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bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest · 3 years

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BBC SHERLOCK

I figured out people on mobile can’t see my pages and so cannot access my bbc sherlock meta, ergo a post.

META

► UMQRA

UMQRA = TORCH

UMQRA = TORCH - Just ONE (+ London Spy)

UMQRA = TORCH - See no more (+ Doctor Who)

What would it sound like if “UMQRA” was replaced with “TORCH”?

UMQRA = TORCH = LOVE, substitutions in the dialogue

UMQRA - Masterpost

UMQRA - Ciphers 1/2

UMQRA - Ciphers 2/2

► IOU

I O U = 2 + YOU

I O U = IT IS JOHN

I O U - Masterpost

► SHORTHAND

Does John Watson take shorthand notes? (+ ACD Canon)

The Foreman’s Shorthand - Masterpost

The Foreman’s Shorthand - Lines: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Above the 1st

Was the foreman already under threat in the “Shorthand scene”? Is the foreman a Sherlock fan?

Does “You or Me?” mean “John or James?”

YOU = JOHN and ME = MORIARTY in the dialogue

► NUMBERS

57 and 207 as 007

57even Moffat (+ Doctor Who)

57 as a reference to “The Man Who Was Wanted”

57 STARS + 1 JOHN (+ Doctor Who, + London Spy)

From 57 to 1 (+ London Spy)

Operation 57 (+ Doctor Who)

A 57 in the licence plate

A 57 in a telephone number

57 and inverted 1895 in webpage

A 189- in the dialogue

11 is a pair of 1s

The Other One/Oswin/Osgood and replacing the Other One.

Up to 11

747

125 = ABE

The Other 1058 theory

44 = M

2,11 and 4

178H could be 1780 Herschel

Sonnet 14 and STARS (+ Doctor Who)

197 TPH = 1970, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

► RELIGIOUS REFERENCES

Jesus had a blogger called John

► ACD CANON REFERENCES

XXX as the sign of the three

► HIDDEN MEANINGS

Cupid, lions and Omnia Vincit Amor

The Blind Banker: hic sunt leones

Corporal Lyons’ Insignias of Love

The moon is a shark

Who’s who in the Solar System metaphor?

The Moon Lamp and the Sun decoration

Sherlock, his evil twin and the moon magnifying glass

The white bear problem

Hidden Williams in surnames

Hidden Will in The Great Game

WELL I AM = WILLIAM

MISS M(ary) E(lizabeth)?

MAID M(ary) E(lizabeth)

Shooting and missing

Does the violin miss MI?

Miss me? = Kiss me?

A cock ring

Metaphorical trash = Sherlock and John

Red Bird, Ginger Bread, Red Bride and Ruby Bread = Red Beard

Janine = M-Aggie?

Punch de la Lune

I, the Information Point

Cow = Character A and the A Frame

Human red signal

221 Bring It = 221B Ring It

Sherlock’s high on pot (lost link)

BBC LOCKED

What are you, Mikipedia?

Mycroft as a Weeping Angel

► EASTER EGGS

Give James Dancing Lessons

Easter eggs in John’s newspaper

Sharl-like pots in Magnussen’s office

Sherlock and John at falls in Doctor Who

YOU + TORCHWOOD easter eggs

► GENDER AND SEXUALITY

Sir William Gay

Rainbow letters in the trailer (lost link)

Bi The Way

John leaves a rainbow trail.

Bisexual pride scarf for Watson

Human bi flag

The Bi Ball

Alex & Ajay = A lesbian & A gay

► PREDICTIONS

Whodunit tricks, Janine’s reaction to marriage proposal and everyone’s reactions to the “Did you miss me?” video

Is Mary responsible for the “Did you miss me video?”

Lady in Red as The Evil Queen?

Is John is the treasure of the game?

Mary = The Other One - Masterpost

Has Sherlock got a sister called Elizabeth? Is she Mary?

“Miss Me?” as Sherlock’s sister theme

Is Mary responsible for the “Did you miss me video?”

Is Lady Smallwood the Other One’s mother? Or is she Mary’s mother? (lost link)

Did the Other One drown?

Is The Abominable Bride a lot about the Other One?

Mary as the Other One, s4 additions

Mary and the Black Pearl

MISS M(oriarty) E(lizabeth)?

► CHARACTERS

Now, Clara. Who’s Clara? (+ Doctor Who)

Sholto and Dimmock as a mirror for John and Sherlock

Why is the bride called Emelia?

Rory Arthur Williams comes from Moriarty and Sherlock

Hey! The flirting villain!

► PARALLELS: TALES AND FAIRY TALES

Fairy tales - Masterpost

Sherlock as the White Swan and the Ugly Duckling

Mary and Bonnie as the Black Swans (+ Doctor Who)

Sherlock vs The Swan Princess

Sherlock as Sleeping Beauty

Rosemund Watson as Sleeping Beauty

The Lying Detective as The Sleeping Beauty

Sherlock as Snow White and True Love’s Kiss (+ Once Upon A Time)

Sherlock as Pinocchio

Mary as the Blind Witch

Alice in Wonderland tea cup and Mrs. Hudson as the Mad Hatter

Mycroft as the Little Mermaid

Sherlock and Clara as Jack and the Beanstalk (+ Doctor Who)

Magnussen as Cruella De Vil

Mary As Robin Hood

The Holmeses have sorcerer’s hats

John as Brünnhilde

Episode speculation: The Yellow Trace and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz parallels

Episode speculation: The Dancing Man and Cinderella parallels

Episode speculation: The Second Star and Peter Pan parallels

The Abominable Bride vs Frozen

Eurus as the Snow Queen

► PARALLELS: TV SERIES

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - The Abominable Bride vs The Bitter Suite?

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - The Unaired Pilot vs The Greater Good

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - A Study in Pink vs The Royal Couple of Thieves

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - Series 3 / 4 vs A Cradle of Hope

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - The Abominable Bride vs The Dirty Half Dozen

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - The Six Thatcher vs Maternal Instincts

Sherlock vs Xena: Warrior Princess - Magnussen vs Ming T’ien

Dialogue comparison: high-functioning sociopath

Offensive: an Implication of impropriety (+ Doctor Who)

Dealing with falls = Changing the future = Marriage (+ Doctor Who)

The Lying Detective vs Blink

► PARALLELS: MOVIES

Sherlock vs The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes - Emile the husband, Emelia the wife

Sherlock vs Rebecca - His Last Vow vs Rebecca

Sherlock vs The Birds - The Hounds of Baskerville vs The Birds

Sherlock vs The Matrix Trilogy

Sherlock vs Dellamorte Dellamore

Sherlock vs James Bond - A Scandal In Belgravia vs Casino Royale (2006)

His Last Vow vs Un Dollaro Bucato?

► PARALLELS: ANIME AND MANGA

Haruhi Suzumiya: a reinterpretation of Sherlock Holmes as a schoolgirl with supernatural powers? (+ ACD canon, + Haruhi Suzumiya)

► PARALLELS: BOOKS

The Naked Sun vs The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes vs A Scandal In Belgravia

► LOVE AND SEX TROPES

The phone is a handkerchief

A visual metaphor for a wedding

Cupid in the titles

Visual love triangle

Between My Legs frame

Finishing each other’s sentences

“We” as romantic coding

Sherlock shooting at the Yellow Face as fellatio innuendo

► CARD AND BOARD GAMES

A Pen Holder with Spades

Graffiti identification: an Ace of Spades?

► COSTUMES

Sherlock’s locks might be inspired by Mr. Darcy’s (+ Pride and Prejudice 1995)

Sherlock likes John in a green coat

How to build a Sherlock

► OTHER S4 MIXED METAS

She = Sherlock

Save John Watson = save your love

Eurus = Trapped Woman in The Elegible Bachelor

The Abominable Bride vs Kill Bill: the Death List

To go

Odd eyes = Pirate eyepatches

YOU = EU(RUS)

John = Yellow Face again

2 heads with AGRA got smashed

Gabrielle Ashdown = Gabrielle Valladon

REFERENCES

Timeline of 57′s mentions in Moffat’s work

GIFSETS

UMQRA = TORCH gifsets: x x x

Gifset: BC Sherlock cameos in My Little Pony: modern version

Gifset: BBC Sherlock cameos in My Little Pony: Victorian version

Sherlock as Snow White and True Love’s Kiss

Sherlock vs The Matrix Trilogy gifsets: x x x x x

Pride flags gifsets: TAB

Gay! I mean… Hey.

Gifset: My wordplay theories

FANVIDEOS

► ALTERNATIVE OPENINGS

Sherlock’s opening remade like Xena: Warrior Princess’

FANART

► POKEMON AU

BBC Sherlcok Modern Pokéverse

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in The Abominable Gardevoir

#sherlock #tjlc #johnlock #bbc sherlock

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distinctivelibrarians · 3 years

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Home Ain’t a Place Anymore

(read on ao3)

Eliot wasn’t sure when he started dreading cardboard-stiff mattresses, the smell of stale cleaning products, and the tinny rumble of a busted heater more than being hit in the face.

No, wait. He knew exactly when. It was last night. In his second motel room of the trip. And there he was, in his third, and he was just about ready to break something. Preferably the aforementioned busted heater. Maybe he could kick it into working better. It worked for Hardison’s computers sometimes, why wouldn’t it work for tech likely salvaged from the seventies?

The heater kicked on—a splutter-click that grated on every single one of Eliot’s frayed nerves—just long enough to fill the room with the smell of old air and dust before it died out again. The damn thing was old enough, Eliot wouldn’t be surprised if it had some kind of life to it, and if it spent most of it being as spiteful as a hunk of plastic and metal could be.

And perhaps he was just a touch tired. And frustrated.

