attention span.

And a last note: "WoM" was not entirely a doom-and-gloom episode, it did produce this jewel of dialogue:

Adelaide: "State your name, rank, and intention."

Ten: "The Doctor . . . Doctor . . . Fun."

Go watch, and let me know what you think, mmkay?

"Sword at Sunset", by Rosemary Sutcliff

I'll save the full review for my October Book Reviews post, which is due shortly anyway. But this book filled me with so much joy, I need to post some of my favorite quotes right now. It's a retelling of the story of King Arthur, but an attempt at making his story one of plausible historical fiction--no Round Table, etc. But still retaining elements of the legend. Instead of Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table serving King Arthur and Queen Guinevere at Camelot, we get Bedwyr and the Brotherhood of the Romano-British war chieftain Artos, who is married to a woman named Guenhumara and spends his life fighting against the Saxons. And I really, really enjoyed it. The soul of the stories are still here, bright and beautiful and written with both realism and poetry. I enjoyed it so much, I put it aside yesterday when I had about fifty pages left so I could savor the reading of it a day more. This is a novel highly recommended.

This is one of the moments that stood out most for me. The book is told from the perspective of Arthur himself, and this scene is where he goes hunting with the High King Ambrosius, shortly before gaining the Kingship himself. Ambrosius is dying of disease, and on this particular day is determined to go hunting, which is treated as a metaphor in the story that he is going knowingly to his death, hunting his death. Anyway, this part really stood out to me, both in terms of beauty and due to its fascinating and poignant musings on how one prepares for death:

'The sun came up, and the frost melted around us as we rode, giving place to a thin white mist lying close to the ground in the hollows. The horses waded through it as through shallow seas of gossamer as we dropped into the valley, and small bright drops trembled in the light, hanging from every dried hemlock head and half-silken, half-sodden feather of last year's willow herb. And I remember that over the open fallow the larks were singing. In a sheltered hollow of the woodshore, the first hazel catkins were hanging out, and as we brushed through, shaking the whippy sprays, the air was suddenly stained with a sun-mist of yellow pollen for yards around. And I wondered how it all seemed to Ambrosius: whether he had yet freed himself utterly from the dearness and strangeness and piercing beauty of the world, from the lark song and the smell of melting frost on the cold moss under the trees, and the thrust of a horse's flanks beneath him, and the faces of his friends. His own face betrayed nothing, but I thought that he looked about him from time to time, as though he wished to see very clearly the winter woods dappled like a curlew's breast, the prick of a hound's ears, the crimson thread tips of a woman-bud on a hazel spray, the flying shadow of a bird across the turf, to draw them in and make them part of himself, part of his own soul, so that he might carry them with him where he was going.'

And here's one more quote as a bonus, this time from the lips of Mordred--for there is a Mordred in even this version of the Arthurian story, though called Merdraut. Again, his link with his mother is stressed. This seems to be a sign by which one can tell when Mordred is really being written well: That the relationship between Mordred and Morgause is not merely that of a son whose mother has taught him to hate, but that of a man who was warped and ruined somehow by his mother's very love. It's a terrifying concept, but also one that can, in the right hands, invoke immense pity. I'm thinking the part in 'The Once and Future King', here, where Mordred is described as having been somehow drained of himself by his mother, as though she sucked him dry like a brooding spider, so that he lives as not only an embodiment of his own hate, whether he will or no, but also as a projection of hers. Check out the similarities with that idea here:

'[Merdraut] came toward me, and before I knew what he was about, knelt beside me and bowed his head onto my knee. It was a horrible womanish gesture. "No escape . . . It is in what you are and in what I am." His voice muffled against my knee. "No, don't draw away from me. Whatever else I am, I am your son--your most wretched son. If you do not hate me, try to love me a little, Father; it is lonely never to have been loved, only devoured.'

The same images of devouring and helpless hate are here. And the characterization is similarly brilliant. It's an interesting parallel to ponder. And masterfully written in its own right.

Free Audiobooks!

Got your attention?

LibriVox is a wondrously ingenious website. Basically, there are many books (mostly those published in 1920 and earlier) which are currently in the free domain, and which are therefore available online in places like Project Gutenberg for free. The folks who started LibriVox went one step further: Using volunteer readers, they have created and posted online for free listening and download a multitude of free domain audiobooks! Of course, this means that modern books covered by copyright are not included. But to a reader of my tastes, this does not matter. The variety is excellent, as since this is a database of basically fans reading books they like, there's many more obscure titles in audiobook form: Eddison, Dunsany, Chesterton, MacDonald, Morris, and other authors are represented, as are bigger names like Dickens, Melville, and Verne. I've even found a reading of 'The Song of Roland'!

The readers are all volunteers, but those I have listened to so far seem to read pretty well. I'm currently listening to The Worm Ouroboros, and the reader has a slight accent, perhaps Scottish, that I'm enjoying. It's not a professional reading, but it is certainly well done and makes for enjoyable listening. The audio is clear and of excellent quality. What really delights me about this website, though, is that it is for readers like me: Bookworms who have a penchant for obscure old books which normally would never be made into audiobooks. I mean, 'The Day Boy and The Night Girl' audiobook?? Whee!

So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!