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By Contessa Donatella · Posted
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I'm up to 300. About 12 episodes left of the Barnes. The development of the Prescott family has been the big event in the last few months of episodes I've watched. Jerry Timms as Gil is a nice addition as the show's new young stud. I like when the villains start out as deeply human and just generally flawed individuals like Gil, and early Nancy. Something the show does well is the sorta low level conflict that can generate with things like Gil's carefree playboy "life of the party" lifestyle interfering in the day to day happenings of him and his family. Gil is a shameless flirt and orders a beer or three when he is on lunch from the construction site. I think the conflict between himself and his father, Jason, is compelling even if I'm not sold on Read Morgan. If Morgan was a local talent, I think I might be more generous, but Morgan had a bit of primetime credits I believe. Jason, like Gil, isn't a one woman man so the internal conflict within the Prescott clan is ripe for drama. Yet, there are definitely flaws. Gil's relationships with Sheila Carter, a recast Vicki Lang, and Deena Greely seem to unattached to the larger story that I am not invested. Donna Denton isn't bad as Deena, but she lacks a bit of presence to carry the story in Mitch Dunbar's absence; she is now Mitch's law partner. Gil's flirtation with a married Lori was interesting and appeared to be done to build conflict between Gil and Russ, who seems to be heading in Renee Crawford's Marianne Prescott's direction now that Becky is out the door. Crawford slides right into the role of Lori's friend and Russ' love interest well even if Becky was (at least in the pre-Barnes) episodes more compelling as a woman who had deeper flaws than Marianne. Marianne's inner conflict has some legs if it goes anywhere. With her mother Corrine's passing, Marianne has assumed the mantle of the woman in her father's life and defacto mother to her restless, reckless brother Gil. At present, Marianne is putting her graphic design dreams on hold to work at Prescott Development, sacrificing her own desires for the "greater good" fo the Prescott men. I feel like Marianne is the kind of girl that Carrie Weaver will love and unintentionally terrorize with her overbearing, nearly incestual love for her son, Russ. If Chris Auer hadn't jumped ship to the writing team (his scripts are strong so I'm not mad), I would have liked to seen Francis pining for Marianne to complete the assumption of Becky's role in the lives of the men Becky knew (and who loved her). The complete revision of the Vicki character with the recast and pairing her with Gil is odd. It is basically a new character. Laura Leigh Taylor's Vicki was more conservative and business focused while the new Vicki is more outgoing and lively. I don't hate the new actress but it's such a dramatic shift in characterization and I'm not clear why. I know a later character (Stacey Phillips) assumes the characterization of Taylor's Vicki Lang, but I don't think that occurs until a few months into Jason Vining's work. I also just cannot see Taylor's Vicki giving Gil the time of day when she constantly rejected Peter. The quad between newly arrived developer Jason Prescott, recently widowed Terry, Terry's old friend Dr. Alex Greely, and Jason's corporate attorney Sharon Landers is equally weak. Alex comes off as desperate. Robert Burchette is more than serviceable in the role of friend and the lovelorn colleague, but Alex's jealousy of Jason doesn't work for me. I don't get the sense the friendship has run that deep, but maybe it does for Alex. The actress playing Sharon lacks the bravado to sell Sharon as this shark who kills it in the boardroom and could tear apart the moral Terry. I like that Jason's relationships with Terry and Sharon echo Gil's own bad boy behavior that Jason constantly chatisizes Gil for, but I do wish there was some angle here to root for other than praying that Terry decides to enter the convent. As I was reflecting on the Prescotts, I can see why Vining makes some of the changes he does. Jason isn't a bad character, but Read Morgan doesn't work in the role. Recasting probably would have worked given the show's large canvas involved in the city planning of Kingsley from the political and business angles, but as the show delves deeper into the criminal underworld, I can see why Jason was just dropped. Also, it would have been more interesting if Jason's wife wasn't dead, but had divorced him ages ago and was living in abroad to pop up as a conflict down the line, which is ultimately what happened with Dave and Kate Phillips. On a side note, Dave has been offscreen for most of the tailend of the Barnes run reconciling with his either estranged or ex-wife, I cannot remember which. The Prescott Development stories are bizarre. You have the antics of Gil slowly turning Peter to the dark side (a story that would have worked better with Nancy as the devil on Peter's shoulder) which is obviously built to give conflict between Jason and Terry. Simiarly, Gil's romance of Alex's niece Deena seems to set up animosity between Jason and Alex over their child and defacto child. I just cannot invest in Terry and Jason. Not that I want Alex and Terry, but Jason is just not working for me. I get we are going for the gruff widower who works in construction with a strong belief in the Lord, but I just