Well...that was something.
Whatever you thought of the episode, I doubt anyone can deny that Listen was kinda big. There's a lot to talk about and a lot to get into. So...well, let's just talk about it!
Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Samuel Anderson are the definition of perfection, everything about each of their performances is stunning. The episode is one of the best directed I've ever seen, with a total emphasis on less is more which makes it genuinely scary. The scene with the bed sheets was terrifying, even my mum (a fan of horror) admitted she was scared. But it's not just the image of a thing in your bed that's scary, it's much more than that. It's the sort of thing that keeps you up at night - what if the house settling is something else? What if there's no such thing as talking to yourself? What if you're never alone?
But there's more to it. This isn't just a scary story about a monster under the bed. This is the deepest character study of the Doctor I think we've ever seen. The episode is fueled by him - his fear, what he's scared of. He's scared of not knowing, and this fear fuels his curiosity. He just has to know. And he gets obsessed with this idea - there MUST be something out there! Surely the noises of the hull settling and bad dreams and talking to yourself must mean something?
But what if they don't?
This episode is the perfect kind of open-ended. There can be as much of a monster as you want there to be. The Doctor can be as paranoid as you want him to be. What did he see when he opened the airlock? Did he see a creature, a dark and scary image, or did he see nothing? Because for him, both would be equally terrifying. What about under the sheet? Was it just a kid playing a prank, or was it actually a deadly creature?
The script is so well written and tightly crafted that even though it leaves room for these open-ended questions, everything still makes perfect sense. If you didn't understand something you probably just missed it, because there was an explination. Every plot-hole or error I've seen has been explained with a simple rewind, if not later on in the episode. From a script level - for the first time in a while - this is flawless.
But I cant avoid talking about the ending. How could I? It's divided the fandom completely, some love it, others don't. Me? Well, I've always thought that the less we see of the Doctors childhood the better. However, I have nothing wrong with getting a little glimpse for the purpose of the story AND in order to explain a motive and explore a deep emotion of the character. And that's exactly what this scene does.
I bet the nightmare of a hand grabbing you from under the bed wasn't even that common. I bet the Doctor just made the evidence fit because he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that his own childhood nightmare was real. It's probably been so long for him that he doesn't even remember if it was a dream.
Some people are complaining that Clara is too important in the Doctor's life. I disagree. It's Moffat's show, he can make his characters as important as he wants them to be. It's not up to us. And the basic fact is that when Clara said that fear is a constant companion to us all - I nearly cried. I did. My eyes were welling up. People complain that actual characters and emotions are being replaced by timey-wimey plots - I couldn't disagree more.
Some people are complaining that Moffat is reusing ideas and it's getting boring. But I don't care. Because Listen is amazing storytelling. It's emotional, in-depth, and it does exactly what sci-fi should. It uses time-travel, the end of the universe, and monsters under the bed to explore the deepest of emotions and delve deeper into the minds of these characters than ever before. It's a masterpiece of TV that will go down as one of my favourite episodes to date.
Moffat is back, babby. And I like it!
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Monday, 11 August 2014
The Murray Gold Problem
I predict that I will anger a lot of people with this post. I'd be surprised if I didn't! I just ask that you hear me out and at least try to understand where I'm coming from.
I don't like Murray Gold's music anymore.
(Murray Gold, as in, the composer of the music in Doctor Who, in case you didn't know.)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy listening to it. The series 6 soundtrack is one of my favourite soundtracks from a show/film/whatever. But it's getting old, and annoying, and it's taking away from some genuinely well written and scary stuff.
My example shall be Day of the Moon, an episode of Doctor Who, as that's what really opened my eyes to this problem. I was watching the episode, then paused it and put the laptop on mute while I went to do something else. When I came back to the laptop, I pressed play on the video without turning it off mute, so I watched a few seconds without any sound.
I suppose it's worth saying where in the episode I was. It's near the end, when the Doctor, River and Rory have arrived in the Silent's base (the one that looks like a TARDIS), with the Doctor carrying a TV ready to do the whole 'You should kill us all on sight!' thing.
Now, bear in mind that I love this scene. It's one of Matt Smith's best moments, and is a proper genius way of resolving a problem by using the monsters own ability against them. But watching the start of it without 'I AM THE DOCTOR' glaring in the background...well, it was very atmospheric. The direction is wonderful. The set is beautiful. The acting is great from both Rory and River, neither of which know if they'll be making it out alive. It actually has tension!
