Land of our fathers (and Doctors )

[green_amber]

Heroes continues to improve. Here I was watching the last few moments of ep 9 (I think?)and vaguely thinking how fixated Heroes in particular, and modern US TV in general seems to be on fathers, and especially dead fathers - when we discover that HRG isn't dead at all. A twist! Redemption by the blood of the daughter rather than the son! And Hiro couldn't rescue his dad from death, we all knew that, or no one would ever stay dead, but it was nicely done. But that still leaves Telepath Cop and his dysfucnctional father and Mohinder and his dad, and Elle and Monster Bob (funy how everyone called Bob is evi isn't it?) and, and...

But seriously why IS America apparently so hung up on fathers (usually dead) and children? What happened to the mothers? Lost season 3 is the same. Jack and his father, the Korean couple and who is the father of her child and *her* father, Kate and her murder of her step-dad, and about a 1000 other badbad child-father relationships I can't recall right now.

Will no one think of the mothers? All we've got is Angela Petrelli in Heroes and no obvious mother-daughter (or son) relationship of any importance in Lost (unless you count non adult-to-adult relationships, like Claire and her baby, which I don't). Strange!

In other meeja news, caught up on Turn Left in Dr Who which like most people i think I thought was bloody ace (and Catherine Tate acted her socks, shoes and sandals off). So now we know the Donna-is-deadmeat stuff was misdirection, does our-Donna still have to die? (My bet is no, and happy ending for Donna and her dream guy from the library.)And how many people out there said , "oh god, it's Crisis on Infinite Earths!" as soon as Rose told us why she was there?!

Has The Doctor ever mentioned his mother or father, one wonders? And if not, why not? It seesm we now know that Gallifreyans *do* marry and raise kids; having just rewatched The Impossible Plahnet, I vaguely wondered if Time Lords were also "grown not made" but probably not. Maybe UK TV writers are just less hung up on their relationship with their fathers than the US variety?!

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Some of the books in the Virgin New Adventures series (especially Lungbarrow) say that Gallifreyans have not reproduced naturally since the time of Rassilon (due to the curse of the Pythia, the former ruler of Gallifrey) but instead are cloned by genetic 'looms'.

Lungbarrow (available online here) implies that the Doctor is somehow a loomed reincarnation of the Other (a mysterious and nameless figure in Time Lord history, a contemporary and colleague of Rassilon and Omega) and that Susan is really the Other's granddaughter. However, at the end of Lungbarrow, it is discovered that Leela (one of the Doctor's former companions) is pregnant (with her Gallifreyan husband Andred's child), thus demonstrating that the Pythia's curse has been lifted.

It's not clear how canonical this story is, although it was the culmination of the Cartmel Masterplan and would have been part of the tv series had it not been axed. (It's also not clear to me what, if any, meaning canon and continuity have in a series which involves heavy amounts of time travel and occasional rewriting of history, but it's something that some DW fans get frightfully worked up about.)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. ta.
I really hope MOffat brings back Leela - you'd think she'd be just his cup of tea:) Tho I doubt Jameson can quite carry off the outfit now..

I am intrigued as i commented elsewhere how Dr Who has become practically the only place in mass audience uk tv where older women as well as anorexic jail bait are still sexy and dynamic (SJS, Donna, River Song...)I guess that is its artial soap/serial heritage - soaps being the only other place you get this phenomenon.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

It's funny - I mentioned the father/son thing in US films over on my LJ, and aa American friend of mine who is normally very perceptive came back saying she'd never noticed it. It must be something in the water...

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

see below re Lost and mothers!

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

The father/son & father/daughter thing in US film and television is hugely prolific once you notice that it exists; it is the rule rather than the exception.

I was about to say that one exception is Buffy, being much more focussed on the mother/daughter relationship when I remembered how much is about the absent father and the establishment of Giles as a substitute father figure.

On Doctor Who (two good RTD episodes in a row. Who'd have thunk) the only problem I had with it (as others have mentioned) is that Rose sounds like she is talking with a mouthful of marbles all the way through. Maybe she'd had some dental work done recently or something?!

The Doctor has referred to his family on a couple of occasions (notably in 'Tomb of the Cybermen' in 'old Who'). Lungbarrow is interesting but probably best not taken as canon. Anway, Doctor Who has always laughed at continuity!

[andrewducker]

Veneers apparently - which cause lisping for months afterwards.

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

Rose sounds like she is talking with a mouthful of marbles all the way through

I initially put that down to her being out of practice, as the accent she puts on for Rose is most definately not her real one, and the parts she has been doing since Rose have allowed her to use her natural accent, but Rose has been living in a parallel universe for a while, and given that people tend to pick up some of the local accent when they move, perhaps they talk a bit funny over there :-)

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Or they also have dentists.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I agree on Buffy - good point. It would be interesting to see an alt-world Buffy whose mother died sooner leaving the deadbeat dad to raise the Slayer..

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I still reckon Donna is going to die. It all fits dramatically, you see. She has yet to do whatever the amazing thing is that River Song was so wide-eyed about, and it's got to be self-sacrifice. She's done it once, she'll do it again.

If I'm wrong I'l be very annyoed indeed with RTD. Especially as it would seems to fit in with the "no-one dies" ethos, which annoys me.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I think you're probably right but *I'll* be annoyed because why float the existence of her perfect man and keep him alive if she ain't gonna end up with him?

Maybe Donna lives and ALTuniverse-ROSE dies! Approp as her alter ego RTD retires..?

Incidentally how *does* Rose know Donna's future? She's from another universe, not the future of that universe and their time travel was untested.. and do we know how she got here yet, corporeal and all? last time it needed the power of a sun going nova for even the Dr just to speak to her!

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they'll explain it. They'd bloody better.

[ortho-bob.livejournal.com]

Mothers do feature a lot in Lost. Not including series 4 revelations since you don't have Sky (but...) there's been Kate relationship with her mother, ditto Jack and Clair, Locke's crazy mother, Ana Lucia's cop mom, Danielle and Alex. Only Hurley seems to have had a good relationship with his mother.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

There's been way more about Jack's dad than his mum (I can't even remember those bits) and Anna Lucia was in the end pretty minor character. Kate's relationship with her mother "seems" important but in fact like Buffy and her mother, as pointed out above, it's far more about the absence of the good father. Clare and her mum, yeh, I'd forgotten that one. Locke's mum was really just a plot token in the real story of Locke's insane maybe-dad. In general I seem to have been watching season 3 with Eeva, going "oh GOD another flashback about crap fathers!" season 4, no, la la la la...

I'm beginning to wonder if it's an adult parent-fucks-up-child story , is it always the Dad Story (Locke/Jack/Kate/Sun and Jin) whereas if it's an adult attains maturity by parenting (or assisting parenting) themselves , it's a mother (occasionally with added father)and baby story.. (Claire and Hobbit/Sun/Juliette.)

Danielle and her daughter is the stand out exception actually but we don't know enough about that yet in season 3..

Sawyer seems to be the only major cast member without any parent issues! (Did Hurley have a dad?) And maybe the Hobbit, who got drugs instead :).