further adventures in the land of Classic Who

[ladymercury_10]

So I watched "Remembrance of the Daleks," and basically I was, as shinyjenni would say, making little fists of glee the whole way through.  Oh my goodness.  I know I say it all the time, but I love this show.  Entertaining background lady scientists!  Bechdel test passing!  The Doctor, for once, managing to be less impractical about money than the companion!  Power-synth music and other 80s tropes for childhood nostalgia and great justice!  Ahem. *straightens sweater, calms down*


But pretty much everything I was told would be there by the people who commented on the last post was there: the Doctor being an adult and not whining, Ace kicking tail, and a very entertaining mixture of well-written serious bits, perhaps accidentally campy bits (was Davros wearing old-school curly telephone wire?), and lots of intentionally playful bits.  (Thanks to everyone who told me I should watch it--you were right!) 

And Ace and Seven are fantastic.  Somebody on Tumblr was saying that Ace is like the Strong Female Character archetype done correctly, i.e., not exaggerated.  Much as I love some of the characters who take flak for supposedly being exaggeratedly strong and/or being one-dimensional, I think this is a pretty good characterization of Ace and her awesomeness.  

Also, I hyena laughed at Ace's Dalek racial purity explanation, reconstructed with help from olivia_sutton's quotes page:

Ace: Renegade Daleks are blobs.  

The Doctor: Blobs?

Ace: Imperial Daleks are bionic blobs with bits added.  You can tell the Daleks are into racial purity.  So one lot of Daleks reckon that the other lot of blobs are too different.  Well, they're mutants.  Not pure in their blobbiness.

The Doctor: Result?

Ace: They hate each other's chromosomes.  War to the death.

The Doctor: Well, um, Ace, let’s go and see which blobs are winning, hmm?

ALSO also I am relatively certain Ace was wearing Batman earrings for the duration of the episode.  See here:

 
So, uh, what do I watch next, guys?  I mean, Fenric, but what else?  And does anyone have any Seven-era fanfic recs to share?  (Probably nothing too long--if I'm going to read something above 10k, it's probably going to be one of the bajillion library books I have on my desk already.)

Comments

Seventh Doctor

[olivia-sutton.livejournal.com]

Just by way of introduction -- I've seen *all* of Classic Who (except the missing/lost episodes) and new Who, and I saw Sylvester McCoy when his stories first ran in the US. Davison, McCoy and Tennant are my favorite Doctors in chronological order. I'm also a massive Ace fan. She rocks -- and for precisely the reasons you point out.
I'd suggest watching the 7 and Ace episodes in order because there is actually an arc going on there (tho' much more subtle than any arc in New Who). I know this is going to sound weird -- but try to get the extended edition of "Silver Nemesis" if you can. Unfortunately, the DVD of "Silver Nemesis" is the edited version (now it IS how it originally aired -- but what happened was they filmed a 4-parter, then the BBC decided it should really be three parts and they hacked it to pieces, losing one of my favorite Ace & the Doctor scenes in the process). But if you can't find it, at least go for them in order.
--Olivia

Re: Seventh Doctor

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the tips! Ah, yeah, it looks like the DVD Netflix has for "Silver Nemesis" is 74 minutes, which suggests it's the 3-part version. I haven't really been watching in order--I did "Ghost Light" first, then "Remembrance of the Daleks," then most recently "Battlefield," but I did figure I should at least save "The Curse of Fenric" until I'd seen enough of Ace to appreciate it more fully, instead of watching it first, say.