Last week's Dr`Who

[green_amber]

Late but.. wow.

That short section where they narrate the fates of the Family.. wow. Better than Gaiman. Was that straight from the novel? And the last scene.. I'm not much for glorification of war.. but. A wonderful sense of fatedness - or is it defiance of fate?.
This was really very very good. Yay to Paul C for the first really good episodes this season. Small sob.

Comments

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

If you stop and think about it, however, Latimer could not have known to dive to the right at one minute to seven pm because the Doctor was not present in the trenches with him. Ergo, the watch would have had no memory of the event, either.

But you intrigue me with your reference to Gaiman. Is the Family lifted from one of his fictions (prose or graphic)?

And two further questions, about what we saw rather than any connection to Gaiman: did I blink, or was the father really dropped into a cell in the basement of the Tardis? (Scope there for a follow-up story when he breaks loose, obviously!) And can you remind me of the daughter's fate? I find that I've quite forgotten it.

But oh yes. The last few seconds at the memorial service for the fallen were very fine. A slight moistness of the eyes there, if I dare admit to such a thing....

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

I'mn not much for glorification of war.. but. A wonderful sense of fatedness - or is it defiance of fate?

In the book, Latimer is a conciencious objector, who joins the Red Cross, which is how come he ends up at the front as an ambulanceman rather than a soldier. At the memorial service the poppy he is wearing is white.

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

That short section where they narrate the fates of the Family...[...] Was that straight from the novel?

Absolutely nothing like the novel - which was one of the significant changes that was made.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Wow! Someone with exactly the same reaction to those two scenes as me. In fact, I rate the "fate of the family" sequence as one of the most well, mythic (which relates to your Gaiman reference, of course), of any I have seen in TV SF (which includes watching Who since An Unearthly Child. The last scene made me cry, which is also a first for Who.

That does not mean the two episode sequence was perfect, but I will forgive it the unscary scarecrows, the lapses in pacing and logic, and the occasional mawkishness for those scenes. By far the best of this season.