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Dept. of Who
"The Devil's Chord"
Question: is love the message?
(Don't worry, I'll actually talk about the episode. But first, this.)
I'm only two episodes into this season of Who, so this is terribly preliminary, and I'm completely comfortable with being wrong, wrong, oh-so-wrong.
But love's been on my mind after watching the first two episodes of this season. I've been thinking about RTD a lot, and wondering why he and Moffat worked so well together, even if the way they create things is different, and the the way they write is really different. Are there congruences, both professional and personal?
Yeah, well. Love.
Love was always Rusty's north star, even if I only realized that after I fell in love with Moffat and his own obsessive interrogation of the concept.
And what have I watched thus far? Love.
First up, ''Space Babies." Kids, who are lovable, and who every active adult in the story loves. And kids who love each other, even the (eugh) bogeyman. And what happens? They're safely sent to a planet whose colonists will love them. Everybody lives!
Up next, a love song to music. A little on the nose - hell, a fuckton on the nose, but that's where Rusty is ever fated to perambulate.
Is here where I tumble from junior-grade meta into Doylist or Watsonian meanderings? Yeah, kinda. Maybe.
Of course this would be focused on the Beatles. All you need is love, love is all you need, right?
And who represents the opposite of love? That's easy; Maestro. They don't really love music. Maybe they once did, and they undoubtedly think they do. But they don't. They're selfish about music, which is really quite different. They don't want anyone else to have it. They make the mistake of thinking about music as a non-renewable resource, and they're afraid that if anyone else has any music they, Maestro, will inevitably lose all of the music they're hoarding.
(Jumping briefly into Doyleland: Jinx Monsoon really impressed me. I've never watched RuPaul's Drag Race, but they were apparently big on one of the seasons. But they certainly went beyond drag queen sass. In the beginning, their malevolence is almost genial. As the episode proceeded, the geniality almost completely disappeared. And their face evolved as well, their initially pristine makeup fades and runs, as if their heat of their rage and hatred is melting it. Cool visual decision; I liked it.)
The episode had just enough humor to lighten the admittedly leaden messaging; the looks on the Doctor's and Ruby's faces as the enormity of how awful the Beatles' song is, was elegantly hilarious (that's a thing, right?)
I also liked the Doctor explaining why he seems so easily scared, at least in the two episodes I've seen. He states right out that the way he regenerated - a regeneration unlike any before - has left him wth PTSD that has nothing to do with the last great Time War. And I liked that.
Little things: I love that the Doctor changes clothes! The looks he and Ruby sported might be a tad anachronistic, but not by much. Carnaby Street became a true fashion center in 1964, so their outfits weren't quit right. But they looked so good, I didn't really care. And I'm not sure George Martin ever got quite as physically excited as the actor portraying him in the episode. Still ....
So yes, I liked the episode. It was spikier and less easy to love than "Space Babies" but I still cheered when the music got out and the sky cleared -
- and THE DANCE! That was completely bonkers, and it captured so much about what music does for the human soul - bravo, Rusty!
So yeah. It seems to be about love.
Question: is love the message?
(Don't worry, I'll actually talk about the episode. But first, this.)
I'm only two episodes into this season of Who, so this is terribly preliminary, and I'm completely comfortable with being wrong, wrong, oh-so-wrong.
But love's been on my mind after watching the first two episodes of this season. I've been thinking about RTD a lot, and wondering why he and Moffat worked so well together, even if the way they create things is different, and the the way they write is really different. Are there congruences, both professional and personal?
Yeah, well. Love.
Love was always Rusty's north star, even if I only realized that after I fell in love with Moffat and his own obsessive interrogation of the concept.
And what have I watched thus far? Love.
First up, ''Space Babies." Kids, who are lovable, and who every active adult in the story loves. And kids who love each other, even the (eugh) bogeyman. And what happens? They're safely sent to a planet whose colonists will love them. Everybody lives!
Up next, a love song to music. A little on the nose - hell, a fuckton on the nose, but that's where Rusty is ever fated to perambulate.
Is here where I tumble from junior-grade meta into Doylist or Watsonian meanderings? Yeah, kinda. Maybe.
Of course this would be focused on the Beatles. All you need is love, love is all you need, right?
And who represents the opposite of love? That's easy; Maestro. They don't really love music. Maybe they once did, and they undoubtedly think they do. But they don't. They're selfish about music, which is really quite different. They don't want anyone else to have it. They make the mistake of thinking about music as a non-renewable resource, and they're afraid that if anyone else has any music they, Maestro, will inevitably lose all of the music they're hoarding.
(Jumping briefly into Doyleland: Jinx Monsoon really impressed me. I've never watched RuPaul's Drag Race, but they were apparently big on one of the seasons. But they certainly went beyond drag queen sass. In the beginning, their malevolence is almost genial. As the episode proceeded, the geniality almost completely disappeared. And their face evolved as well, their initially pristine makeup fades and runs, as if their heat of their rage and hatred is melting it. Cool visual decision; I liked it.)
The episode had just enough humor to lighten the admittedly leaden messaging; the looks on the Doctor's and Ruby's faces as the enormity of how awful the Beatles' song is, was elegantly hilarious (that's a thing, right?)
I also liked the Doctor explaining why he seems so easily scared, at least in the two episodes I've seen. He states right out that the way he regenerated - a regeneration unlike any before - has left him wth PTSD that has nothing to do with the last great Time War. And I liked that.
Little things: I love that the Doctor changes clothes! The looks he and Ruby sported might be a tad anachronistic, but not by much. Carnaby Street became a true fashion center in 1964, so their outfits weren't quit right. But they looked so good, I didn't really care. And I'm not sure George Martin ever got quite as physically excited as the actor portraying him in the episode. Still ....
So yes, I liked the episode. It was spikier and less easy to love than "Space Babies" but I still cheered when the music got out and the sky cleared -
- and THE DANCE! That was completely bonkers, and it captured so much about what music does for the human soul - bravo, Rusty!
So yeah. It seems to be about love.