Because he could’ve been home by now, if he’d just been allowed to plan this trip his way. He could make the drive in a day, day and a half tops, depending on how well he could avoid anything with a siren. But apparently driving that long ‘wasn’t healthy,’ and ‘insane,’ and ‘it’s not life or death, Eliot, take a break, goddamn!’

So Hardison (and Parker, and Eliot still wasn’t sure when she started agreeing with Hardison on anything concerning driving) had planned out Eliot’s trip. And it had originally included much, much nicer hotels. Which would’ve added hours all four days and Eliot just wasn’t having it, told Hardison he’d find a place off the highway each night and not to worry about it. Not that he’d thought that that would work—and it hadn’t, Hardison had still ended up giving him a list of the possible options based on where he predicted Eliot to stop for the night—but still.

Eliot was kind of regretting it now as the fourth pair of headlights in the last ten minutes cut through the curtains to trace slowly—always slowly, why the hell were they all going five miles an hour?—across the room, a bright streak slicing through the too-dark to be grey, too-light to be black haze that blanketed the room.

What he really wasn’t sure about, and what was far more frustrating, was that he wasn’t sure when all of the annoyances, distractions, and overall...obnoxious little details started getting to him.

He’d spent time in places that made this dim little room seem like a suite at any of Hardison’s fine hotels. He’d gone through trips that had tedious droning down to an artform. This was nothing.

But here he was, unable to get comfortable on a too-old and too-hard mattress, curling and uncurling his pressure-fuzzy fingers in the starched blanket, contemplating murdering that goddamn heater, which had the dubious honor of being better than both the previous ones.

He just. He really wanted to be home.

And maybe he did know when shit started getting to him—in situations like this, anyway. Because as Hardison had pointed out when he started this whole mess, this wasn’t life or death. This was just a stretch of travelling to get him back to Portland after he’d flown down to New Orleans to celebrate a buddy’s retirement. There’d been a handful of pings to a couple old cases connected to them, and they’d figured he’d attract less attention driving than in an airport—nothing immediately dangerous, just a bit of healthy caution. Barely on their radar.

But anyway. Yeah, he knew when this started. It was when a hacker and a thief decided to let him stick around—in their apartment, in their bed, in their life. Now he had something to get back to. Something better. Something he could hold up and compare all the little discrepancies between what was waiting for him at the end of this trip and where he was now.

The bed wasn’t bad, objectively speaking. But it was missing a furnace that cuddled like an octopus and complained when none of his Doctor Who pajamas were clean, and a blanket hog that was just as likely to lay across them as not and liked to jump on the bed despite Eliot’s continued grumblings.

He’d woken up two days now to the sounds of early morning traffic and housekeeping making their rounds, not someone obnoxiously eating cereal next to him or half-coherent grumblings about it being ‘too damn early.’

(He’d woken up two days now unable to hear two people breathing, safe and sound and tucked close. And he knew, he knew they could take care of themselves. Had been doing so long before he came into the picture. And this was far from the first time they’d been separated for any stretch of time. He wasn’t so dependent, wasn’t so worried, that he needed to check on them first thing in the morning. But it...definitely helped.)

He’d broken out one of the playlists Hardison had made him yesterday around hour five, but the car had still felt too quiet without the constant background back-and-forth that inevitably cropped up between his two better parts. The last one had been about why certain articles of clothing were named after people that Eliot still didn’t know if he followed correctly.

A new playlist had shown up on his phone about hour seven, no title or anything to let him know what he was in for. But he’d put it on, and had had to laugh when it became clear that Parker and Hardison hadn’t been able to agree what would go on it. It seemed to be a nostalgic mix, if he had to guess—bouncing back and forth between Disney soundtracks, a bit of old school R&B and rock, and everything in between. He remembered the Disney marathon they’d had, a year back, when Parker told them that she’d seen The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan, and none of the others. And he remembered Hardison talking about how Nana used to love putting on her albums from Aretha Franklin and Etta James and dancing around the house with the younger kids sometimes, dragging in the older kids when it became obvious they wanted to too but were too ‘cool’ for it.

And maybe that playlist was put on repeat for awhile.

Point was.

He had somewhere to be. And that somewhere was not in this little hole of a motel.

...Hardison was going to kill him.

He was in the car—on some back highway that paralleled a main, empty road stretched out on either side, the sky still heavy and dark and star-studded—in the next half hour.

---

He’s home a good twelve hours early.

Hardison is not happy with him. Or, at least, he says he isn’t. The way he greets Eliot at the door with a warm kiss that feels like home says differently. The way he wraps an arm around Eliot’s waist and only moves to the side to let Parker near tackle the both of them with her own ‘welcome home’—an electric kiss and a bone-crushing hug that settles him, that grounds him for the first time in a week included—says differently.

“Next time, I’m driving the day.” Eliot starts, trying for frustrated and missing by a mile. Hardison laughs at him but doesn’t argue, while Parker snorts.

He doesn’t drive the day next time. But he is down to two days instead of four, so he’ll take it.

#Eliot Spencer #Alec Hardison #Parker #leverage #ff #my writing #long post #here have this fic from 2018 I forgot I wrote and forgot to post

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darkwood-hollows · 3 years

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I get so frustrated when some fantasy snobs disparage the Portal Fantasy genre because like literally any genre done well is done well and any genre done bad is done bad and portal fantasy has brought us some of the most iconic and popular pieces of work in the genre in both books/movies/tv like... Narnia, The Dark Tower, His Dark Materials, Spirited Away, Coraline, Doctor Who, Howls Moving Castle (the book), fucking Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Gregor the Overlander, Percy Jackson, Outlander, Inkheart, Peter Pan, STARDUST, even Harry Potter could technically be classified as such due to the portal like nature of entering the wizarding world and so many others. Literally those are just the ones I can see on my bookshelf/dvd collection right. now. The way portals/secondary worlds are used in these words is varied and different, sometimes its referential, sometimes its not.

And I spend my time on lots of writing forums and I get tired of hearing that “portal stories are lazy/outdated because if your writing was tight the character would just exist in your world already” and to that I’d argue that’s not true. Some of the best aspects of portal fantasy is being able to experience the exploration and wonder or horror of a new world with a character, to me I find that exploration wildly interesting to see how people from our world would cope with that scifi-esq idea of another parallel universe/world/moment in time. Idk sometimes I feel these people haven’t read a relevant portal masterpiece since they read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a child and it SHOWS. Like character preexisting in a fantasy world can also be done cliche and bad, the piles of absolute garbage Tolkien derivative fantasy on the shelves at the book store or for kindle from self-publishers on Amazon is a testament to that.

Maybe, just maybe, good writing is good because it is good and bland writing is bland because it is bland no matter the genre.

#writing #idk i really hate genre shaming #bc i also unabashedly love portal fantasy #it is some of my favorite #and i never tire of new explorations #bc the possiblities with story telling are endless like how cool is that #anyways if i have to read another boring world building novel that doesn't actually engage me #i'll only read modern portal fantasy for a year out of spite #if i see orcs bad elves good in your book i am BORED.#but the existence of a portal itself #fun cool amazing beautiful special i love it #just make your 'other' world interesting #make your characters engaging #i love tolkien tho don't get me wrong #but like he literally does his own style the BEST #like you can't touch that i'm sorry its ICONIC at this point #people say grrm copied tolkien all the time and i don't feel that is true #his books have a much different tone and much less magic and different 'creatures'

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debuts · 4 years

Note

I loved You Tried to Change the Ending... and then I thought about it for a little and realized that it’s cannon in DW that the First Doctor inspired the story of Peter Pan (A Big Hand for The Doctor). And that only made it better for me lol. Great work!!!

Hi, I haven’t been on in awhile, so I’m probably pretty late replying, but thanks so much for messaging me this!

I didn't know that was canon! I’ve been a big fan of Peter Pan (the original novel and the Disney movie) since I was a little kid, so I had a lot of fun lining up the parallels between Peter and the Doctor.

When I was writing the fic, I had the idea that the Doctor inspired the story of Peter Pan, which in turn inspired Clara, who then met the Doctor and lived it out by becoming Wendy (and then later *fic spoilers for anyone else reading this* becoming Peter Pan herself), so it’s really cool to know that the first part of that is canon!

#Thanks for this #Glad you enjoyed my fic :)#asks

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teamkimsoekjinforever · 4 years

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11 Questions

I was tagged by the dope af @karenpaage - thanks so much!

Rule 1: Post the rules. Rule 2: Answer the questions the person who tagged you asked, and write 11 new ones. Rule 3: Tag 11 people.

Your Questions

1. What’s your favorite random fact that you know? Can be any subject you want, just teach me something new!

Damn, I carry around so many it’s difficult to decide! Ummm, the name Wendy was created for the book Peter Pan.

Fun fact you probs know but I like people who aren’t readers/lit nerds to know - The Three Brothers Story from HP7 was fucking ripped straight out of The Canterbury tales. It pisses me off to no end.

2. If you could sit down and have lunch with one fictional character, who would it be and what would you want to talk about?

Literally the most difficult questions! Probably someone like Elizabeth Bennett because we would have SO MUCH fun just being dicks to stupid guys. Jo from Little Women would definitely have to be with us though... so I’m gonna need like a fancy luncheon party.

OR Vanessa from Atlanta. She is amazing - so gorgeous and strong and ok with not knowing how everything is gonna turn out and I want to be her best friend.

3. Above question continued: same scenario, but with one real-life figure, living or dead. Who’d it be?

Taika Waititi or John Boyega. No explanations needed.

4. What’s your comfort piece of media? Can be a song, a movie, a show - something that brings you peace and/or that you go back to often.

Doctor Who is the most comforting show to me, it seriously saved me from my depression countless times and I wouldn’t be alive today without it.