I love Matt Smith's era, but part of being a fan is being able to admit when something has a problem, and Matt Smith's era had a massive problem - there was never any tension! At all! I never felt like any of our main characters were in any real danger, and I think the music was a part of that. 'I am the Doctor' is a great piece of music, but whenever you hear it you know that the Doctor will win and nothing bad will happen. Same with any other triumphant music.
I just think this scene in Day of the Moon would've been so much more tense, and so much more rewarding as a result, if the music would've been quieter and more atmospheric. Or, even better, if it hadn't been there at all! What about having no music, and letting a scene speak for itself?
Murray Gold has a habit of drowning Doctor Who episodes in bombastic music. And he needs to learn some restraint. Believe me, when it needs to get bombastic he's the man for the job! He's written some of the best music I've ever heard on television. But just...please, learn to let the scene speak for itself.
I don't like Murray Gold's music anymore.
(Murray Gold, as in, the composer of the music in Doctor Who, in case you didn't know.)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy listening to it. The series 6 soundtrack is one of my favourite soundtracks from a show/film/whatever. But it's getting old, and annoying, and it's taking away from some genuinely well written and scary stuff.
My example shall be Day of the Moon, an episode of Doctor Who, as that's what really opened my eyes to this problem. I was watching the episode, then paused it and put the laptop on mute while I went to do something else. When I came back to the laptop, I pressed play on the video without turning it off mute, so I watched a few seconds without any sound.
I suppose it's worth saying where in the episode I was. It's near the end, when the Doctor, River and Rory have arrived in the Silent's base (the one that looks like a TARDIS), with the Doctor carrying a TV ready to do the whole 'You should kill us all on sight!' thing.
Now, bear in mind that I love this scene. It's one of Matt Smith's best moments, and is a proper genius way of resolving a problem by using the monsters own ability against them. But watching the start of it without 'I AM THE DOCTOR' glaring in the background...well, it was very atmospheric. The direction is wonderful. The set is beautiful. The acting is great from both Rory and River, neither of which know if they'll be making it out alive. It actually has tension!
I love Matt Smith's era, but part of being a fan is being able to admit when something has a problem, and Matt Smith's era had a massive problem - there was never any tension! At all! I never felt like any of our main characters were in any real danger, and I think the music was a part of that. 'I am the Doctor' is a great piece of music, but whenever you hear it you know that the Doctor will win and nothing bad will happen. Same with any other triumphant music.
I just think this scene in Day of the Moon would've been so much more tense, and so much more rewarding as a result, if the music would've been quieter and more atmospheric. Or, even better, if it hadn't been there at all! What about having no music, and letting a scene speak for itself?
Murray Gold has a habit of drowning Doctor Who episodes in bombastic music. And he needs to learn some restraint. Believe me, when it needs to get bombastic he's the man for the job! He's written some of the best music I've ever heard on television. But just...please, learn to let the scene speak for itself.
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
Ideas
Ideas are funny things. They strike at the worst of times, while you're in the shower or lying in bed, when writing them down is either impossible or frustratingly inconvenient. They vanish without warning, often never to be seen again. Even if you do manage to write them down, when you come to revisit them the next day (or next month, as I usually find), they often turn out to be a lot less awesome as when you first imagined them. Either that, or your rushed method of note taking was so terrible that you cant even remember what the idea was. A 'spark' word really doesn't help after a year.
So why am I writing this? Well, mainly because it's literally the only thing I can think to write about. This whole 'blog' business doesn't really suit me. It's not quite my scene. But I need to keep going because I've already started and if I don't Gus or Francis will just about rip my head off. Also, I enjoy it. I do! When I have something good to write about, like the bloody annoying nature of ideas, it's a lot of fun. I just sort of write what I think, no planning or logic behind it. I just write. If you look back at the top of this paragraph you'll see that it's basically a completely different topic to what I'm writing about now, which is sort of how I do things. I only make a new paragraph when I have some sort of introductory sentence or silly question in my mind.
Like this, for example.
I actually cant remember what I was writing about. It's 03:16 in the morning right now, I really should be going to bed.
Oh yes, the blog! Ideas! Stuff like that!
