My lack of faith in the current incarnation of Doctor Who remains largely unshaken by the season finale. The idea of humans being the greatest monsters of them all is solid narrative ground. It's tried and tested, and takes a lot to screw up... And yet they managed. The final episode of series three of Doctor Who obviously thought it was being really dramatic and powerful... but it left me thinking "meh".
One can see there's a problem when, at the point where the true nature of the 'monsters' is revealed, I thought "Ooooh! It's Davros! They're the Daleks!" (however weak even that idea would be), only to be utterly disappointed by the realisation that it's actually a human head in the robotic sphere.
Then there's the Master... If David Tennant has failed to convince as the Doctor, John Simm has been completely miscast as the Master. Mischievous he can do. Downright evil and vengeful he cannot. I'm sorry, he just can't. And that whole thing about 'refusing' to regenerate? Since when can Timelords refuse a biological imperative that (traditionally) comes into play when they're dead? Clearly what died in the Doctor's arms was not the Master. Furthermore, given the red-fingernailed hand that retrieved his ring (Ring? What flippin' ring? When was that ever dealt with in the story?) with the Master's laughter echoing/blatantly ripping off Max von Sydow's Ming the Merciless at the end of the Flash Gordon movie, I'd suspect that the Master had pulled some trickery to become his 'wife' (I was also perturbed by the bruises on her face that were never mentioned in any way). But does this mean the Master will return as John Simm, or as Alexandra Moen (who, by the way, seemed to be channelling Kiera Knightly in her pouty 'emoting')?
The writers probably thing they're being especially clever with all their 'setting up future events' malarky... but if it's at the expense of developing the present, it's not really clever, is it?
And Captain Jack's speech at the end? Oh, please.
The weekend was rather dull. Didn't do the garden photography as it was raining. Made a vague start on a cartoon character inspired by a story synopsis written by a friend in the States... A sort of Superhero at the moment... though, considering 'my' 'idea' is a strange cross-pollination of X-Men's Storm, Silver Sable, Hawkgirl and Black Cat, I'm not sure the Superhero route is going to be the best one. I realise it's almost hopeless to try to be original with a comic book character, but there has to be something better than combining elements of four existing heroines...
My folks spent most of Saturday visiting sister and husband out in Swindon. The much-delayed 'housewarming'. I sent a gift - a candle in the shape of a candlestick - in lieu of my presence, as Helen likes candles. I'd expected them to stay overnight but, just as I was settling down for the night, they arrived back home... Very strange.
Once there was a decent amount of ambient light on Sunday, I did manage some photography of my newest acquisitions. Movie Ironhide and Starscream are rather photogenic, all things considered. BotCon 2006 Tigatron and the Buzzsaw/Laserbeak set came out pretty well too... and I even managed a few shots of Micron Legend (Armada) Scourge, which I completely forgot about last time. While the deluxe Optimus Prime mold is widely regarded as one of the most fun iterations of the Autobots' leader, I must say that both versions I have of the mold (Universe Ultra Magnus and this Japanese Scourge) have a rather odd mold defect, in that neither can face directly foreward - the head will always jump to the right. I'm half tempted to open the heads to figure out what's wrong... but I don't think I shall.
Sticking with the subject of TransFormers, I had a rather depressing realisation over the weekend. For the umpteenth time, I dragged my Generation 1 collection out of the cupboard to examine it objectively... And the sad fact is that I have very few worthwhile figures in that collection. I missed out on far too many early Gen 1 models - all those Diaclone reissues under the TransFormers banner - and ended up buying far too many crappy gimmicky models like Pretenders (I mean, come on, ugly, spindly, barely transforming robots hiding in poorly-proportion plastic shells?), the Battlechargers and the Duocons, and picked up only the most boring HeadMasters. I suppose the original Scorponok, complete and in good condition, might be vaguely worthwhile... but it's a crappy model, even by Gen 1 standards. Aside from Optimus Prime, Jazz, Wheeljack, Ultra Magnus, Megatron, Soundwave and the Seekers, I don't think there's one must-have in the collection. I have two complete gestalt teams for the Decepticons (Menasor and Abominus, with all of the mini-Seacons, but no Snaptrap to complete Piranacon) and one hopelessly incomplete set of Protectobots for the Autobots. I look at that collection and wonder what I was thinking... No wonder I've been picking up all the decent reissues... It's a subconscious admission that my Gen 1 collection is rubbish.
This week is essentially going to be 'what happens before Memorabilia'... The next few days will have no intrinsic value in and of themselves, as my mind is fully occupied with what's going to happen up in Birmingham. Will Hasbro be there? Will I be able to get all the upcoming movie toys I'm looking forward to? Will I find other cool stuff? And that's just for starters.
That said, today I managed to complete my magazine about an hour before the end of the day... Not bad going, but it's one of the smallest. Delays, inevitably, were with Editorial, the last two pages taking proportionally longer than everything else. Not sure why, exactly, but the editor certainly seems happy with her designer. This is no real surprise... After a rather shaky start in terms of discipline, this new designer seems bloody good. She has a better idea of text flow that any of the others, and I haven't had to correct anything significant. As my boss pointed out on the way home today, our latest two recruits to full design positions are showing up how poor the established staff really are. Even one of the earlier recruits, taken on as a Senior Designer, is too afraid of taking risks to really work out well with his editor.
Tomorrow, there's a small chance I'll be able to get ahead on upcoming flatplans and, at the very least, break even on upcoming website uploads. Even that won't really make a dent in things. Once all that's out the way, even more work will follow. It has become depressingly relentless, and I don't have time to enjoy my achievements anymore. I don't even think this is a sign or symptom of me being burnt out anymore... just that the job is crap, and it's become a production line, endlessly pumping out the same magazines, day after day, week after week, month after month.
On another note, my hip has been flaky again. Last weekend and during much of last week, it was either agonisingly painful or merely downright uncomfortable. Nothing like as bad as the last time, but still not pleasant. I started hitting it with ibuprofen earlier and more consistently, though - pills and gel. Still can't figure out why on earth any part of my hip would suddenly and repeatedly become inflamed... and am beginning to wonder if it's actually nothing to do with my habit of sitting cross-legged. Very strange.
On the upside, if I'm lucky, I may get a nice massage at the weekend...
No comments:
Post a Comment