Sing Street is another, the music is just so amazing and it makes me cry in happy ways. Plus it’s my boyfriend’s favorite movie so I always think of the fun we have watching together.

5. Favorite trope (either in fanfic or in actual writing/film)?

I don’t read fanfic, otherwise this would be a way more fun answer, so I’d have to say the ‘meddling relative’/’misunderstood situation’. This seems lame but after reading Jane Austin it’s just so much fun! When I really fell in love with these tropes was reading/watching Atonement. What Briony does has such a horrible impact that I am so fascinated by the psychology behind it.

6. Do you collect anything? If so, tell me about it!

I collect books, vinyl albums, bluray steelbooks, and comics/graphic novels. I’ve also accumulated a lot of giant pandas over my lifetime because I love them.

7. What’s one thing you love that people wouldn’t expect you to love?

Newer pop music. I’ve always been such a music snob (media snob in general) so when I started college in 2011, One Direction just popped onto the US scene and people were astounded that I loved them. Sometimes I just want some fun junk in my earholes.

8. What’s something you’d love to do but seems kind of ridiculous/out of your realm of possibility at the moment?

TRAVEL! I am dying to go out of the country! I’d have to get a passport but I would love to see my friend in Sheffield and also go to Wales. I actually have a great job now and no longer living paycheck to paycheck but the fucking rona hit just when I got the job so I’m stuck in Kansas for now.

9. If you could go on a dream vacation - all expenses paid, wherever you want - where would you go?

Tokyo. It is where my boyfriend and I talk about going the most. They have all our anime and cats and mountains, what else do I need!?

10. What’s your favorite/preferred streaming service?

Hulu cos they got pretty much everything I need. However, HBO Max and Disney + are rising up as they add more content.

11. Villains or heroes?

This is kind of a cop out, I’m so sorry, but it really depends. I LOVE an anti-hero but I would die for Spider-man (in any universe). Mostly, if it’s superheroes or sci-fi I love the heroes but in other films and books I usually love the villians - whether they are true villains or just assholes - people seem to give more thought to their characters so I always want more. Plus, I always feel I see my own thoughts/feelings paralleled in them.

My questions:

1. Have you ever broken any bones? If so how many and how?

2. What is your favorite cartoon? It can be current or from childhood.

3. If you could live in any fictional world what would it be and why?

4. What is your favorite snack?

5. If you could spend a day with ONE band member/solo artist, living or dead, who would it be?

6. Share your heritage! Do you have any favorite traditions or customs? I’d love to learn!

7. What ‘extreme’ activity would you do if you were given the opportunity?

8. Who are your favorite social activists? Current or dead, it doesn’t matter!

9. What is your favorite article of clothing? Why do you love it?

10. Do you have any unique hobbies? (anything but reading and movies/tv lol)

11. What is your dream job?

I don’t think I know 11 peeps but I’ll tag @kaybakat @blossoming--flower @cryyptic-darling @bradschemicalromance

#this was fun!

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vobomon · 5 years

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Its argued that Norman must represent Captain James Hook because he looks older, dresses in his clothes (Minerva cloak, etc.) and calls himself “James.”

So there’s undoubtedly no way that Norman can represent Peter Pan because he’s obviously Captain Hook... right? Right?

Did you know that the original Peter Pan story by J. M. Barrie had a sequel?

It wasn’t written by the original author though. Barrie died back in 1937 but before his death, he gave all the copyrights of Peter Pan (and all related works) to the Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Instead the sequel was written in 2006 by Geraldine McCaughrean, who had been commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital to “write the official sequel to Peter Pan.” When the book was published, it was licensed and labeled as the “official sequel” by the copyright holders.

And that is how “Peter Pan in Scarlet” came to be written.

@couldnt-think-of-a-better-name briefly mentions this particular book in their own speculation post about Peter Pan... but they don’t go into much detail.

So allow me to explain how “Peter Pan in Scarlet” proves that everything that we thought associated Norman with Captain James Hook is actually another parallel to Peter Pan.

In “Peter Pan in Scarlet,” the main characters return back to Neverland only to find that much of the landscape has changed. Time has begun to move in Neverland; the greenery of the summer landscape changing into the red leaves of autumn.

This is paralleled when the characters see that Peter Pan has taken to wearing Captain Hook’s old coat. This was done as per the request of Ravello, a lone man who Peter met (by chance) and whom asks to serve as his valet.

Peter finds an old treasure map in the coat pocket and desires to find the treasure, sensing another adventure. So the characters follow after Peter Pan in search of this treasure.

But there is a problem; when Peter wears the coat... he acts different than his usual self. He becomes irritable, impatient, and especially grouchy. His health also begins to take a turn for the worst.

When they reach the climax of their journey and find the treasure, the horrifying truth comes to light.

Peter’s physical appearance has changed to look akin to a younger version of Captain Hook, complete with black hair and tie. Along with his appearance, its obvious that Peter has physically aged, looking closer to an older teenager.

At this point, Ravello reveals the truth. He was Captain Hook; he merely hid his true identity so he could get close to Peter Pan. He wanted to manipulate Peter into wearing his old clothes because they’d transform Peter into a mirror image of Captain Hook.

In a moment of anger, Peter rips off the coat and collapses to the ground. His health had deteriorated so far -- and yet he hadn’t noticed it.

Peter nearly dies thanks to his sickness, but at that point, Neverland is still unstable and time can easily be manipulated. If one merely thinks about being an adult, they will rapidly age. Sensing an opportunity, one of Peter’s lost boys “looks ahead” and thinks about becoming a doctor when he’s an adult. In a brief moment, he ages into an adult and is a doctor.

And Peter’s life is saved.

The main themes of this sequel seem to be in direct opposition to the original Peter Pan story; there is a heavy focus on “time passing where no time should have passed,” as Neverland is undergoing a dramatic change.

Other themes focus on “growing up,” and “becoming another person when you take on their role.”

So while its easy to assume that Norman represents Captain James Hook merely because he calls himself “James,” then we end up ignoring all the other associations that Norman has shown to the original Peter Pan.

When it comes to the Promised Neverland, things are definitely not black and white. And often it takes a lot of digging and research to uncover all the references.

After all if it was easy to identity, then it wouldn’t be fun to figure out... am I right?

#the promised neverland #yakusoku no neverland #tpn spoilers #tpn norman #owl of minerva

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comicaloverachiever · 3 months

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Peter Pan and Doctor Who parallels – Part 2/2

Peter and Wendy and the Doctor and Amy

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kiss-my-freckle · 3 years

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If you haven't seen my Tom Domino Theory and would like to, it can be found here. I believe there are two sections I wanted to add but haven't, but the core dominoes are there. A series-long-theory I've been building and supporting for over 6 seasons.

This post is to show what I’m seeing in S9.

Red: Krilov. Krilov. Ressler: The whack job who scrambled my brain like an egg? Park: What does that mean? Ressler: It means he scrambled my brain like an egg.

The egg theme is everywhere because Red is Katarina.

Aram: She would have been kept like a prisoner for the length of her pregnancy, and when she finally gave birth, she would have been forced to give the baby up for adoption.

Ressler: I’m not saying it’s easy, but I’d never give up my kid for adoption.

A memory wipe is what I’d consider imprisonment.

Doctor: What it means is, you were pregnant. Peter: Oh, my God. What, pregnant? Honey. Park: You said "were"? Doctor: Yes. I did.

Doctor: But hey, uh, good news. The baby’s fine. Liz: It is? The baby. Doctor: Uh, yeah. But you really, uh, have to be more careful - now that you’re pregnant.

Theme: Butterflies. They symbolize resurrection. They go as far back as Lady Ambrosia (3x14).

WombMen. The concept of Hannah Hayes’ episode.

Ressler: Because dead men tell no tales. Even about their seed.

Doctor: Elevated HCG can indicate testicular cancer in men, but...

Ressler: All this to hide an unwanted pregnancy? Who’s the mother? Pastor Darvis: There is no mother. I gave birth to Luke myself.

Theme: Gender neutrality/ambiguity. They go as far back as the pilot.

Two “drugged out” episodes for Cooper for Liz’s two memory wipes.

Liz: You did it once. Red: Yes. When you were a child, to protect you from the memory of killing your father. I hired Krilov once. Never again.

Tom wiping Liz’s memory - Agnes’ conception. Scottie framing Cooper - Custody of Agnes.

Lexical ambiguity. From Red and Tom to Katarina and Scottie. Second round of Little Red Riding Hood.

Tom Connolly parallels for Liz’s 2x22 memory wipe.

Cooper: I sent a blood sample to the lab to find out if I was drugged. Charlene: When will you get the results? Cooper: A week. Maybe more.

Liz: You were drugged. Propofol, Tramadol.

Liz had her blood tested after the senator’s death, but not after Connolly’s.

Tom: Alright, dream scenario. We finish our coffee, we hop on my boat. We leave, okay. We never look back. Preferably, we take our clothes off at some point.

Ressler: Damn it, Liz, wake up.

Beteween Sleep and Awake. A Peter Pan quote. The theme of dreams. This theme goes pretty far back, considering Liz’s first memory wipe was in S2.

Red: Harold, see if you can round up Dr. Krilov. Donald and I have some catching up to do with the dreamweaver.

Add in the theme of Sleeping Beauty for Agnes’ ballet. Dembe will be in this because Tom followed Liz to Red’s flat. Ressler’s 2x17 and Dembe’s 2x20 deleted scenes will explain this better.

Liz: This isn’t the end. Not for you.

Red: A life with Agnes wasn’t all she wanted. She wanted a life with you.

A return to themes. Too many dialogues to list. Unicorns, the birds and the bees, honey, and the new wrinkle.