No, the reason I don't think I'm really cut out to have a blog is because I never have any good ideas. And when I do have good ideas, I either forget them or leave them for a couple of days and find out they're not as good as I originally thought. I always just end up writing on a whim. Which is why none of my posts have any substance or real meat to them. If people are actually reading this (and I really do hope someone is!) then you'll be hard pressed to come up with anything constructive to say. Because I never talk about a topic that needs anything constructively said about it. It's always URL's or Leeks or some shit like that.
This feels like a goodbye post, and it's not! I am absolutely not saying goodbye. This blog will continue, just as it's been continuing for the past couple of months. I just have no ideas about what to write about. I get bored too easily. I tried writing a novel once and that was an absolute disaster. I got about two pages in and decided I couldn't be arsed, deleted the file, and never came back. I want to be a writer. Heck, I want to be a lot of things. But ideas aren't the only problem. Neither is motivation, or even writing talent. It's my attention span. That's the real enemy.
This blog post was titled 'Ideas', and I've said basically nothing about them. Hm. Oh well. Hows about you dear readers leave some of your failed ideas down in the comments below! Come on, don't be shy!
So why am I writing this? Well, mainly because it's literally the only thing I can think to write about. This whole 'blog' business doesn't really suit me. It's not quite my scene. But I need to keep going because I've already started and if I don't Gus or Francis will just about rip my head off. Also, I enjoy it. I do! When I have something good to write about, like the bloody annoying nature of ideas, it's a lot of fun. I just sort of write what I think, no planning or logic behind it. I just write. If you look back at the top of this paragraph you'll see that it's basically a completely different topic to what I'm writing about now, which is sort of how I do things. I only make a new paragraph when I have some sort of introductory sentence or silly question in my mind.
Like this, for example.
I actually cant remember what I was writing about. It's 03:16 in the morning right now, I really should be going to bed.
Oh yes, the blog! Ideas! Stuff like that!
No, the reason I don't think I'm really cut out to have a blog is because I never have any good ideas. And when I do have good ideas, I either forget them or leave them for a couple of days and find out they're not as good as I originally thought. I always just end up writing on a whim. Which is why none of my posts have any substance or real meat to them. If people are actually reading this (and I really do hope someone is!) then you'll be hard pressed to come up with anything constructive to say. Because I never talk about a topic that needs anything constructively said about it. It's always URL's or Leeks or some shit like that.
This feels like a goodbye post, and it's not! I am absolutely not saying goodbye. This blog will continue, just as it's been continuing for the past couple of months. I just have no ideas about what to write about. I get bored too easily. I tried writing a novel once and that was an absolute disaster. I got about two pages in and decided I couldn't be arsed, deleted the file, and never came back. I want to be a writer. Heck, I want to be a lot of things. But ideas aren't the only problem. Neither is motivation, or even writing talent. It's my attention span. That's the real enemy.
This blog post was titled 'Ideas', and I've said basically nothing about them. Hm. Oh well. Hows about you dear readers leave some of your failed ideas down in the comments below! Come on, don't be shy!
Sunday, 27 July 2014
Moffat or RTD? - The Arc of Story
So, I recently had a lovely conversation with some friends of mine about how we should kill ourselves and burn in hell for having different opinions.
...
Only joking. It was an RTD vs Moffat debate though, so anything's possible. We were discussing their treatment of story arcs and characters. I naturally found myself serving on the side of the Moff, so here's what I had to say on the issue.
Character vs Story
Yes, RTD's focus on the companions and their families definitely helped where the characters were concerned. However, his story arcs failed as a result. Moffat did the opposite. He had big, complicated story arcs, with lots of twists and turns and questions and shiz, but focused decidedly less on the companions family.
Now, with Amy Pond, he accomplished this brilliantly. He made the lack of her family part of the plot, with the crack in time having eaten them up. Her extended family were definitely there for her introductory episode (Jeff, her aunt, etc etc). Rory, her fiance, also became a regular companion.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Daniel, these characters only appeared once, then all vanished for the remainder of Amy Ponds era". Yes, you're right. But is that a bad thing?
You see, Doctor Who is a show that can go anywhere and do anything. It has truly infinite possibilities. As much as I love all the family stuff in RTD's era, he did visit present day earth a little too often. In a show with such a wide scope of ideas, I'd much rather visit strange alien worlds or different times, instead of the one particular year the show happens to be broadcast. That's what Moffat did.
