Status Updates From TARDISbound: Navigating the...

The initial plan was to read a chapter/day but the chapters are getting longer and heavier in material. Enjoying it so far though. A deeper and different look at doctor who.

I was at the library picking up a few books for my thesis when I saw this! I had to grab it. Now I know this is a very academic writing of Doctor Who, which is why I wanted to give it a try.

Here's a word I hope to never read again: heteronormativity

This is somewhat interesting, but dragged down by scholarly jargon: "These stories are examples of moral realignment in that they complicate the ethical valency of the characters, and examples of emotional intensification in that they typically incline towards high drama, charting a psychological rite of passage or transformation." Wow.

chapter 2 was all about class distinctions and how that was reflected in the various Doctors' dress, mannerisms and style of dress. Ummm...lots of thought going into this. More than I ever bothered with.

So far it's fairly interesting with a dry "critical analysis" overtone. I've had to look up a few words in a dictionary...duh....

Chapter 7 is a waste. It asserts a distinction between ethics, morals, and politics, but never articulates it. It dismisses the 26 years of the classic series, contradicting the book's central interest in completeness. And it ultimately argues that individual stories can have interesting ethics rather than whether the vast narrative does, again running counter to the purpose of the book.

Well-deserved attention paid to the superlative Grimm Reality.

Another good reading of a Moffat-era story, sensitive to these stories' revisions of Davies' material.

Interesting reading of Iris Wildthyme through prism of Adorno (and vice versa).

'the sometimes turgidly self-important NAs' :-)

'At their best, Doctor Who narratives renew familiar problems of defining and understanding emotional states and ethical choices by a process of vertiginous shift in perspective.' (Somewhat belied by his disinterest in realism or politics.)

Chapter 6 asks 'What kinds of beauty can be seen in Doctor Who?' It disappoints by being somewhat haphazard and tentative, but it is nonetheless intriguing. Key beauties: surreal apposition, the epic vignette, and the harlequinade motif.

Excellent point about clockwork men in a story about time ('The Girl in the Fireplace').

'[C]haracter [conceived quite specifically in terms of psychodrama] has become much more important, if not central, to storytelling [in the new series].'

'[T]he stylistic differences between the old and new Doctor Who series are less marked than current hyperbole suggests.'

'It seems to me that, far from being useful indicators of aesthetic value, picture standard and technical sophistication are at best red herrings and at worst fodder for specious hierarchisation.'

Chapter 5. Thoughtful and challenging chapter on Doctor Who's heteronormative structuring of the companions. I would love to read more on Amy in this vein, taking into account her entire run.

The erasure of River Song from this account is just foolish, as is the dismissal of how fans queer characters.

The misunderstanding of how 'The Long Game'/'Bad Wolf' actually underlines the Doctor's narcissism is disappointing. The Doctor's only 'failure' in the former is to realise there is someone behind the Jagrafess, highlighting how only the Doctor can save the day.

Chapter 3. Some good concrete examples of the differences Henry Jenkins identified between texts made for fan and coalition audiences. But the dismissal of political readings is entirely unargued.