Ressler took a drug test with Park’s urine. His drug test came back negative. Ressler basically took a pregnancy test for Park.

Because he tested positive for hCG... expect Agnes to be Ressler’s daughter.

And we’re not even halfway through the season lol. Imposter Rostova first. Imposter father to follow. As I’ve been saying forever now.

"You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Nothing hurts so bad as when a child disappoints. Like being impaled by a unicorn."

Why Red should've killed Tom Keen.

#Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2 #Keenler baby theory

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km-theatre · 7 years

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Cast & Creatives The Ladykillers

NEW WOLSEY THEATRE IPSWICH SUFFOLK UK 15 SEP 2017

Friday 15 September 2017

Ann Penfold — Mrs Wilberforce

Theatre credits include: The Taming of the Shrew (RSC),Brighton Till I Die(Brighton),, Revenger's Tragedy, Deep Blue Sea,(West Yorkshire Playhouse)Saturday Sunday Monday (National Theatre/West End) The Wars of the Roses(English Shakespeare Company, world tour and Old Vic) Design for Living (Peter Hall Company,) The Winslow Boy,(Guildford and tour) The Contractor (Oxford Stage company tour) Forty Years On (Scarborough)The Glass Menagerie,(Greenwich), In Celebration,(Chichester.) Duet for One (Edinburgh, Lyceum)

At the Wolsey Theatre: The Winter's Tale; Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; Mrs Warren's Profession; Perfect Days.

And at Salisbury Playhouse: For Services Rendered ( and at the Old Vic), and The Lady in the Van.

Television credits include: Tripped (Mammoth Screen), Doctors, Casualty, Sea of Souls, Dangerfield, No Place Like Home, Mrs Pym’s Day Out, Cranford, Villette, There is Also Tomorrow (BBC), The Bill, The Vice, Coronation Street, The Brontes of Haworth, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (ITV) A Wing and a Prayer, Family Affairs (Ch5)

Film credits include: Keeping Rosy, Winter Sunlight, Family Life.

Steven Elliot — Professor Marcus

Theatre Credits Include: Frankenstein, The Winter’s Tale. (Royal National Theatre) Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Revenger’s Tragedy, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Pentecost, The Bite of the Night, The Jew of Malta, Measure For Measure (Royal Shakespeare Company) The Devil Inside Him (National Theatre Wales) Dancing at Lughnasa (Abbey, Dublin) King Lear (Almeida, London) True West (Glasgow Citz) Arcadia (Bristol Old Vic) Frank, in Educating Rita (Oldham Coliseum) Dumb Show, Inherit the Wind (New Vic Theatre) The Weir (Sherman, Cardiff) Amadeus, Hamlet, And Then There Were None, Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ (Salisbury Playhouse) Macbeth, Two Princes, A Chorus of Disapproval, Arcadia, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, The Suicide, Noises Off, Jumpy, Cyrano de Bergerac (Theatr Clwyd) Steven recently played the role of George Ring in an adaptation of ‘Adventures in the Skin Trade,’ by Dylan Thomas, at the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Arts Centre, Australia. He also recently played Oscar Wilde in a tour of ‘The Trials of Oscar Wilde.’

Directing Credits Include: Assistant Director to Terry Hands on ‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw (Theatr Clwyd) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rose Theatre, Kingston) Well Thumbed (Notional Theatre) The Dreamer (Maltings, Farnham)

Television Credits Include: Da Vinci’s Demons, Holby City, Judge John Deed, Ghostboat, Crash, Tunnel of Love, Porthpenwaig, Inspector Morse, Harpur and Isles, Art that Shook the World, 90 Days in Hollywood, Return to Treasure Island, That Uncertain Feeling, Rhinoceros, Van der Valk, 999 Killer on the line, Mike Bassett - Manager, Gwaith Cartref.

Film Credits Include: Steven has just finished filming ‘The Watcher in the Woods’ with Anjelica Huston, in which he plays the title role. Other Film work includes; Hamlet, Cold Earth, Rise of the Appliances, Trauma, Trail of Crimson, De Sade, Green Monkey and Time Bandits. Also recordings of Frankenstein (NT Live) King Lear and True West (Digital Theatre)

Graham Seed — Major Courtney

Graham trained at RADA and is best known for playing Nigel Pargetter in the radio series The Archers for 27 years, until the character’s untimely demise in January 2011. Theatre credits include: Dead Sheep and An Audience with Jimmy Savile (Park Theatre), Dead Sheep (National Tour),  Bedroom Farce and Separate Tables (Salisbury Playhouse), Flare Path (National Tour) Jim Hacker in Yes Prime Minister (National Tour), Basket Case with Nigel Havers (National Tour)Major Metcalf in The Mousetrap (60th Anniversary tour), Toad of Toad Hall (West End); Me and My Girl (Adelphi Theatre); Relatively Speaking and Confusions (national tour); Design for Living (English Touring Theatre); Twelfth Night (BAC); Translations (Watford and tour); A Chaste Maid of Cheapside (Almeida and tour); Someone to Watch Over Me (Frankfurt); An Eligible Man (New End, Hampstead); The Skin Game (Orange Tree); Nelson (Nuffield, Southampton); Present Laughter (Theatr Cymru); French Without Tears (Mill at Sonning); Journey’s End (National Tour) Accolade at the Finborough. He has also played many repertory seasons including: Birmingham, Greenwich,  Library Theatre, Manchester, and Perth.

Television credits include: The Durrells, I, Claudius, Edward VII, Brideshead Revisited, Mike Leigh’s Who’s Who, Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Jeeves and Wooster, The Cleopatras, Crossroads, Coronation Street, Brookside, Prime Suspect, Nature Boy, Dinnerladies, Station Jim, Band of Brothers, The Chatterley Affair, Doctors, Midsomer Murders and He Kills Coppers. Film credits include: Peterloo, Gandhi, Good and Bad at Games, Honest, Little Dorrit, These Foolish Things and Wild Target with Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt. Radio credits include: Nigel Pargetter in The Archers. He is an occasional presenter on ‘Pick of the Week’ and was a regular voice on ‘What The Papers’ Say’ both for Radio 4.  He was the recipient of the Broadcaster of the Year Award 2010 from the Broadcasting Press Guild and the Voice of Listener and Viewer Special Award 2010.

Marcus Houden — Constable Macdonald

Theatre credits include: The Tempest (Hope Theatre, London) - BroadwayWorldUK Best Leading Actor nomination, Overture Live (Hippodrome, London), Peter Pan (UK Tour), Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood(Gala Theatre, Durham), Treasure Island (Cambridge Touring Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (International Tour), Romeo and Juliet, Sense and Sensibility (Chapterhouse Theatre Company), Bouncers(UK Tour), The Three Musketeers (Jamie Marcus Productions), The Merry Wives of Henry VIII (Edinburgh Festival), Art, Macbeth(Seagull Theatre), Tartuffe, The Beaux’ Stratagem (Lichfield Garrick) and Dick Whittington (Theatre Colwyn).

Damian Williams — One-Round

Damian became well known to television audiences in the early nineties for his appearances as Ginger Gahagan in the BBC series Billy Webb and the second series Alfonzo Bonzo. His other television appearances include Lumpy in Spatz; Gavin in Exam Conditions and Ian in The Bill. Damian was the presenter of Damian’s Are You Smarter Than Your 10 Year Old for Sky One and was also in the new series of Birds of a Feather.

Damian is always in demand for Musical Theatre and in 2013 and 2014 Damian played Edna Turnblad in Hairspray both at the Leicester Curve as well as a tour of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Damian’s first love is comedy (his heroes are Laurel & Hardy) and he has played various comedy roles from Luther Billis in South Pacific to Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Damian played Tommy Cooper in the new play Being Tommy Cooper, and toured in the one man play My Dog’s Got No Nose. Most recently he’s also played Tommy Cooper in the short film The Last Laugh, written and directed by Paul Hendy for which Damian won best Actor (Southampton film festival)

Damian has toured the country for over 25 years and has a wealth of experience in Theatre, a well respected farceur Damian has appeared in; Run for your wife, Cash on Delivery, Funny Money, Tom Dick & Harry, It Runs in the Family, Not now darling, There Goes The Bride, Out of Order, Caught in the Net, Dry Rot, See How they Run and Don’t Dress For Dinner.

As resident Dame of 10 years at the Sheffield Lyceum Damian is set to play Mother Goose this year.

Damian was born in Tilbury in Essex and now resides in Southend on sea with his wife Barbie. They are proud parents of twins, Joshua and Esme, undoubtedly Damian’s finest productions to date!

Anthony Dunn — Louis Harvey

Anthony has worked extensively as an actor in the UK, Europe, Canada and the United States over the last 30 years. Theatre includes Calamity Jane (UK and Ireland Tour), Paved in Gold (Canada), Birds (US Tour), Face (UK Tour), Buddy (Victoria Palace), Bouncers (Hull Truck), L'Ascencore (European Tour) and Don Quixote(Warehouse Theatre). His television appearances include The Murdoch Mysteries (US and Canada), Roomers and The Last Word for the BBC and Stuck on You, The Upper Hand and Frank Stubbs for ITV. Anthony has also worked in academia, teaching and doing Ph.D research in Washington and New Orleans. When not working as an actor, Anthony can be found taking groups of people on entertaining historical tours of London by road, river or foot.