Whatever you think of series 5, 6 or 7, you cant deny that they're easily more varied than anything in series 1, 2, 3 or 4. Series 6 and 7 especially are massive in the variety of locations they visit. I much prefer that to the frankly boring setting of contemporary earth, just so we can learn more about the companions family.
Story Arcs
We also talked about who had the better story arcs: RTD or Moffat? For me, the answer is beyond obvious. RTD didn't have story arcs at all. He had a single word or phrase that kept popping up in every other episode. Even series 1, arguably the most arc-heavy of RTD's era, was nothing in comparison to even series 5, never mind series 6.
Lets take series 6 for example. While it did rely on certain episodes as info dumps, we still got information in episodes that weren't just the finale, unlike in RTD's era, when we got the same word repeated until the finale when we found out what it meant.
So, series 6. In the first 10 minutes we get our big question, 'How did the Doctor survive?', along with answers to some running questions from series 5 (who are the Silence?). Then, although it takes 4 episodes, we start getting more answers. Why did Amy keep wearing the same clothes? Because she's a Ganger! Who is River Song? She's Amy's daughter!
Then, from this new info, we can start to speculate about other things. Who's inside the astronaut? Is it River? In that case, was the regenerating girl at the end of Day of the Moon River as well? Then when LKH rolls around, we get some more answers, as well as a bit more explanation about the silence, which also opens up more questions. Then at the end of the series we get our final answer to the big question (how did the Doctor survive?), as well as some new questions preparing for series 7.
No, it's not perfect. I would much prefer to have a steady stream of info as the series goes on, instead of specified info dumps. But in a show like Doctor Who, where every week is completely different, that's not so easy.
So to conclude, both RTD and Moffat are good. It all comes down to personal taste. RTD writes better characters, but Moffat writes a better story.
...
Only joking. It was an RTD vs Moffat debate though, so anything's possible. We were discussing their treatment of story arcs and characters. I naturally found myself serving on the side of the Moff, so here's what I had to say on the issue.
Character vs Story
Yes, RTD's focus on the companions and their families definitely helped where the characters were concerned. However, his story arcs failed as a result. Moffat did the opposite. He had big, complicated story arcs, with lots of twists and turns and questions and shiz, but focused decidedly less on the companions family.
Now, with Amy Pond, he accomplished this brilliantly. He made the lack of her family part of the plot, with the crack in time having eaten them up. Her extended family were definitely there for her introductory episode (Jeff, her aunt, etc etc). Rory, her fiance, also became a regular companion.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Daniel, these characters only appeared once, then all vanished for the remainder of Amy Ponds era". Yes, you're right. But is that a bad thing?
You see, Doctor Who is a show that can go anywhere and do anything. It has truly infinite possibilities. As much as I love all the family stuff in RTD's era, he did visit present day earth a little too often. In a show with such a wide scope of ideas, I'd much rather visit strange alien worlds or different times, instead of the one particular year the show happens to be broadcast. That's what Moffat did.
Whatever you think of series 5, 6 or 7, you cant deny that they're easily more varied than anything in series 1, 2, 3 or 4. Series 6 and 7 especially are massive in the variety of locations they visit. I much prefer that to the frankly boring setting of contemporary earth, just so we can learn more about the companions family.
Story Arcs
We also talked about who had the better story arcs: RTD or Moffat? For me, the answer is beyond obvious. RTD didn't have story arcs at all. He had a single word or phrase that kept popping up in every other episode. Even series 1, arguably the most arc-heavy of RTD's era, was nothing in comparison to even series 5, never mind series 6.
Lets take series 6 for example. While it did rely on certain episodes as info dumps, we still got information in episodes that weren't just the finale, unlike in RTD's era, when we got the same word repeated until the finale when we found out what it meant.
So, series 6. In the first 10 minutes we get our big question, 'How did the Doctor survive?', along with answers to some running questions from series 5 (who are the Silence?). Then, although it takes 4 episodes, we start getting more answers. Why did Amy keep wearing the same clothes? Because she's a Ganger! Who is River Song? She's Amy's daughter!
