Image via WikipediaWatched the latest Dr. Who tonight; it was very good, but I don't think Amy and Rory can be put off forever. The Doctor said he would find their child, but meant, surely, their BABY. Discovering that Dr. Song is their daughter, as was their best friend the childhood JD Mels, that she was raised by evil aliens in that terrifying orphanage, and ultimately leaving her in a hospital to be cured of her psychopathic tendencies, is not good enough. Saving another child, who is a little boy who loves his Dad, but is not the son of his parents - unlike Mels/Dr. Song, who is their daughter but not a child, and for that matter doesn't love them - is not good enough either. You can save all the children in the universe, and that's a very good thing to do; but that does not absolve the Doctor of his promise to restore their baby to them; to restore to them a child they can raise and love and become family with. George is his father's son in that he's part of the family, has been adopted. Mels/River is not part of Rory and Amy's family. That's what the Doctor promised to restore to them, and he hasn't done it.And - just as an aside - interesting feature, that it's the Doctor and the father that save little George, while the mother's at work. Why? On reading "Let's Kill Hitler (and break my heart)" (below) and its comments on feminism in Dr. Who, now I'm wondering; why is the mother - and why is Amy - being left out of the loop here? Why is the only significant parent the father? (On the other hand, Dad's home because he's unemployed; is Mom the responsible parent, or the absent parent, here?)
Also
Image via Wikipediawatched another episode of Battlestar Galactica, and have got to "Pegasus", where we have essentially the AU Galactica. The commander is female, and there is no civilian authority; it's an entirely military operation, and it's insane. Everyone on Pegasus is either a collaborator or terrified into submission. They are rapists, abusers and torturers, and Admiral Reid, Marianne from True Blood, really gets off on shooting people to get her own way. Of course she only does it when military law, as interpreted by herself, gives her some shred of an excuse. Wondering, again, what to make of the fact that the female leader is evil and has produced an evil ship - it takes its tone from the top, and even if she is killed off, as I suspect will happen eventually, all those under her are so damaged that it won't be possible to integrate them; the entire culture of the Pegasus is toxic. And sure, we have Laura the President, who is wonderful. But now I want to watch carefully for other signs that even in the BSG world, apparently a woman in power = a bad thing.
Haven't been posting about True Blood (and haven't seen this evening's show yet) because everyone on it is more interesting than Sookie this season. Unfortunately Sookie is the linchpin of the whole show. If she's not interesting, it all falls apart. But everyone's got a story except her - I'm afraid I can't buy the "Sookie's in love with a vampire" storyline as worth her (or our) primary attention yet again. I could cut her
Image via Wikipediasome slack for considering the world well lost for love the first time, but it's time she got a life that involved, you know, holding down a job, figuring out something else to do besides shagging pretty vampires.Interestingly everyone else on the show has also noticed this, thinks, correctly, that Sookie is behaving like a crazy person and is walking away from her. Tara: "are you crazy?" Alcide: "Sookie, what are you doing?" Sookie responds by ignoring them - not even bothering to answer the question - because Twu Wuv Conquers All. Well, no, it doesn't. Her vampire habit doesn't seem to endanger her - at least, she tends to live through it - but it endangers everyone around her; and she doesn't seem to notice or care. I have lost patience.
Nor do I know how True Blood managed to make Eric so dull and sexless, but it did. The idea, I suppose, was to make him childlike so that Sookie could feel maternal towards him and re-parent him, re-"make" him post-Godric; but the mother-child bond is really not easy to sexualize, and they didn't succeed. The idea was, I suppose, also to contrast this relationship with Sookie/Bill, where Bill was definitely being overly paternal, "protecting" Sookie - and himself - by not telling her things she needed to know. So while I appreciate why they were making the attempt, it did not in my view succeed. (Do I find it suspect that the father-child bond is remarkably easy to sexualize? yes, and I don't want to think about it right now.)
Meanwhile, Jessica, Lafayette, Jesus (who I suspect is not long for this world), Marni/Antonia, Debbie, Alcide (especially shirtless), Nan, Pam, Ginger, Tommy, Hoyt, even Sam, even Marcus - they're all excellent, and make the show worth seeing. But the central Bill/Sookie/Eric storyline, and all three characters, could frankly be left out entirely and the season would be better for it.
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