Sam Lupton — Harry Robinson

Training: Manchester School Of Theatre (Man met, Acting)

Theatre includes: ‘Wilfred Crompton’ in Spring and Port Wine (Oldham Coliseum 2017); 'Seymour' in Little Shop Of Horrors (UK Tour 2016), 'Boq' in Wicked (Apollo Victoria Theatre, West End); 'Princeton’ & ‘Rod' in Avenue Q (UK Tour 2012); 'Man' in Starting Here, Starting Now'; Greg' in Single Sex and 'Gena Hamlet' in Galka Motalka (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); 'Harry' in Love On The Dole and 'Young Collector/Sailor' in A Streetcar Named Desire (Bolton Octagon); 'Colin Ireland & Robin Oake' in Out Out Out (Pitgems Theatre); "Jim/Ensemble" in The Hired Man (Bolton Octagon) which won the 2010 TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical, awarded to the entire ensemble. He Also originated the role of 'Ben' in Firing Life.

Television includes: The Late Late Show (RTE) and Ireland:AM (TV3).

Radio Includes: 'Nino Sarratore' in The Story Of A New Name & My Brilliant Friend (BBC Radio 4), Various Characters in National Velvet (BBC Radio 4)

Workshops: 'Boy & Zacky' in Big Fish; 'John-Michael' in Doris Stokes

Other Work Includes: The Music of Kooman & Diamond (IlliaDebuts, London Debut), "The Concrete Jungle": UK Album Launch (IlliaDebuts), 'West End Switched Off' (Parallel Productions)

Sam has also worked as a puppet coach for the 2014 professional UK tour of Avenue Q. In 2016 he made is directorial debut with How To Curse at London's Etcetera Theatre.

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jodiewhitaker-archive · 7 years

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I just finished Neverland and I honestly think it might be my favourite episode of anything ever

Yeah okay I’m probably biased because I just listened to it lmao but it was pretty damn amazing and I need to scream about it so extremely appreciative rant under the cut

Things I loved that I need to yell about:

the BEGINNING. That whole the Doctor being Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, still living in Never-Never Land is such a perfect fairytale parallel, they’ve done lots of fairytale stuff in the new series but this was just goddamn amazing and honestly at first I thought the episode took its title just from that which would have been awesome but it got better

Charley is such a sweetheart for being all nice and lovely and so accepting of her own death, and the Doctor trying to lie to her about her birthday to take her to safety was just so adorable Eight can you just

ALL THE TIME LORD STUFF, I usually find the Time Lords kinda boring (from the rather… limited exposure I’ve had to them from the new series lol) but I loved them?? I was already planning to start classic who soon but after this I would watch it just for Romana? All their myths and TADRISes and yeah did I mention Romana I loved EVERYTHING

THE NEVERPEOPLE. THE ANTIVERSE. THE OUBLIETTE OF ETERNITY. That entire idea of people being erased from history as a punishment, and everyone thinking they haven’t used it in centuries but it’s actually because they always, well, forgot the last time they used it, is pure awesome (also loving the name - look learning French was actually useful!) The Neverpeople themselves and their motivation, especially Sentris, and the way they spoke about it and their right to exist and just everything about this concept was goddamn magnificent

Can we just talk about Eight and Charley for a moment. More specifically, that moment that made me stop in the middle of the sidewalk and rewind three times because way to set up emotional intensity oh my god did he really say that, why must my favourite characters be tortured so

He said I love you I was deceased this is on par with the Doctor calling the Time Lords bitchy honestly please have Eight swear and declare his love for everyone all the time thanks

If I had seen that scene on TV I would have died

I think I’m starting to ship Eight and Charley a little and I’m scared

Okay back to the plot, I got sort of lost in the middle (did I accidentally rewind my audio or did that scene happen twice?) but I did understand what happened at the end and I gotta say the Doctor materializing his TARDIS around a different exploding TARDIS is just such a creative and ambitious idea and it’s also so very Eight because of course he had to sacrifice himself

And that was Rassilon he was talking to the whole series oh my god

Zagreus… wait, what?! This is… not going to turn out well and also four hours long there goes the rest of my week

Scherzo is after Zagreus. Scherzo. I think this was the only reason I started listening to audios back in December

This entire ride has given me inspiration to fire up my (hopefully) dormant artistic and writing skills that I haven’t used in years but this is just too beautiful to ignore

Oh yeah also this Web of Time idea is so much better than the “fixed point in time” thing they have going on in the current series, I still really love Hell Bent but come on… imagine if Clara’s survival had resulted in this that would’ve been one hell of a finale

And it also makes more sense to me that time would be more fluid somehow? IdK man I just like ravaging time distortions

I think Eight is now my favourite Doctor, what have I gotten myself into

#this is so long i'm sorry ah #bUT I NEEDED TO YELL ABOUT IT OK #doctor who #eighth doctor #big finish #donna listens to big finish #i'm enjoying these audios too much tbh

