Donna Jack: A Lady of Infinite Jest

Day 29 - Current TV show obsession

Quixote and I share an answer on this one: Doctor Who.

I don't have near enough memorabilia to my liking, but I expect that'll be remedied in time. Right now, I have my iPhone kitted out DW-style, with TARDIS wallpaper and Nine's theme as my ringtone. I wanted to make the TARDIS landing sound my text-receipt signal, but the iPhone apparently won't let you change that (at least not in the same manner as the ringtones). I'm also plotting to get a blue police box-skin and a clear case to complete the conceit. ;)

Quixote and I are rewatching the series now, starting with the excellent Mr. Hartnell and going on. This is quite an undertaking, plagued with horrendous trials such as missing episodes. But we mean to triumph as much as possible!

I should also append here that my secondary obsession is currently The Big Bang Theory: I only began watching the show in March, but I already own S1 on DVD, have hunted down and watched the original pilot, joined a challenge community for the show, made a ridiculous number of graphics for it, purchased a Lizard-Spock expansion shirt, and even written fanfic (thus breaking a ten-year fanfic dryspell). I've also probably read more Penny/Sheldon fanfic than is strictly healthy, but I don't regret a thing!

Short answer on this, our penultimate 30 Days of TV meme, I know. Thing is, though, that I have to be up at 3:55 AM to work from 4-8, so I'd best be getting some sleep.

( 30 Days of TV: The List )

Day 24 - Best quote

Another difficult and poorly-worded topic! Do I share my favorite quotes? Or the quotes which I think are the best? And in what way best? Most dramatic? Funny? Philosophical? Most representative? I don't know, and I couldn't decide. Also, the sheer amount of work it'd take to ponder each of my favorite shows enough to dredge up favorite quotes? Not an attractive prospect.

In the end, Quixote and I decided to share those quotes most quoted around our household. To wit:

THE TOP 5 QUOTES HEARD IN CASA QUIXOTE:

1.
"Pod 6 is jerks!"
-Captain Murphy, Sealab 2021.
I couldn't find a link to any video, so here's an Ode to Captain Murphy instead.

2.
"Bullshit! God has horns."
-Terry, True Blood.
1:18-1:20. Link contains spoilers for True Blood S2.

3.
"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."
- Captain Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

4.
"And what do you say to a cup?"
"Feck off, cup!"
- Mrs. Doyle and Father Jack, Father Ted.

5.
"Bowties are cool."
- The Doctor, Doctor Who.


I'm not sure what that says about us, but there you have it.


( 30 Days of TV: The List )

Day 14 - Favorite male character

This was surprisingly not as difficult as I might have imagined. As I refected, I did come up with several candidates: Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, Ambassador G'kar, Number 6, Fox Mulder, Admiral William Adama, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, Dean Winchester, Castiel, Emerson Cod, Brock Samson, Abed, Captain Murphy, and so on. But, really, one male in particular occured to me that just left all the others as distant seconds.



The Doctor. He's brilliant; is there really anything else to say?

The illustration above is done by Paul Hanley, and you can see the original here. He's also done one with the Valeyard that I quite like.

Quixote agrees with me, but he's stipulated that two others must be mentioned as close runners-up:

( Quixote's two other choices... )

( 30 Days of TV: The List )

Day 09 - Best scene ever

I feel like I should be prefacing each of these posts with the reminder that my answers are constrained by what I can remember when I sit down to do this meme. I do put a good measure of thought into each question, going down the lists of my favorite or important television shows, probing my memory for "best scene ever" examples, for example. But I don't have an eidetic memory, so I have to rely on whatever my mental net can pull out of the mess of my media memory at the present. I'm sure if I had longer to ponder the question, I'd come up with more or different answers; however, with an on-and-off 24-hour consideration here in the summer of 2010, this is what I came up with.

Also, I have chosen to interpret "best scene ever" as "coolest, most bad-ass (optionally hilarious) scene ever."

I think I'll go with a top 5.

Note: I've included links to these scenes where possible for those who want to relive them; if you haven't seen the episodes in the first place, however, I don't recommend watching them out of context!

5. Mal first demonstrates his unique brand of negotiating in Firefly.
This is one of those quintessential scenes from the second episode ("The Train Job") of Firefly that firmly demonstrates these protagonists are not entirely Good Guys. It also does so in a macabrely funny manner. It's part of what made Firefly such a strong and compelling show.

4. Buffy finds her inner core of strength in "Becoming: Part Two."
I couldn't find a decent clip of this one, sadly: in the season finale to the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her vampire boyfriend Angel has lost his soul once more and become the terrifying Angelus. Naturally, Angelus has stalked Buffy and his game culminates in a good, brutal round of taunting battle. Since I can't find a clip, allow me to quote from Alexander Thompson's transcript of the episode:

( Transcript here! )

3. Daleks vs. the Cybermen from New Who.
This is my optionally hilarious choice: in the season finale ("Doomsday") of the second season of the new Doctor Who, you have this extended scene of the Daleks and the Cybermen smack-talking each other. I was hysterical with laughter the first time I saw it, which helped some considering I was sobbing with heartbreak by the end of the episode.

2. Ambassador Delenn, Defender of Babylon 5
I love Big Damn Heroes: Delenn is the quintessential definition of one such in Babylon 5 and this is one scene by which that is incandescently apparent. The fierce temperance of her words and the way the Earth Alliance warships don't even hesitate before leaving always has me shouting "Fuck yeah, Sea King!" Or, you know, something like. The scene is from "Severed Dreams" (3.10).

And the most kick-ass scene?

1. Battlestar Galactica to the rescue on New Caprica.
If you plan on watching Battlestar Galactica, but you haven't seen through Season 3, don't read this! That said, this was one of the most amazing scenes in the show, even while being immersed in a bunch of sub-par aspects of the show fore and aft. When Adama dropped the Galactica into atmo in "Exodus: Part 2", I'm pretty sure I punched the air with amazed glee. Watching them launch the vipers and then do an FTL jump away sealed the deal: I was crowing that Adama had huge, titanium cajones.

Quixote says that he concurs with most of my choices.¹ He adds that he considers the closing scene of "Time Enough at Last" from The Twilight Zone to be one of the most iconic scenes ever. He also wants to mention the closing scene of The Prisoner in "Fall Out" for its sheer WTF?! scene awesomeness.



1. I can specify that he's not including Buffy the Vampire Slayer in his echo.

( 30 Days of TV: The List )

Besides work, I spent this weekend reading an interesting-yet-slow book of British folklore research before finally finishing my last final today, yay!

After a day full of study, of course, and fic after fic of BBT Penny/Sheldon because I couldn't stop and I was introduced to damalur!

So, in the realm of "my fandom gets inside me":

Saturday night, I went to bed with a stomachache. I then spent the entire night dreaming that the Doctor was trying to fix me, but begrudgingly because one of his Companions wanted it so. And which Doctor do you think I dreamt of then?

...it was One. Yes, my dear Mr. Hartnell was very curmudgeonly at me and insisted on my taking these pink pills which were rather too large for me to swallow in my ill state. I ended up crushing them up in a cup, pouring in some water from the tap, and chugging as many times as it took to get the bitter medicine down. It tasted awful.

But the approving expression on the Doctor's face made it all worth it. And, weirdly enough, he kept wavering between One and Four (my original Doctor).

Yeah, I don't know. These things happen.

RTD has always done some amazing things, one of which is the fact that he brought Doctor Who back to television. The only problem is that he keeps being allowed to go on too long, and then he inevitably spoils things.

( Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part II )