don't think Jason projects the image of romantic lead. It's reminiscent of Bert Kramer as Alex Wheeler for me. The story the Cavalares family is insane. Dom Cavalares is the drunk single father of teenage Donna. Donna is friends with Jill and they smoke some weed together before Donna ends up being taken into the Cummings home because when her father gets drunk he gets physically abusive. The scene of a drunk Dom breaking into the Cummings' home and attacking Donna is wild. It is a terrifying sequence where Dom comes in raging to get his daughter back with the Cummings' girls (Liz, Jenny, and Jill) and Donna present before Jeff comes in and gets knocked out by Dom. I think it ends with Donna being dragged away. I cannot imagine any show doing that in the past two decades. In some ways, I suspect that the Barnes might have dusted off Roy Winsor's projection for the Jeff Cummings story and used them as the inspiration. When Jason learns Dom is a drunk, Dom ends up going to AA, which was the original story direction before Jeff was saved by the light. The bookstore angle quickly faded before being shifted to Jill to give her something to do. The set up for the Cummings' turning their home into a halfway house was probably the spinoff idea. I don't think its terrible, but it's not working in the larger scale of the show's canvas. I appreicate the attempts to rectify the Jeff story by having Dom turn to AA (offscreen), but I would have liked it more if we actually saw some more regret from Jeff over what he had done. Beth Slaymaker's role in this story is intriguing. As the judge handling Donna and Dom's situation, it is clear that she has a bit of sympathy for Dom that she might not have had if she hadn't given up Jill when she was younger. The Jill-Peter romantic angle never developed the way I expected it to. Jill's "transformation" leading to more interest from both Gary and Peter feels dated by modern standards, but was probably a popular trope for the time. I think Jill has stopped appearing now that Beth has bought her the book store. I cannot say I am sorry to see her go because I don't think they knew what to do with her. Jill was such an abrasive character who I didn't like as a person, but who made sense. She was just exhausting in larger doses. Seidman was much more appealing as Jill's persona softened. The Redlons reunion has been odd. I don't remember if it was earlier and included in my last post, but Carla nearly runs off with Jimmy in a sequence that is very well done and tense. I don't think Carla and Gene work completely. Both actors are wonderful, but I don't like how they play the duo. Carla's career should have her being pulled in directions (which it does, at times) but I think its such an odd choice to play this story in isolation of the Russ-Becky marriage. Gene's political career isn't my favorite story, either, but that's more because I don't care for Jason. I'll do a separate post later about the Carpenters with Nancy and the end of Becky and Russ' marriage. -
I don't know about that, I think BC has mostly improved by leaps and bounds. He's not perfect but he's come along a lot. -
By Planet Soap · Posted
Agreed. Ted getting recasted before Martin is crazy work lol. -
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By Contessa Donatella · Posted
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I'd dump Kai next week, lol. I would bring on Justus Ward's secret kid, as was rumored last year, as a suave, ambitious young schemer.
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By I Am A Swede · Posted
I guess the true colours are shining through from J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. Germany defends AfD extremist classification after Rubio slams 'tyranny in disguise' -
A few very longwinded thoughts for no one in particular after catching up most of the last two seasons of DW on Disney+. @DRW50, apologies for copypasting much of our recent discussion but there's a bit more at the end that might suit you! (And a few more expansive thoughts on Dot and Bubble/73 Yards.) Season 1/Series 14 (I'll always refer to these like that): I cannot imagine what possessed them to open the first Disney season with Space Babies. After a promising prologue which sort of functions as a recap for new viewers on the new platform, it begins as something at first appealingly deranged if controversial right out of the Graham Williams era, then very quickly slides into one of the nadirs of 60 years of the franchise for me. Possibly worse than Jodie Whittaker's first episode, which I found to be little more than a dull bit of Canadian syndicated sci-fi from 20 years ago. Absolutely staggering this was chosen. Shades of RTD lowlights like Love & Monsters, the Slitheen 2-parter or Fear Her. OTOH: The Devil's Chord is a mix of either not great or fascinatingly weird, mystical stuff out of the Andrew Cartmel era in the late '80s. I found everything with the Beatles tedious or cheesy as well as how they defeated the villain, but Jinkx Monsoon was actually quite creepy as one of the gods of the pantheon (which made me think of the gods from the McCoy story The Greatest Show of the Galaxy). And the meta, random musical break at the end and all sorts of strange pacing and tonal bits felt very experimental - some of it appealing and unsettling, other parts just baffling. It makes you wonder what everyone BTS was dosing themselves with, at least for these two episodes. The actors are fine, it's the material