Then, from this new info, we can start to speculate about other things. Who's inside the astronaut? Is it River? In that case, was the regenerating girl at the end of Day of the Moon River as well? Then when LKH rolls around, we get some more answers, as well as a bit more explanation about the silence, which also opens up more questions. Then at the end of the series we get our final answer to the big question (how did the Doctor survive?), as well as some new questions preparing for series 7.
No, it's not perfect. I would much prefer to have a steady stream of info as the series goes on, instead of specified info dumps. But in a show like Doctor Who, where every week is completely different, that's not so easy.
So to conclude, both RTD and Moffat are good. It all comes down to personal taste. RTD writes better characters, but Moffat writes a better story.
Sunday, 13 July 2014
The Leeked Trailer
So, I was just about to write about the new Doctor Who series 8 trailer that just came out. But unfortunately, the joy and happiness that brought to me was replaced by the absolute horror of Deep Breath being uploaded to youtube, in its entirety. Sure, it's watermarked in black and white with no VFX, but it's still there!
Now, this episode has been on the internet for about a day now, but somehow it being easily available on youtube makes it worse. How, you ask? Well, surprisingly, it's the settings button.
You see, I, along with many other regular users of Youtube, instantly go for the settings button whenever I watch a video so that I can change the resolution from shitty 480p to the much more lovely 1080p. It's become instinctive. So instinctive that I always do it, even for a video I don't plan on watching. So when a friend of mine linked me the video, with me totally oblivious to what it was, I went for the settings. This meant that by the time I had realized what was going on, I'd already seen about 5 seconds of Deep Breath. I also mis-clicked. So instead of hitting the desired button, I missed and accidentally hit the time bar which shot me forward towards the end of the episode. Disaster!
So I'd seen 5 seconds of the opening, and another 5 seconds of a much later point. This pissed me off. Sure, it's only 10 seconds in total, but it's still a portion of the episode I really didn't want to see. Now, this is no fault of the person who linked me the video, he had no way of knowing I'd react like this. But quite frankly, I'm pissed off. Like, really. I'm properly angry. Not with my friend, not even with the person who uploaded the video (although I am a bit cross with him). No, I'm angry with the bloody BBC. The bastards who let this leak happen in the first place. How, in the name of Rassilon, does this get to happen!? In what fucked up, backwards universe does this sort of thing become a normality? Because it feels like a normality. It feels like the BBC aren't even bloody trying to stop these leaks from happening. I feel sorry for Steven Moffat, for Peter Capaldi, for Jenna Coleman, and for all the people who have worked tirelessly to make this series. I feel sorry for anyone who's been spoiled. I feel sorry for myself, who had even less time to wait than most people, but still feels like the entire 'Deep Breath' experience has been ruined.
I've got nothing against spoiler-hounds. If they like spoilers, let them see them. But I do have a thing against the people who let these spoilers leak. BBC Fucking Miami, or whatever they're called, are rubbish. If Marcelo Camargo isn't already fired then he needs to be, alongside the bastard who's in charge of not firing him. Basically, I'm a bit angry, and revenge is the purist of motives. I'm cross at the BBC for letting this happen. And I'm worried that it will affect my viewing of the episodes.
But oh well. It cant be as bad as series 7, right?
Now, this episode has been on the internet for about a day now, but somehow it being easily available on youtube makes it worse. How, you ask? Well, surprisingly, it's the settings button.
You see, I, along with many other regular users of Youtube, instantly go for the settings button whenever I watch a video so that I can change the resolution from shitty 480p to the much more lovely 1080p. It's become instinctive. So instinctive that I always do it, even for a video I don't plan on watching. So when a friend of mine linked me the video, with me totally oblivious to what it was, I went for the settings. This meant that by the time I had realized what was going on, I'd already seen about 5 seconds of Deep Breath. I also mis-clicked. So instead of hitting the desired button, I missed and accidentally hit the time bar which shot me forward towards the end of the episode. Disaster!
