Doctor Who, Casanova, and some fic recs for Life on Mars

[rusty_halo]

Some kind of ridiculous combination of cold medicine and coffee caused me to stay up until 2pm on Saturday night. Like I was awake all Saturday night and Sunday morning before finally crashing at 2pm Sunday afternoon. All the while thinking "this is not a very wise thing to be doing when I am sick." And reading Life on Mars fanfic.

jaydk was over until 5am. We watched Voyage of the Damned and reveled in the mutual squee. I'm so glad that we both loved it. That one scene, where the Doctor snaps his fingers and the angels carry him up, god, I just love it so much. I haven't felt that kind of pure fannish adoration in a long time.

We also watched some of the old series, which is the first I've ever seen of it. I'm not sure what the episodes were called, but it had some kind of mix of vampires/zombies/whatever that thing is in Creature From the Black Lagoon. Also Russians and Nazis and Vikings. And, um, it looked a lot like something a second-year high school Media Arts class would've come up with. Although I did really like Ace. After just one episode she was already more interesting than Martha in her entire series run.

Oh! And then we watched David Tennant in Casanova. It was probably some combination of DayQuil and lack of sleep, but Casanova just totally ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. David Tennant is so emotive, with that expressive face and those huge eyes, and every time he looks sad or hurt I just ACHE FOR HIM. Ack. I hate crying during movies.

I think I've completely lost my ability to judge fanfic objectively, but here are a few Life on Mars stories that stood out:

We Could Steal Time by dorcas_gustine has really hot kitchen!sex. And good characterization. Although the author has some weird issues with commas. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

All These Editions of You by dorcas_gustine is in three parts, the first of which is told from an excellent Gene POV. The author keeps him in-character while showing how much he cares about Sam underneath, as much as he'd never admit it even to himself. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

Say Hello to the Id by maestro1123 has a slashy ultra-sexually-charged fight scene that is just beyond hot. Plus fucked-up masochistic Sam. Some Sam/Annie but mostly Sam/Gene. This is more violence porn than sex porn, so technically not NC-17.

It’s Jus’ Magic by mikes_grrl is just fantastically cracked-out nonsense of the best sort. Sam/Chris, NC-17.

There are a bunch of stories that try to explain a gay Gene within canon. I thought Undercover by mikes_grrl was one of the better ones. Sam/Gene, NC-17.

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

Comments

[paratti.livejournal.com]

That would be The Curse of Fenric - one of the very best of the Seven serials.

If you liked that one and Ace, you'll probably also like Remembrance of the Daleks - also one of their better stories.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Hee--Remembrance of the Daleks is the one I bought jaydk for Christmas.

I'm not sure I really want to delve into old Doctor Who. I mean, I do like Ace, but I'm not really feeling the charm of the monsters in rubber masks... :(

[jaydk.livejournal.com]

So are you some kind of zombie person today due to lack of sleep? Are you walking very slowly in a straight line? ;-)

That Casanova thing just killed me. Poor Jack! He loved her sooooo much, and he never got her, and he was all alone, and....I wasn't crying during the film, but I kept thinking about it yesterday. I really loved it (well, the DT parts), and it was hysterically funny, but I don't know if I can rewatch it very much because OMG *so* sad. DT is so good at breaking your heart into itty-bitty pieces. I really really loved it though, more than I was expecting.

The old DW thing...I keep trying to look at the good aspects and put it into context of its time. But it's a struggle. I did really like Ace and her relationship with the Doctor, in the middle of all the vampire-zombie Viking nonsense. I also liked the idea that the power of faith was based on the strength of the person's belief, not what in particular it was that they chose to believe.

VOTD was so fun. I love that moment when the Doctor snaps his fingers. So him. Plus him riding the Titanic down towards the earth and then boomeranging back up, with Midshipman Fraim shrieking all the way...so good! And then his poignant farewell to Astrid. Plus they had to cross a bridge of doom -- I love bridges of doom in my disaster films. What a great show.

Re: John Simm, I'd like to see State of Play -- that gets lots of good reviews. Plus, Philip Glenister is in it, as well as David Morrissey (Ridley from Blackpool) and doubtless many many other British actors who will make the whole film an enjoyable "where is that actor from again?" experience.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Look at you, commenting on LJ! Post your anti-Martha manifesto, dammit! It's not fair that I'm the only one who gets to listen to your brilliant snark.

I'll probably re-watch the Tennant parts of Casanova but skip the ending. I do have a hard time re-watching sad stuff. (It took me a while to re-watch Doomsday, for the same reason.)

State of Play--yes! Everyone's telling me to watch that, so obviously it's a must.

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

God, I hate Ace. I'll have to just reconcile myself to the fact that you and I will never agree on anything Who.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Apparently I have weird opinions on Doctor Who! What's bad about Ace? I only saw one episode so I'm curious.

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

In my opinion she's one of those who is awesome on first viewing, but it's like the writers turned her into this cliche to the point where she just got annoying. I actually loved her in Curse of Fenric, but then they felt like they should exploit this tamed-down "bad girl" image every episode, where they had her yelling "ACE!" and blowing shit up with her nitro.

Dude, no one yells out one's own nickname.

PLAGUE!!!!

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Ah. Hmm. Yes. That does sound irritating.

But not nearly as irritating as Martha blowing off the opportunity to explore time and space because WAAAAHHHH THE DOCTOR DOESN'T LOOOOVE HER.

Which classic Who would you recommend? I'm not sure if I'll watch any more, but recs are good just in case....

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

If you're gonna get into whacked out Seven shit, you should definitely see "Ghost Light". That episode is carrying around more crack than Huckabee would like to plant on black men. Oh, and "Survival", in which Ace redeemed herself in my eyes.

The critical one to see is the fourth doctor, in really almost any episode. No, he's not even close to my favorite, but he's churlish and definitive. I love, love, love the fifth, he's a complete innocent and so traumatized by being who he is that it's good watching, if not really "exciting".

Everything, though, is gonna look like a media student put it together. What was it with Brits alternating between film and video?