that is thunderingly insane. You can see why this first Disney season was very divisive already - it was wildly unwise to start with these two episodes - but there's still a lot more going on than the average Chibnall story. A truly, truly strange and unique time in the annals of Who. Season 1/Series 14 picks up quite a bit with Boom and 73 Yards. Boom is a fairly bog-standard Moffat episode with a bottle premise (Doctor on a land mine) but a subversive message re: corporate military. A lot of the usual twee, now quite shopworn Moffat elements are in there including a ridiculous little girl and fairly precious finish, but it's still a solid watch and a good sight better than the first two eps. (The fact that it reuses some of the plot device from The Empty Child can be somewhat forgiven as it is apparently the same imaginary weapons manufacturer Moffat made up in that episode, from the 1940s - this same corporate enemy, Villengard, reappears later in Joy to the World.) 73 Yards is excellent if often obscure, the first banger of this season but also (like Lux in S2/Series 15 a few weeks ago) one of its most metaphysical. Sort of a melange of folk horror a la the old BBC Christmas ghost stories as well as Tennant's Midnight, with elements of Turn Left and even a political thriller, and a great appearance by Sian Phillips. Its plot is deliberately very vague in places but it is easily the most compelling piece of Who I have seen since Peter Capaldi's era. Though like Turn Left it is a Doctor-lite episode. Really remarkable, at least as creepy as anything Hinchcliffe, Series 18 or the late Cartmel eps. With the same haze of doom as Inferno. Fans are still trying to puzzle it out to this day when parts of I think are designed to be opaque. Still, excellent and very, very different. The same goes for Dot and Bubble: Very, very strong S24/early McCoy vibes (in a more positive way than Space Babies) a la Paradise Towers, etc. due to its wacky social media/TikTok/VR interface premise, but with a very, very bitter aftertaste as the open secret of Finetime becomes clear. I understand this story was controversial for obvious reasons to anyone who's seen it, but I think it serves as a slap in the face and a bucket of cold water for an audience that sometimes needs it. Plot aside, Dot and Bubble is at its core a simple, remarkably nihilistic story - a Black Mirror story riff, really - about who we are and where we may well be going. The social media commentary and tools are just the lens for the message, they aren't the message itself. It sticks with you, and is easily the other standout of a very mixed season for me next to 73 Yards. (Rogue with Jonathan Groff is a fun romp but not much else, though he and Gatwa do have chemistry.) The Sutekh finale of S1 is not as bad as people claim - the first half is pretty good putting aside the typical RTD nonsense anagram/wordplay that doesn't quite hold together, while the second half is weaker and much more pat, but it's really just a pretty typical 2-parter conclusion with DW time travel magic, followed by the hilariously weird and stupid touch of having the Doctor foil Sutekh like Mitt Romney's dog. The reveal on Ruby's parentage is basically The Last Jedi which made people mad all over again, but it's just as well an ending for something that had a very limited window of time to play. (They probably should've dumped the subplot entirely if they wanted it to be stronger, but the payoff with Ruby's real mom does hit very hard and genuinely got me.) I've seen far worse DW finales, starting with Army of Ghosts/Doomsday or literally any Chibnall finale. Not great, but not terrible and wonderful work from Bonnie Langford (Mel should travel with Fifteen for an ep or two), as well as a very touching sendoff for Ruby and a mature approach from the Doctor who (like Whittaker's) calmly accepts what's best for her before she does and doesn't moan or weep over it. I would've loved to have more of Millie Gibson who was great, but Ruby does really feel in a way like RTD bedding the show back in with a standard-issue companion for a season before hopefully moving on to someone more complex. It feels appropriate for her to go. The latest Christmas special (Joy to the World) is quite good IMO, one of the stronger efforts of the current era. Unlike Boom, it is full of Moffatisms but they feel far less shopworn or treacly. The holiday special format makes the schmaltz more appropriate and touching. And watching Gatwa's Doctor navigate some long-form time travel/waiting around situations quite similar to ones Capaldi and Smith approached but in a very different way helps distinguish him more beyond just the actor's winning, very open performance. He remains a very emotional, evolved Doctor and that seems to be the throughline so far along with his explicit queerness. It's a good start, though I really hope he'll get the customary three series to fully blossom. Though I fear he won't. Season 2/Series 15: After the considerable upswing of Joy to the World, The Robot Revolution was a pretty brutal comedown. I found it quite dire - a very blunt force message about incels and an astonishingly nonsensical story that barely held together, feeling very rushed through the shorter Disney under 60 mins running time. It felt like a very woolly first draft of this story. It barely keeps itself together because Varada Sethu is great as Belinda and quickly winning with Gatwa, but boy could I not get out of here fast enough. First