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the_lady_lily) wrote2009-12-26 03:56 pm
the_lady_lily) wrote2009-12-26 03:56 pm
Entry tags:
Filmography
Dorothy L. Sayers Mysteries: Strong Poison
This was the first element of our Christmas Day television, which we interwove with the Doctor Who episode arc below - the general principle was that since it was Christmas, BBC drama was called for, and we felt like something a Bit Silly. And lo, Netflix Instaplay provided something A Bit Silly.
For those of you who haven't been following assiduously, I rather like Dorothy L. Sayers; she wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey murder mysteries, which I have been reading with great pleasure now and again. The BBC apparently dramatised the three novels which follow the courtship between Lord Peter and the novelist Harriet Vane; this is the first of them. The second is Have His Carcase and the third is Gaudy Night; this last is the only one I've actually read, but never mind that.
Although I don't know this particular novel, I know the world of Wimsey well enough to unthinkingly fill in the bits that the television version doesn't include; G, who hasn't read any of her work, didn't know the background, and so had a rather different experience, which really showed up the limits of the adaptation genre. The plot revolves around whether or not Harriet Vane has murdered her lover with arsenic, and Lord Peter's attempts to prove otherwise. To this end, you get a number of various subplots and false leads, and even though you can guess who-dunnit reasonably early on, Sayers' great strength is that she keeps you hanging on, wanting to know how he dunnit as well.
G's comment was that the activity of the women seemed to be a lot more plausible than that of the men. I'm not so sure, but again, I'm a bit deeper immersed in canon, so I know that, for instance, Bunter, his Lordship's butler, is an amateur photographer with a darkroom, which happens to be a fairly key plot element. The dramatisation doesn't explain that, but just introduces Bunter's darkroom without any prep. G felt this was a bit silly, and yes, he may have a point - but it's a weakness of the dramatisation rather than the book.
Anyway, this was a good, fun to watch television dramatisation which perfectly hit the spot for Christmas afternoon viewing in lieu of a Poirot film. The only problem is that I now want to watch the other two...
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet
To counterbalance the murder mystery (about which G was not entirely certain to begin with, although he soon became convinced), we decided to interleave episodes of it with episodes of Doctor Who. This one got chosen purely because of the Netflix blurb - his episode is a zany, over-the-top romp filled with technobabble, weird gadgets with absurdly long names and a blustering cyborg pirate captain and his robotic parrot. I mean, a robotic parrot. Dude.
Again, it was very silly, and apparently part of a much longer plot arc involving some kind of Key To Time - thankfully, the hunt for the key is pretty peripheral in this, which meant we got to enjoy the plot about the pirate planet and its unscrupulous queen who was trying to live forever instead. It is Very Silly, and as G pointed out, there were hints of proto-Vogons there from Douglas Adams, who wrote the script.
In terms of thematics, I haven't seen enough Tom Baker Doctor to make any great judgements about what's going on there, although one can't help but realise how much David Tennant's performance has been influenced by the cheeky confidence the Doctor exudes in this incarnation. The scriptwriters are also obviously still working out the Doctor's relationship with Romana, a Time Lord in her own right who plays things much more by the book than the Doctor does - and I don't know much about her background either, except that she's rather fun. I think we might have to work some more Who into our regular viewing now. Once we've got through the murder mysteries, of course.
This was the first element of our Christmas Day television, which we interwove with the Doctor Who episode arc below - the general principle was that since it was Christmas, BBC drama was called for, and we felt like something a Bit Silly. And lo, Netflix Instaplay provided something A Bit Silly.
For those of you who haven't been following assiduously, I rather like Dorothy L. Sayers; she wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey murder mysteries, which I have been reading with great pleasure now and again. The BBC apparently dramatised the three novels which follow the courtship between Lord Peter and the novelist Harriet Vane; this is the first of them. The second is Have His Carcase and the third is Gaudy Night; this last is the only one I've actually read, but never mind that.
Although I don't know this particular novel, I know the world of Wimsey well enough to unthinkingly fill in the bits that the television version doesn't include; G, who hasn't read any of her work, didn't know the background, and so had a rather different experience, which really showed up the limits of the adaptation genre. The plot revolves around whether or not Harriet Vane has murdered her lover with arsenic, and Lord Peter's attempts to prove otherwise. To this end, you get a number of various subplots and false leads, and even though you can guess who-dunnit reasonably early on, Sayers' great strength is that she keeps you hanging on, wanting to know how he dunnit as well.
G's comment was that the activity of the women seemed to be a lot more plausible than that of the men. I'm not so sure, but again, I'm a bit deeper immersed in canon, so I know that, for instance, Bunter, his Lordship's butler, is an amateur photographer with a darkroom, which happens to be a fairly key plot element. The dramatisation doesn't explain that, but just introduces Bunter's darkroom without any prep. G felt this was a bit silly, and yes, he may have a point - but it's a weakness of the dramatisation rather than the book.
Anyway, this was a good, fun to watch television dramatisation which perfectly hit the spot for Christmas afternoon viewing in lieu of a Poirot film. The only problem is that I now want to watch the other two...
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet
To counterbalance the murder mystery (about which G was not entirely certain to begin with, although he soon became convinced), we decided to interleave episodes of it with episodes of Doctor Who. This one got chosen purely because of the Netflix blurb - his episode is a zany, over-the-top romp filled with technobabble, weird gadgets with absurdly long names and a blustering cyborg pirate captain and his robotic parrot. I mean, a robotic parrot. Dude.
Again, it was very silly, and apparently part of a much longer plot arc involving some kind of Key To Time - thankfully, the hunt for the key is pretty peripheral in this, which meant we got to enjoy the plot about the pirate planet and its unscrupulous queen who was trying to live forever instead. It is Very Silly, and as G pointed out, there were hints of proto-Vogons there from Douglas Adams, who wrote the script.
In terms of thematics, I haven't seen enough Tom Baker Doctor to make any great judgements about what's going on there, although one can't help but realise how much David Tennant's performance has been influenced by the cheeky confidence the Doctor exudes in this incarnation. The scriptwriters are also obviously still working out the Doctor's relationship with Romana, a Time Lord in her own right who plays things much more by the book than the Doctor does - and I don't know much about her background either, except that she's rather fun. I think we might have to work some more Who into our regular viewing now. Once we've got through the murder mysteries, of course.
no subject
All of the Key to Time stories are like that, really. The parts of the key do feature in all of them, but each is also a stand-alone story in its own right. I think The Stones of Blood is the best one of the season - it has some silly bits, but also the character in my icon, who is COMPLETELY AWESOME. I'll leave you to enjoy finding out how. :-)
no subject