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doctorwhonews · 7 years

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The Doctor Falls

Latest Review: Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Rachel Talalay Starring Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas with Michelle Gomez, John Simm, Briana Shann, Rosie Boore, Samantha Spiro, Simon Coombs, Nicholas Briggs, Stephanie Hyam, and David Bradley Produced by Peter Bennett Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin A BBC Studios Cymru Wales Production for BBC ONE First broadcast 6.30pm, Saturday 1 July 2017 This review contains spoilers and is based on an advance preview copy of the episode. Last week Matt Hills described World Enough and Time as ‘the bleakest and darkest that Doctor Who has been for quite some time’. The Doctor Falls, befitting the second part of World Enough and Time’s story, maintains if not deepens this atmosphere. Nothing that is done in World Enough and Time is reversed. At times many of the lead characters seem to be competing to find which of them has the most profound death wish. The plan the Doctor comes up with can only obtain a minor respite for the embattled humans on floor 507. Indeed, when the Doctor argues that the emergence of Cybermen is inevitable in any human society, and where he also points out that in this closed and time-dilated environment their advantage is overwhelming, what point can there be to fighting on? It’s this question which The Doctor Falls seeks to explore, and in doing so say more than we have heard for some time, if ever, about both Steven Moffat’s and Peter Capaldi’s understanding of who the Doctor is. The result is oddly uplifting. My first reaction, as messaged to one of the editors of this page, was ‘Shining, brilliant, beautiful’; but I added that I think I needed more words to do the story justice. So: The shift of setting between the first and second half of a two-part story is an established Steven Moffat device. As The Big Bang moved from the underhenge of the climax of The Pandorica Opens to the museum, so The Doctor Falls uses its pre-credit sequence to establish the society on floor 507. The Big Bang was itself a cornerstone for the edifice of mythology which Steven Moffat had (with characteristic use of paradox) already begun to build before the stone was set. The Doctor Falls finds Moffat readying and detonating the explosion which will bring down his own version of Doctor Who. The destruction is even more careful than that wrought by the Doctor within the episode, but the visuals suggest what happens: though so much is reduced to ash, burning the old growth might allow for the cultivation of the new. Floor 507 displays a placeless but vaguely mid-Atlantic rusticity, neatly juxtaposed with the gas-choked dystopia over five hundred floors below. It’s an agricultural community where children are central and guarded against the predations of the topknots by a thin line of defenders. It recalls Russell T Davies's idea from his 2003/4 pitch document, that outer space stories should feature human pioneers so the audience have points of identification, perhaps unconsciously also recalling the western. In contrast to the masculine universalism of the Cybermen – both male in that there are no Cyberwomen, but genderless in that the Master insists Bill is now an it – the community has a matriarchal bent, with Hazran as its leader. The chief cook and chief executive are the same person, unproblematic and brought to the screen with authoritative warmth and human fear by Samantha Spiro. The character reminded me a little of Lucy Cohu's Deborah Goren in Ripper Street. There are at least nods to the New England orphanage of The Cider House Rules, and to the pioneer communities of Little House on the Prairie, but theirs are not the stories being told. Introducing a child viewpoint character is an old familiar Moffatism, here used self-consciously. Briana Shann’s Alit recalls Caitlin Blackwood’s Amelia Pond; apparently parentless, independent, willing to confront her fears, and bearing enough of a resemblance to Pearl Mackie’s Bill (exaggerated by the hairstyling) to make one wonder if there is a direct connection between the characters. Perhaps this is Moffat once more embodying the child audience and acknowledging its link with the companion. Alit is the first person Bill sees when she arrives on floor 507, and the first person to make an empathic connection with her when she wakes up from the ‘sleep’ induced by the Doctor. Alit perhaps embodies the audience’s hopes that Bill can be restored to humanity, as well as the wish of her community and the Doctor for a non-cybernetic future. In reminding long-term viewers of lost friends, and present lookers-in on the current predicament, Alit helps to highlight the optimism underlying what could otherwise be read for much of its length as an overwhelmingly pessimistic episode. The Doctor Falls follows the non-linear structure of World Enough and Time in its first act, containing flashbacks within flashbacks. However, opening the main narrative with a scene where the Doctor is undergoing torture and ritual humiliation is a good choice. There’s something Christ-like about suffering enabling the Doctor to restate his values, though I’d be cautious about following this parallel too far. The scene and the Doctor’s speeches also help divorce the episode from the detail of the setting: there will, the Doctor says, always be Cybermen, wherever there are human beings. The origin of the Cybermen is a tale Doctor Who has told elsewhere in other media, and it’s a legend which this episode supposes will be told again and again in different ways. Hence the nod to Doctor Who Magazine's The World Shapers with the mention of Marinus, and why it is perfectly acceptable in this context for the Cybermen to blast death rays from their headlamps in a way which they never managed before on television, but did on the back cover of the first paperback edition of Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet. Cybermen created by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis; but with embellishments by Chris Achilleos, Grant Morrison and many others. Moffat, like Russell T Davies, has never been reluctant to draw from non-television Doctor Who where it helps develop a concept. Likewise his attitude to the programme’s lore: the importance is not in the detail of where the Cybermen come from, but that the Cybermen’s conviction that turning people into Cybermen is a dead end for all the natural and moral sciences. As someone once said, they must be fought. Bill is herself a battlefield. The Master likes to remind everybody (but particularly the Doctor) that she is a Cyberman, the result of a conversion process which stripped away anything deemed useless to Operation Exodus. From his point of view, Bill is dead. The programme shows the Master to be wrong, or at least that it disagrees with his view of the individual as nothing more than an organism. As long as Bill recognizes and believes in herself, she exists, even if the programming of a Cyberman rages like a hurricane in her head. The continuing presence of Pearl Mackie in the credits and her voiceover in the trailer tantalized exactly what role she would play, and doubtless many hoped or expected a speedy and conventional resolution. The Master’s brutal taunting is a reminder that we can obtain neither. The device of allowing the viewer to see, most of the time, Bill as she understands herself, not only avoids practical problems surrounding the uniformity and inflexibility of the Cyberman costumes, but allows Pearl Mackie’s talents to be displayed in a way they haven’t been so far. Mackie's physical awareness makes her fill the space of a Cyberman while remaining visibly Bill to us. We often see Bill as a Cyberman only when she is reminded that a Cyberman is what others see – such as when she walks in on Hazran and Nardole unannounced and Hazran blasts away with her shotgun. It’s a jarring, heartbreaking moment. Also breaking hearts is Missy. Those hoping for an hour of multi-Master malevolence will be disappointed, but I think this episode does better with the scenario it presents than it would with the one some seem to have hoped for. Michelle Gomez plays Missy in the manner of an addict who keeps slipping from the wagon, deliberating giddily between new and old hits and guessing at some kind of peace beyond the spectre of withdrawal. It’s an irony that the Doctor never knows for certain that Missy was luring her former self into a trap which would have made her feel free to help the Doctor. In the meantime Missy and the Master flirt like bad fairy nobles making sport in the woods. Shakespeare scholars will know better, but their bickering seemed to me a sort of self-obsessed fusion of elements of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. Gomez and John Simm are very good at this, especially as there’s a genuinely disturbing undercurrent to their bantering. Simm in particular, with his beard, is a poisoned Pan, a violator whose lust for his next self reminds one of the brutality with which the Master treated his wife Lucy. Despite his very real and effective threat (and history) of violence, John Simm’s Master is a hollow malevolence, harmful, damaging, self-consumed, but overall an evil with no point to it. I’ve been looking at academic Doctor Who books for another project, and remembered that in an interview with the writers of Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, Douglas Adams complained that the Master’s plans had no meaning. The Doctor theorizes the path of the Master’s career on the ship in a way which assumes the emptiness and self-defeat in the pursuit and exercise of absolute power for its own sake. In return, later, the Master critiques the Doctor’s course of action on his way to floor 1056, arguing that if the Doctor hadn’t given his lecture on time dilation he would have arrived early enough to save Bill. This line of reasoning is possibly flawed in story terms, but anticipates (or echoes, depending on where one stands) the criticisms made by several reviewers of World Enough and Time. It’s an old fan observation that the Master often seems like a character who realizes that he is in a television series and behaves accordingly, but here his criticisms flag up his own powerlessness; he’s not willing to act in a way that helps anybody or contributes to the main narrative, so stands on the sidelines and plays critic until he can escape. It's tempting to think of this aspect of him as a departing showrunner who knows his successor is already in the office. The Doctor Falls is a good episode for Nardole, a character whom we never really got to know and who has probably suffered from never having been the focus of an episode. A friend explained him to her enquiring mother as the Doctor’s butler, and perhaps that’s why he remained semi-visible, his full properties a secret. Here, though, Hazran makes her discovery of him one of her missions and Matt Lucas’s depiction of Nardole’s awkwardness must resound with everybody who has felt unworthy of another person’s esteem. It’s natural and credible and also very much part of Moffat’s observational writing of male self-effacement and overconfidence as a mask for doubt. How one greets it will depend on one’s patience with Moffat’s themes, but for me, here, it works unobtrusively, the Doctor and Nardole competing over their relative usefulness, or lack of it. Nardole’s departure doesn’t give him a chance to say a long goodbye; he leaves as part of an operation in much the way he might have done if he’d expected to see the Doctor again, but as he never had a conventional introduction this is appropriate. As a title, The Doctor Falls intrigued me more after World Enough and Time because in one sense the Doctor had already fallen; he’d hubristically reduced his way of living to a formula by which he thought he could test Missy, and where stock phrases had replaced psychological insight. Instead we have a heroic fall which (like much else, as Matt Hills noted last week) calls back to the series trailer. The Doctor says he is a man of peace, but walks in war, and here he accepts the fate of the warrior, picking off more Cybermen than logic would perhaps expect with his absurdly versatile screwdriver until a Cyberman blasts him down through the chest, a wound which is one of at least two ways in which Bill’s fate has anticipated his own. The devastated landscape which the Doctor’s bomb leaves behind is as much a design achievement as anything Michael Pickwoad has hitherto accomplished – a landscape we’ve got to know has become a devastation of a kind previously associated in his time on the series with Skaro or Trenzalore, and this time the Doctor is the immediate cause. Redemption and the chance of new beginnings come in part because the Doctor was wrong. There was hope and there was a witness, perhaps even a reward. I’m sure that in earlier seasons we’d have had glimpses of Heather now and then, as the series piled arc upon arc. None of Steven Moffat’s companions have been allowed to return to anything approximating their old lives; travelling with the Doctor means incorporation into the mythic substrata of the universe, and so it proves with Bill, reunited with a Heather whose personality has now re-emerged and seems dominant in the watery spaceship. It's good to see Stephanie Hyam once more; there's still a note of wondering in her performance but the dislocation has become the confidence of the explorer. As all the interaction between Bill and Heather is seen from Bill’s narrative point of view once Bill has been remade as a Heather-like creature, perhaps what we see is all a translation convention. Whatever, the choice to become human again is open; it’s intriguing that the door is not closed entirely on Pearl Mackie’s return. However, if this is a farewell, it’s a good one. There's irony in the Doctor’s regeneration being sparked by a tear (a rearranging of the meaning of grief expressed for the third Doctor in The Monster of Peladon and Planet of the Spiders, of course) from a protected friend who has now turned twice into a creature he has previously fought against. It recalls Russell T Davies’s theme of the Doctor as agent of liberation rather than reinforcer of parental authority. However, this year the Doctor has forgotten that lesson and become guardian and tutor to both Bill and Missy, with Nardole as an unteachable voice by the wings. The Doctor's efforts to protect people have not succeeded in the way he sought. As the first Doctor realized at the conclusion of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, beneficial change can come from taking the risk of being brave enough to let go. That was the real lesson of Susan's portrait seen on the Doctor's desk in The Pilot, and he had forgotten. The problem, of course, is that the Doctor doesn’t want to let go. Bill, as a Cyberman, wanted to die if she couldn’t be herself any more. The Doctor wants to die too. Peter Capaldi’s performance of a fragmented Doctor, repeating the words of his earlier selves while holding on to his current physical form, was dizzying, helped by a camera which located him at once from several angles and levels in the TARDIS interior. Perhaps this Doctor’s changes of persona across series reflect an ongoing uncertainty about who he is which stretches beyond the ‘Am I a good man?’ interrogations of series eight. Back in 2010 Frank Collins wrote (in a review of The End of Time) of the tenth Doctor’s life as a Bildungsroman; the Doctor’s reward for personal development and the achievement of self-knowledge, was however to be returned to adolescence to begin the process again. Perhaps this older Doctor is about to change without having reached the point his two immediate predecessors did, and worse, can’t see any prospect of doing so. What, then, can be made of the first Doctor’s emergence from what presumed convergence of narrative (over fifty-one years) leads us to believe is an Antarctic blizzard? I’d thought earlier this series that Steven Moffat’s valedictory notes weren’t only for the period he’s been showrunner, but for the entire period he’s been involved, from the time Doctor Who returned in 2005. The Logopolis homage of companions suggests this too in content, as well as calling further back in form. If nothing else, the montage will open up arguments about who counts as a companion again, which will keep a lot of people happy and angry at the same time. The first Doctor said, if only in the script of The Tenth Planet, that he would not go through with the change to his next self, and the meeting of the two Doctors benefits from that level of fan knowledge while I hope still working as a confounding moment – a ‘suspended enigma’, it was once called – for those who don’t know. In the brief time we see him, David Bradley gives a performance which is very much the first Doctor as opposed to his William Hartnell or his Hartnell as the first Doctor from An Adventure in Space and Time, which augurs well. I’m always conscious that I tend to emphasize what works for me in these reviews, and they are often moments which leap out rather than broader themes or more thorough analysis. This article is based on one viewing of the episode and I’m still not sure why I found it so positive an experience. Throughout I imagined that the director, rather than the Doctor, must have the hidden arms of a Venusian Aikido practitioner; Rachel Talalay conducting with at least three batons like a hexapod, but with many more eyes than Alpha Centauri. The open vistas of floor 507 come to mind; the fatally wounded Doctor’s monologue about stars, too, was uplifting despite its note of disappointment, perhaps because it acknowledged that the Doctor’s belief and perhaps hope that this was the end for him was false. Heather’s return was a reminder that hope, even if apparently lost, can never be written off. Yet throughout there are sacrifices unappreciated and only postponed, with the sense that the inevitable is only being delayed. Perhaps the episode can be read as a musing on mortality, especially given that Cybermen, Time Lords, unconverted humans and indeed puddle-spaceship-creatures are all seeking to delay the inevitable, unless they are the Master, which is in a sense to be nothing at all because he can’t adequately empathize with others’ conditions. If so, it’s also the second part of three. The twelfth Doctor’s finale is begun, but it is not over, and we have to wait almost six months to conclude our verdicts on the whole. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/07/the_doctor_falls.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

#Series 10 #Series 10/36 #Peter Capaldi #Steven Moffat #The Doctor Falls

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eddycurrents · 5 years

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For the week of 23 September 2019