So I'd seen 5 seconds of the opening, and another 5 seconds of a much later point. This pissed me off. Sure, it's only 10 seconds in total, but it's still a portion of the episode I really didn't want to see. Now, this is no fault of the person who linked me the video, he had no way of knowing I'd react like this. But quite frankly, I'm pissed off. Like, really. I'm properly angry. Not with my friend, not even with the person who uploaded the video (although I am a bit cross with him). No, I'm angry with the bloody BBC. The bastards who let this leak happen in the first place. How, in the name of Rassilon, does this get to happen!? In what fucked up, backwards universe does this sort of thing become a normality? Because it feels like a normality. It feels like the BBC aren't even bloody trying to stop these leaks from happening. I feel sorry for Steven Moffat, for Peter Capaldi, for Jenna Coleman, and for all the people who have worked tirelessly to make this series. I feel sorry for anyone who's been spoiled. I feel sorry for myself, who had even less time to wait than most people, but still feels like the entire 'Deep Breath' experience has been ruined.
I've got nothing against spoiler-hounds. If they like spoilers, let them see them. But I do have a thing against the people who let these spoilers leak. BBC Fucking Miami, or whatever they're called, are rubbish. If Marcelo Camargo isn't already fired then he needs to be, alongside the bastard who's in charge of not firing him. Basically, I'm a bit angry, and revenge is the purist of motives. I'm cross at the BBC for letting this happen. And I'm worried that it will affect my viewing of the episodes.
But oh well. It cant be as bad as series 7, right?
Sunday, 29 June 2014
The first 6 episodes of Game of Thrones: Blood, Gore, Tits and Dragons
Game of Thrones, a show for people who love sitting down.
Game of Bones, a show for archaeologists.
Game of Stones, a show for geologists.
Game of Homes, a show for real estate agents.
Game of Holmes, a show for people who like Sherlock Holmes.
Game of Ones, a show for chartered accountants.
Game of Jones, a show for people with a last name called Jones.
Game of Tomes, a show for old people with beards.
Game of Combs, a show for hairdressers.
Game of Clones, a show for twins.
Game of Drones, a show for techy, military nuts.
Game of Gnomes, a show for gardeners.
Game of this is getting silly, a show for silly people.
Game of Zones, a show for things getting waaaay out of hand.
Game of Woes, a show for people who really need to stop.
Game of Stop. A show for nothing.
Spoilerphobes, beware! Spoilers ahead.
So, I just started watching Game of Thrones. It's really good! I'm only 6 episodes in, but I'm already completely hooked.
I'm watching with my family: my younger sister and older father. My mum was also watching but she stopped after the scene where Daenerys has sex in a tent while staring longingly at some dragon eggs (subtle!). It's a very nice show. Really family friendly.
Me and my Dad are an episode ahead of my sister so that we can suss out the gore and sex, a strategy which has been working so far. There was a scene where a horse got brutally beheaded, and it was a shame to ruin the surprise for my sister, but she had to know it was coming. Other scenes, like a man having molten gold poured all over his head, were less necessary to explain, especially since with that one you actually got to see them actually melting the gold.
So, my first impressions are generally good. The episodes are slowly becoming better and better as the stakes and incoming disaster slowly increase. The ending of episode 4 was when I really got hooked, and episode 5 was even better, then episode 6 just blew everything completely out of the water (Viserys Targerian was the biggest asshole in the universe).
The show also has a lovely obsession with bastard children. Ned Stark has a bastard child, Robert Baratheon has at least 700, Joffrey is the most obvious incest bastard ever. Actually, on the topic of Joffrey, I saw that twist coming from a mile away. I'm sure everyone saw it coming, they don't exactly try to hide the fact that he's got more in common than his 'uncle' than his 'father'. And incest...well, incest! There's not much to say really, other than that there's incest.
I honestly have relatively little to say about the show so far in terms of critical analysis. Actually, I have almost literally nothing. You have no reason to read this. Why the hell are you here?
Oh yeah, because you deeply care about what I have to say. Sorry, forgot. Let's continue:
So, the battle scenes have really picked up. In the first 3 or 4 episodes there weren't any, but about the time when Ned Stark's leg gets stabbed...or earlier, when multiple people's throats get cut, it really does start to pick up. It's quite funny that the blood looks like Ribena, and not very thick Ribena at that, but it's still good. I'm looking forward to seeing some proper Dothraki warfare of some kind, which I'm sure we'll get at some point. Hopefully.
Of course, if you've seen anything past episode 6 of season 1 of this show this post will be completely redundant, but it's still worth reading, right?
Wait, no it's not.
Sorry for wasting your time.
~Pockydon
Game of Bones, a show for archaeologists.
Game of Stones, a show for geologists.