stories are rarely great ones for a new Doctor or companion but this one was rough! I did love the opening bit with Mrs. Flood as Belinda's neighbor, and Belinda telling her to tell the other neighbors their atomized cat had gone to live on a farm. Sethu has great comic timing as well as her dramatic chops - more on those below. Fortunately, Series 2 seems off to a better start overall: The Well is well-received and Lucky Day (the upcoming Ruby solo episode) seems very positively reviewed as well this weekend. I will get to them, but as of now I am only up to episode 2: Lux, with Alan Cumming as the evil cartoon Mr. Ring-a-Ding. The ongoing subplot/arc of the Gods of the Pantheon, which has recurred off and on ever since the Toymaker in the specials, is an interesting throughline for RTD to keep playing with, and feels possibly like a response to a Disney note, but it works here. (And again, seems reminiscent of when the scheming master Seventh Doctor repeatedly would face seemingly god after god from various strata of cosmic deities in his final two seasons.) Lux lives up to the hype for me: It's both very unique in execution with the evil cartoon but very experimental - at least as much as 73 Yards or Dot and Bubble - with the heavy metatextual element of the Doctor and Belinda escaping television entirely and interacting with fandom, even if their teary goodbye to them is a bit much. The episode operates entirely on avant-garde logic that it makes work for it, and then has a great, melancholy, almost Warriors' Gate/Evangelion-esque ending with Lux Imperator ascending into the cosmos. Which brings me to my larger points. You just will never find another DW ep like Lux, 73 Yards or Dot and Bubble and that's why they work so well IMO. The Disney era is quite a mixed bag so far, at times full of some of RTD's most rushed or downright woefully bad writing, but it also has him taking some of his biggest, wildest chances as an artist, things you get the sense he never felt the freedom to do in the franchise anymore and now may never get a chance again. Some of them are dreadful, some feel like tired rehashes but some are really spectacularly different and daring. Even the constant fourth wall breaks with Anita Dobson (who's chilling as Mrs. Flood) mostly work for me. Similarly: Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor is a work in progress, and hopefully not one with very little time left. Yes, Gatwa's Doctor cries a bit too much but the fact that he cries at all, and that we accept it and that rage and tantrums do not accompany it a la other Doctors, is the biggest change. Fifteen, insofar as we have gotten to begin to know him a bit (not enough yet), is the evolved, vulnerable, emotional but not self-pitying or self-mythologizing Doctor. He remains (to me at least) as open and honest and forthright, and kind, as he appeared when he first revealed himself to Fourteen in The Giggle. He is not bland and a collection of other Doctors' tics like Whittaker's Doctor, but he does feel younger - reborn, more in touch with a kind of youthful emotionalism but also a kind of innate maturity to not be egocentric or tortured, for once. This kind of naked honesty has led to accusations that Gatwa is only 'playing a normal human' or is too opaque at present, and I can understand some of the latter commentary but I don't think he is just playing a cool dude. He's just a remarkably refreshed Doctor who (in addition to being very explicitly queer onscreen) feels the healthiest that he has in ages. But does that leave much for the character to do or explore unless he suffers setbacks? That's an open issue and it remains to be seen. It's certainly never a Doctor I've seen before though. He definitely has gotten the 'therapy' he told Fourteen he had. And I do enjoy watching him. I hope this isn't the end for him due to the state of streaming - I think we have much more to learn. The key moments for Fifteen include two in Lux: The way bigotry is dealt with here is not with gurning or screams or rage as Belinda discovers she and the Doctor wouldn't normally be allowed into the segregated spaces in Miami in the '50s, but with Fifteen gently telling her with a dazzling smile that he has toppled worlds but lets them do it themselves sometimes in their own time; 'until then, I live in it and I shine.' Followed by at the end, where he calmly says that according to the laws of the land 'sunlight doesn't suit us' and it's time to go. It's not giving a pass to the era but it's not doing the adolescent thing over being trapped in the '50s either. Again, this is material that leads to accusations of Fifteen being too perfect, or too static - I think we've just rarely seen such a settled Doctor in the modern era. Whether he's too static, I think it's too soon to know. Thirteen's certainly was, and much less interesting IMO. Belinda Chandra reminds me a lot of Liz Shaw: No nonsense, a medical professional and often all business in a situation before the Doctor (so far). She's a grown woman, not a young girl on the cusp and shows it without being as comic as Donna Noble. It's a different kind of companion and one maybe needed for this Doctor. I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on her and Varada Sethu. Sorry to run so long, but if anyone else is watching do chime in sometime! I will get to The Well (a.k.a.
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and Lucky Day shortly.
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