Quick Bits:

Action Comics #1015 introduces Naomi to the broader DC Universe as she reaches out to Superman to help understand her powers, from Brian Michael Bendis, Szymon Kudranski, Brad Anderson, and Dave Sharpe. It’s pretty great. There’s a nice amount of humour and optimism here as she stumbles her way through.

| Published by DC Comics

Amazing Spider-Man #30 is a tie-in to Absolute Carnage as Peter tries to keep Normie and Dylan safe from Norman, but also gives us more insight into Kindred. It definitely feels like they’re setting him up to be either Flash or Harry, but that could just be misdirection. Great art from Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn, and Nathan Fairbairn.

| Published by Marvel

Angel #5 is the other prelude to the Hellmouth event and is much more prelude-y than the integral Buffy the Vampire Slayer #8. This is more the continuation of Angel’s gathering the team story, introducing us to this interpretation of Gunn and his history. Gleb Melnikov and Roman Titov do some killer work here.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Bad Reception #2 is even better than the first issue as we get a better look at the characters and the mystery of the murders at the wedding kicks off in earnest. Juan Doe is really doing a great job of building tension here, with scheming and planning going on, making you question who could possibly be the perpetrator here.

| Published by AfterShock

Batgirl #39 complicates things further as Oracle seeks out a way to bring Batgirl down and pockets of violence among otherwise peaceful citizens begins to erupt after Luthor’s offer. Cecil Castellucci, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Jordie Bellaire, and AndWorld Design are delivering a very nice multi-layered story here.

| Published by DC Comics

Batman/Superman #2 gives a fairly epic confrontation with an infected SHAZAM as Batman and Superman learn more of The Batman Who Laughs’ plan. I do find it interesting that this isn’t being branded as a “Year of the Villain” tie-in, but it is largely integral to that, as well as continuing the thread from Metal. Gorgeous artwork from David Marquez and Alejandro Sanchez, really leaning in to the epic scope of a Superman vs. SHAZAM battle.

| Published by DC Comics

Bettie Page Unbound #4 concludes Bettie’s multiversal adventure with a trip to Neverland. David Avallone, Julius Ohta, Ellie Wright, Sheelagh D, and Taylor Esposito have delivered an interesting trip through Dynamite’s various properties, so it’s kind of weird to end on Peter Pan, but it’s still good.

| Published by Dynamite

Black Panther #16 sees Daniel Acuña outdo himself with the artwork. This issue is beautiful as T’Challa resumes the reins of governing Wakanda and we get a showcase of Storm vs. some remnants of the Emperor’s regime.

| Published by Marvel

Black Science #43 is the end. In many ways, these two parallel worlds of a rebellious Grant and a submissive Grant live up to the spirit of the entire series in microcosm, showing us what happens through both inaction and action, and how many terrible choices Grant ultimately makes regardless of where he ends up. Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera, Moreno Dinisio, and Rus Wooton have given us an incredible story here.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Bloodshot #1 is an action-packed debut from Tim Seeley, Brett Booth, Adelso Corona, Andrew Dalhouse, and Dave Sharpe. It’s basically Bloodshot against a paramilitary group, with some seeds of that same paramilitary group meeting with the G7 leaders to sanction hunting and killing Bloodshot.

| Published by Valiant

Bronze Age Boogie #6 concludes this series from Stuart Moore, Alberto Ponticelli, Giulia Brusco, and Rob Steen. It’s been fun, reminiscent of some of the weirdness of Doom Patrol, but definitely not a knock-off. Very happy to find out there’s another special coming.

| Published by Ahoy

Criminal #8 turns the spotlight on Jane for part four of “Cruel Summer” from Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillips. It’s interesting as to how more complex and complicated this arc keeps getting as more layers are revealed through each character, including the set up here for what possibly is going to bring all the plans down.

| Published by Image

Deadly Class #40 kicks off “Bone Machine” as Saya and Maria get a reunion and Helmut tries to get revenge for Petra. In the latter, we find out that Petra’s people are pretty much nuts. Great art from Wes Craig and Jordan Boyd.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Detective Comics #1012 goes full bore on Freeze’s mad science experiments for reanimating dead tissue, as he has his teams kidnap women with similar characteristics as his wife. Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, David Baron, and Rob Leigh are certainly making this feel unnerving.

| Published by DC Comics

Doctor Mirage #2 is more wondrous storytelling from Magdalene Visaggio, Nick Robles, Jordie Bellaire, and Dave Sharpe. The art is phenomenal, bringing together some weird surrealism and detailed ancient spaces, and its interesting to see the selfishness driving Shan.

| Published by Valiant

Ether: The Disappearance of Violet Bell #1 begins the third volume in this series from Matt Kindt, David Rubín, and Kike J. Diaz. It’s pretty bleak. Despite being brought to life through the gorgeous artwork of Rubín and Diaz, everything has more or less gone to crap in Boone’s life. His friends and family are either dead or hate him and now Ether itself is being corrupted. Add to that a mystery, and you’ve got a compelling start here.

| Published by Dark Horse

Harleen #1 is really damn good. I’m not one to like romanticizing the relationship between Harley Quinn and the Joker, but damn if Stjepan Šejić and Gabriela Downie don’t manage to make this a beautiful and compelling story of an intelligent woman’s descent into madness.

| Published by DC Comics / Black Label

Justice League Dark #15 continues to be one of the best things currently being published by DC, going deep into the dark side’s history and continuity and coming back up with some fascinating character developments and changes into something new. James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martínez Bueno, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson, and Rob Leigh are working magic here. It should also be interesting to see what kind of nightmare Man-Bat has turned himself into now.

| Published by DC Comics

Mall #2 deepens the mystery of why and how Andre was framed, while gang warfare threatens to fully erupt. I really quite like the world-building that Michael Moreci, Gary Dauberman, Zak Hartong, Addison Duke, and Jim Campbell are doing here and love the artwork.

| Published by Vault

Manor Black #3 gives us most of the answers as to what’s going on in this penultimate chapter from Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt, and Tyler Crook. The designs for the wild magicians are really neat.

| Published by Dark Horse

The Plot #1 is a great start to this old-school horror from Tim Daniel, Michael Moreci, Joshua Hixson, Jordan Boyd, and Jim Campbell. There’s a mix of family secrets, dark horror in the past, and monsters ready to bury them all. The art from Hixson and Boyd is incredible.

| Published by Vault

Relics of Youth #1 is an intriguing start from Matt Nicholas, Chad Rebmann, Skylar Patridge, Vladimir Popov, and AndWorld Design. This first issue sets up an interesting mystery of six kids with matching tattoos, each having weird visions of an island. As they set out to try to find whatever it is, they find that there’s so much more going on.

| Published by Vault

Resonant #3 sees everything get worse. As their dad is still away, captured for use in what looks like a labour gang, Bec and Ty see their relationship crumble, torn apart over waiting for him and not knowing what to do. David Andry, Alejandro Aragon, Jason Wordie, and Deron Bennett continue to make this one of the most unique post-apocalypse tales out there, with a very interesting focus on the characters.

| Published by Vault

SFSX #1 is another refugee from Vertigo being shuttered, presenting a world where a puritanical Party has taken control and is enacting strict “purity” laws in regards to sex and conduct. Tina Horn, Michael Dowling, and Steve Wands create a fairly interesting world here, with some hints that everything might not be what it seems with the Party.

| Published by Image

Strikeforce #1 is an interesting debut from Tini Howard, Germán Peralta, Jordie Bellaire, and Joe Sabino. It’s a very weird team, brought together through being framed by a race of shapeshifters left after the War of the Realms.

| Published by Marvel

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #98 steps closer to the end of “City at War” as the turtles regroup and everything changes with Stockman winning the election. It’s amazing as to how quickly things have changes this arc, it makes you wonder how much is going to stick around as a new status quo after #100.

| Published by IDW

Thanos #6 concludes the series from Tini Howard, Ariel Olivetti, Antonio Fabela, and Joe Caramagna. It’s interesting how this ties into the broader arc of what’s also going on in the current Guardians of the Galaxy series, with Gamora and Magus.

| Published by Marvel

Tommy Gun Wizards #2 continues this excellent series from Christian Ward, Sami Kavelä, Dee Cunniffe, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. The blend of magic with Prohibition era crime is a wonderful mix.

| Published by Dark Horse

The White Trees #2 concludes this wonderful mini from Chip Zdarsky, Kris Anka, Matt Wilson, and Aditya Bidikar. The feeling of old friends turned to resentment continues here in very interesting ways and we get a twist in the tale that really changes things.

| Published by Image

Wonder Woman #79 continues “Loveless” as the world continues to fall apart after the death of Aphrodite and Luthor’s doom spreads. Really nice to see art here from Scot Eaton.

| Published by DC Comics

Other Highlights: Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #2, Avengers #24, Avengers: Loki Unleashed #1, Batman: Nightwalker, Books of Magic #12, Captain America #14, The Crow / Hack/Slash #3, Dial H for HERO #7, Evolution #18, Faithless #6, Fearless #3, Fight Club 3 #9, The Flash #79, Freedom Fighters #9, From Hell: Master Edition #7, Ghost Spider #2, Immortal Hulk: Director’s Cut #4, Invader Zim #47, Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance #1, Jughead’s Time Police #4, Knights Temporal #3, Lumberjanes #66, Marvel Comics Presents #9, Marvel Team-Up #6, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #43, New Mutants: War Children #1, Powers of X #5, Punisher Kill Krew #3, Queen of Bad Dreams #4, Ragnarok: The Breaking of Helheim #2, Rick & Morty #54. The Ride: Burning Desire #4, RWBY #3, Secret Spiral of Swamp Kid, Sera & The Royal Stars #3, Star Trek: Discovery - Aftermath #2, Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Kylo Ren #1, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order - Dark Temple #2, Star Wars: Target Vader #3, Star Wars Adventures #26, Superior Spider-Man #11, Warlord of Mars Attacks #4, Wolverine Annual #1

Recommended Collections: Angel - Volume 1, Captain America - Volume 2: Captain of Nothing, Cyber Force: Awakening - Volume 4, Deathstroke: Arkham, Ghostbusters: 35th Anniversary Collection, The Goon - Volume 1: Ragged Return to Lonely Street, Kaijumax - Volume 4: Season Four - Scaly is the New Black, Mae - Volume 2, Monstress - Volume 4, Paper Girls - Volume 6, Secret Warps, TMNT - Volume 22: City at War Pt. 1

d. emerson eddy feels like a nap.

