Doctor Who and lots of food: A good evening...

Last night I had a potluck fannish evening at my place with commodorified, iclysdale, auriaephiala and Rayne. I'd been really tired at work (due to having been wakened by budgie hysteria at 4 a.m.) and I'd been exceedingly dizzy - thanks to springtime allergies, I think, and the hot, humid weather wasn't helping. So I went home half an hour later, and napped, and felt better.

I also used the recipe that I got from commodorified (who got it from The Guardian), for Blue Cheese and Oat Biscuits - a Bujold reference if ever there was one. In Shards of Honour, Aral and Cordelia had to trek cross-country with nothing to eat but blue cheese salad dressing and oatmeal.

If it tasted anything like these biscuits, they didn't have much to complain about.

But all the food was terrific. auriaephiala brought a wonderful salad made with apples, pecans, red peppers, and romaine; commodorified brought several different kinds of delicious pate; iclysdale brought fresh, delicious, tender local asparagus; Rayne brought grapes and cheese and Indian take-out, and by the time the whole meal was assembled I was immensely cheered up.

First, we watched Doctor Who "The Lazarus Experiment", last week's episode. I loved it as before. Made the mistake, though, of putting a defective copy into the DVD player, and so we had to watch the last ten minutes on the computer monitor.

Then we tried to watch Sharpe's Somethingorother, but the DVDs auriaephiala brought wouldn't play in any of my equipment. We gave up on it and auriaephiala said she wanted to watch something from first series Doctor Who, with Nine.

Well. Twist my arm.

I suggested "Dalek", since it's an episode I love, and I hadn't seen it for a long time. I loved it even more - I think Eccleston's acting in this one is stunning, and I love the image of the Doctor with a big gun, looking like Cable vs Apocalypse, pursuing the Time War to the last surviving wounded Dalek. I also love Rose's role here, compassionate and smart, showing how much she thinks for herself. I'll put the rest of my comments under a cut, just in case anyone cares about spoilers for a show that aired several years ago. ( It seemed to me... )

Van Statten, I might add, is one of my favourite Doctor Who villains, along with Goddard. I'd rather see them than any number of CGI monsters. I loved his underground complex - 53 floors of - what? - something beneath the Nevada desert.

I couldn't help contrasting "Dalek" in my head with the recent "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks", and thinking how I infinitely prefered "Dalek". It isn't that I don't love Ten, I do. It isn't that I didn't love the minor characters like Tallulah and Frank and Solomon, or the Musical Comedy, or individual scenes; it's that the whole thing was comparatively lurid and goofy - less integral somehow, and less integrated. It went all over the place.

And funny, too, that I felt much more empathy for, and understanding of, the Doctor and his state of mine in "Dalek", even though Ten was so full of suicidal rage in "Evolution" - a much more exterioralized performance, and certainly moving - well, I was moved, but I'm easy - but comparatively shallow.

We followed "Dalek" with "The Long Game", because it follows right on, the trailer was intriguing, and Rayne wanted to know what happened to Adam. ( Read more... )

My wonderful friends even washed my dishes, so I didn't need to do it after they left.

FIC: Torchwood - "Lies and Illusions"

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