Saturday, August 21, 2010

Ask Space a Question

Twitter Sonnet 174

Block's rolling against the THAC0 of Death.
A board collapsed in green halves on a fly.
Card houses confine Queen Elizabeth.
Heavy bishops nibble pawns on the sly.
A spinning timer lands on a hard egg.
Black and grey weapons pore over white space.
Mi-go investors callously renege.
Yeast is writ all over a wino's face.
Hesitant bugs ponder a white wine web.
Questions cluster on the filmy cup cusp.
Confused frigates show up late to Deneb.
Space apples picked and peeled by peon lust.
Robot gold pinches the small geisha's flesh.
Slaves strive in the shadow of some John Tesh.


As it may have been read by character actor Ronald Allen;



I was excited to see Mr. Allen in "The Ambassadors of Death", the Doctor Who serial, after I'd been introduced to him and his demands that energy be conserved in "The Dominators". In "The Ambassadors of Death" he seems to be playing the English version of Gregory Peck in Marooned. Though Gregory Peck didn't seem to do as much acting purely with his jaw the way Ronald Allen did.

I'm up to "The Inferno" now and I'm liking Jon Pertwee more and more, even though his run so far hasn't even quite felt like Doctor Who. I was toying with the idea of skipping ahead to the end of the Doctor's exile on earth--although I'm actually liking "The Inferno" so far, it was cruel hearing the TARDIS sound effect when the Doctor was experimenting with the console, knowing that the TARDIS was still going to be sidelined by the end of the serial. But "The Inferno" is still the most Doctor Who-ish serial so far of the Pertwee era as it features the Doctor trying to overcome obstacles in a strange dimension. And I love the dizzying layering of plot going on--first we're introduced to some kind of story about a government drilling operation using nuclear power, and then we're introduced to it again in an alternate dimension.

The previous two serials, "The Ambassadors of Death" and "The Silurians" had been good, and both having a lot to do with first contact diplomatic situations. The Doctor's role now seems to be liaison on earth to all things alien, even though I can see how the basic algorithm of "societies introduced at beginning of serial in conflict with subculture/other society/impending catastrophe" has been adjusted to "government/scientific/military team introduced at beginning of serial coming into conflict with alien society/villains/catastrophe." "The Inferno" seems still to be along those lines but is a little more satisfyingly weird, even if the alternate facial hair configurations to mark the parallel dimension are taken right from Star Trek.



The oddly Vladimir Lenin looking guy in charge of the drilling operation gave me occasion to notice how much Doctor Who has to do with weird, arbitrary assholes getting in the Doctor's way.

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