#This Week in Comics

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hellofastestnewsfan · 6 years

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This movie was not supposed to be good. Here’s the plot: A middle-aged cardiovascular surgeon’s wife is killed by a one-armed man, and said surgeon is sent to death row. But his bus crashes on the way to prison, then a train crashes into the bus crash, then Dr. Richard Kimble escapes to go on the run with five U.S. marshals on his heels. This is literally the opening 20 minutes of The Fugitive.

Not even the actors themselves were convinced The Fugitive was going to be good. Harrison Ford thought it would be his Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis’s $51 million flop from 1991. Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the lead marshal, thought The Fugitive marked the end of his career. But then this action thriller, the one that was written off as quickly by its stars as its hero is by the law, became the third-highest-grossing film of 1993. And then it was nominated for seven (seven!) Oscars—including Best Picture. And then it actually won one of those Oscars (well, Jones did). Perhaps even more surprising is that this piece of $70 million popcorn amusement from the ’90s is still a cultural touchstone 25 years later, largely because action movies like it are so rare now.

A year before The Fugitive arrived, its director, Andrew Davis, didn’t think much of the genre. “The basic underpinnings don’t have any soul or value,” he told The New York Times. “They’re totally incredible so you don’t believe them. They’re dumb stories.” He himself had worked with Steven Seagal twice and Chuck Norris once, two icons of black-belted brawn that sparred with Hollywood for a spell, until they were knocked out by the metastasizing blockbuster industry. As Ty Burr wrote in his 2013 book on fame, Gods Like Us, “To protect that opening weekend and the larger investment, the [movie] business needed stars to be inclusive rather than divisive.” This, he notes, was “one reason why there was a gradual move away from the bulging ’80s cartoons like Stallone and Schwarzenegger toward more believable Everyman action heroes like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard films.” And, though Burr does not name him as an example, like Ford in The Fugitive.

The writer points to Ford as the first modern-star brand: “the action figure with attitude.” Whether as the rumpled and roguish Han Solo or the hunky scholar Indiana Jones, Ford had imbued the genre with sardonic sexiness. And by the early ’90s, he had appeared in no fewer than two thrillers—Presumed Innocent (1990) and Frantic (1988, as another Dr. Richard)—about men mixed up in crimes they were racing to solve. It was this man who eventually handpicked Davis to adapt the ’60s TV series The Fugitive after seeing his work in Under Siege, a film that prompted the Times to identify Davis as the “Director Who Blends Action With a Bit of Art.”

“Does this guy ever quit?” one of the marshals asks toward the end of The Fugitive, and the answer is no—both for Dr. Richard Kimble and for Davis. For two hours and 10 minutes, this film does not relent. Not even for a cup of coffee (that scene was cut), not even for some shopping (cut), not even for romance (also cut). There is no hanging out here. Everything rushes. If it isn’t the actors, then it’s the camera with a Where’s Waldo? view of Chicago, the hometown of both Kimble and Davis; if it isn’t the camera, then it’s the swelling orchestral music. And the urgency is a good thing because every pause introduces a new threat—a passing cop, a skeptical doctor, a nosy guard. Even the exposition speeds by. The instigating murder itself, presented in slo-mo monochrome over the opening credits, unravels in concert with Kimble’s interrogation and his conviction, a simultaneous chronology that compresses time. As Matt Zoller Seitz wrote of The Fugitive on rogerebert.com last year, “The multilayered, at times prismatic way that it delivers information feels like an evolutionary leap forward for thrillers.”

The Fugitive’s success relies as much on plausibility as it does on velocity. Despite the soaring set pieces, the film somehow manages to remain grounded in a kind of palpable reality. “It is just so nice to watch a movie about normal smart people instead of insane super geniuses,” The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg tweeted in 2016. And though the characters’ antics could scarcely qualify as “normal,” significant portions of the film’s budget were spent on bypassing CGI in favor of creating real sets—like for the train crash ($1.5 million) and the dam jump ($2 million). Ford also insisted on performing his own stunts despite having a double and being 51. That is him flying through the air as if to jump from a train (on ropes, but still), that is him standing on the edge of North Carolina’s Cheoah Dam (a rope attached to his leg, but still), that is him limping through much of the film because he tore a ligament and refused to treat it. And that is him acting the hell out of everything in between.

“It’s the moments between actions that I think are really important,” Ford says on The Fugitive’s 20th-anniversary disc. With so little dialogue, the actor essentially resorts to silent-film acting, which is only buoyed by his hangdog handsomeness. “Rare among action heroes, Ford is believable both in control and in trouble, someone audiences can simultaneously look up to and worry about,” Kenneth Turan wrote in his 1993 Los Angeles Times review. Watch as Kimble, about a quarter of the way into the movie, painfully deliberates on the lip of that dam as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Jones) points his gun at him, waiting for Kimble to surrender because, Gerard posits, there’s no way this guy would do “a Peter Pan.” Right before that, their positions are reversed when Kimble grabs Gerard’s gun in the confusion of the dam’s water-logged tunnels. Face to face with the marshal for the first time, the doctor points the pistol at his pursuer and proclaims, “I did not kill my wife!” Gerard, his hands up, half-kneeling in water, a look of bafflement on his face, responds: “I don’t care!” To this, Kimble issues a faint smile: Game on.

While Kimble speaks through his actions, the man chasing him has all the best lines. Gerard was supposed to be a solo Javert-esque force, but Davis gave him an entourage to accentuate his leadership, and the result is some of the best banter in any contemporary action film. Jones, a Texan who graduated from Harvard with an English degree, had worked twice before with Davis, who knew Jones did a lot of rewriting and improvising. The cast—which was ethnically diverse because the director wanted to reflect the demographics of his birthplace—established their characters alongside Jones, coming up with dialogue on the fly. The four marshals include Jones’s right-hand man Cosmo, played by Joe Pantoliano, whom Davis told he cast because he needed “somebody who’s gonna have the stones to banter with Tommy Lee Jones.” Cosmo and the others highlight Gerard’s humanity and tenacity while also gift wrapping the film’s exposition in wit. One of the movie’s more frequently quoted lines, which Jones conjured the morning of the shoot, has him telling a marshal who claims he is “thinking”: “Well, think me up a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut with some of those little sprinkles on top, while you’re thinking.”

Gerard and Kimble’s symmetrical relationship is enunciated by the film’s six editors (all of whom were nominated for Oscars). Each chase scene cuts back and forth between the two characters. Even when the pursuit lets up and Kimble is contacting old friends and crisscrossing Chicago to find out why his wife was killed, Gerard’s investigation parallels his. As the film progresses, Gerard’s affinity for Kimble grows, too. “What makes their relationship fresh is that it is constantly evolving,” Gene Siskel observed in his Chicago Tribune review. Twenty minutes before the end of the movie, a neat flip occurs in which Kimble goes from being followed to being the leader. He directs Gerard to one of the men responsible for his wife’s death—Dr. Charles Nichols, Kimble’s colleague who actually wanted him dead in order to cover up a failed drug trial. Another flip takes place in the climactic showdown where Kimble confronts Nichols: Kimble saves Gerard’s life, despite believing that Gerard is intent on taking his. In the end, the marshal escorts Kimble out of the building as his protector.

Though The Fugitive established Chicago as the place to shoot, it’s perhaps more notable for being the best of a genre that no longer really exists: the character-driven Hollywood action movie for adults. As Davis told Mandatory in 2013, the industry has gotten to a point such that if a film “doesn’t have tons of eye candy where a 22-year-old in some other country can just enjoy watching it, then [it] hardly get[s] made.” This is the world of tentpoles and franchises and event cinema, a world in which everything must bow to the demands of accessibility.

While “old-man action” movies like Taken and The Equalizer could be considered descendants of The Fugitive, they lack its character development. Those thrillers that are character driven—say, No Country for Old Men or Hell or High Water—are less popcorn, more art. The Fugitive acts as a placeholder for a time when adults could be entertained by action heroes without being condescended to (see Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, The Firm, Patriot Games), which is why many viewers who saw the movie as kids in the ’90s, and who are adults now, wield it as a nostalgic marker of taste.

In 2015, the same year a Fugitive sequel was announced, the comedian John Mulaney released a special called The Comeback Kid in which he digressed mid-joke into an explanation of the original film’s plot. “Why does Kimble confront Nichols?” he asks. “Well, I know we all know this, but … ” And then he goes on to rehash it anyway because The Fugitive is the kind of movie that can be rehashed voraciously over and over and over again. Siskel watched it twice before reviewing it in 1993 and already wanted to see it again; Seitz saw it 10 times in the theater upon its release; and I have replayed it upwards of 30 times over the years. What I once believed to be a guilt-ridden affinity for a mindless puff of Hollywood excess, I now understand as an appreciation for a kind of modern-day moveable feast. As Gerard’s relationship with Kimble transformed, so too has mine. I thought I didn’t care, but I do.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2LZYMVJ

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