Game of Homes, a show for real estate agents.
Game of Holmes, a show for people who like Sherlock Holmes.
Game of Ones, a show for chartered accountants.
Game of Jones, a show for people with a last name called Jones.
Game of Tomes, a show for old people with beards.
Game of Combs, a show for hairdressers.
Game of Clones, a show for twins.
Game of Drones, a show for techy, military nuts.
Game of Gnomes, a show for gardeners.
Game of this is getting silly, a show for silly people.
Game of Zones, a show for things getting waaaay out of hand.
Game of Woes, a show for people who really need to stop.
Game of Stop. A show for nothing.
Spoilerphobes, beware! Spoilers ahead.
So, I just started watching Game of Thrones. It's really good! I'm only 6 episodes in, but I'm already completely hooked.
I'm watching with my family: my younger sister and older father. My mum was also watching but she stopped after the scene where Daenerys has sex in a tent while staring longingly at some dragon eggs (subtle!). It's a very nice show. Really family friendly.
Me and my Dad are an episode ahead of my sister so that we can suss out the gore and sex, a strategy which has been working so far. There was a scene where a horse got brutally beheaded, and it was a shame to ruin the surprise for my sister, but she had to know it was coming. Other scenes, like a man having molten gold poured all over his head, were less necessary to explain, especially since with that one you actually got to see them actually melting the gold.
So, my first impressions are generally good. The episodes are slowly becoming better and better as the stakes and incoming disaster slowly increase. The ending of episode 4 was when I really got hooked, and episode 5 was even better, then episode 6 just blew everything completely out of the water (Viserys Targerian was the biggest asshole in the universe).
The show also has a lovely obsession with bastard children. Ned Stark has a bastard child, Robert Baratheon has at least 700, Joffrey is the most obvious incest bastard ever. Actually, on the topic of Joffrey, I saw that twist coming from a mile away. I'm sure everyone saw it coming, they don't exactly try to hide the fact that he's got more in common than his 'uncle' than his 'father'. And incest...well, incest! There's not much to say really, other than that there's incest.
I honestly have relatively little to say about the show so far in terms of critical analysis. Actually, I have almost literally nothing. You have no reason to read this. Why the hell are you here?
Oh yeah, because you deeply care about what I have to say. Sorry, forgot. Let's continue:
So, the battle scenes have really picked up. In the first 3 or 4 episodes there weren't any, but about the time when Ned Stark's leg gets stabbed...or earlier, when multiple people's throats get cut, it really does start to pick up. It's quite funny that the blood looks like Ribena, and not very thick Ribena at that, but it's still good. I'm looking forward to seeing some proper Dothraki warfare of some kind, which I'm sure we'll get at some point. Hopefully.
Of course, if you've seen anything past episode 6 of season 1 of this show this post will be completely redundant, but it's still worth reading, right?
Wait, no it's not.
Sorry for wasting your time.
~Pockydon
Saturday, 28 June 2014
An update on the URL situation
So, I bring news. News of great confusion and much despair, yet also of joy and goodwill.
I know who nicked my URL.
What you're about to see is something truly shocking. It took me a few seconds to fully realize exactly what I was seeing. But it's best you see it yourself before I give my opinions of the matter, as it really does need to be seen to be believed (I said 'see' more times in that paragraph than I have in my entire life).
So, here it is. pockyblog@blogspot.com
Oh.
There are a few things I love about this. Firstly, the colours are lovely. Really nice and welcoming, if you catch my drift. Also, the font of the title of the blog is quite good. The title itself is also worth a mention. It's a phrase that I think we all should live by; the world would be a better place if everyone thought like this.
However, this does mean that I'm never going to get pockyblog.blogspot.com as a URL. Ever. How could I pursuade a loyal and loving fan to hand over their URL? It'd just be unnecessarily mean. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that this guy has had this blog since 2004. I couldn't even speak in 2004. Well, I could, but not very well. Point is, I hadn't come up with the name 'Pockydon' until 2006, at the earliest. And since this guy hasn't made any blog posts at all, I doubt he's particularly active.
So I shall suffer in silence at the loss of my username, and endure the pain that comes with being such a massive internet celebrity. It's tough to be this famous, but I shall continue, and I shall not complain. At least I have fans...
~Pockydon, rightful heir to PockyBlog.blogspot.com
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