The Doctor is "In" - The Staying Power of "Dr. Who"

Disclaimer:  The following contains some spoilers from past Doctor Who episodes. 

I'm going to be honest here - I did not watch a lot of Dr. Who while I was growing up.  My father did not like the show, so it was not on in our house, but I did love listening to the theme song before the channel was changed.   My first real exposure to Dr. Who began in high school in 1988, when a fellow I dated told me he loved the show and he watched it loyally every Saturday night at 11 P.M. As I was smitten and wanted to be able to discuss the show with him, I stayed up and watched it.  I have to be honest again, I did not see the allure - the show was segmented into several parts and I started in the middle of an arc, so I was lost.  My time watching Dr. Who at that point was about as short as my relationship with the show's fan.   

This is the Doctor I saw right before Dad changed the channel.

I did not realize it then, nor did I care, but Dr. Who's first run from 1963 to 1989 was coming to end.  At that point there had been seven different Doctors and nearly seven hundred episodes.  It was not until 1996, a few weeks after my marriage to another loyal Dr. Who fan that another Doctor emerged on the scene in a television movie starring Paul McGann.  My newlywed husband was elated, and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it.   He and many others hoped that the movie would spawn a new series, but it did not.  The Doctor Who fan community would have to wait nearly another decade for that to occur.

In 2005, the BBC started a new series of Dr. Who episodes, which have grabbed the imaginations of a new generation, and thrilled fans of the original series by bringing in a mix of old adversaries like the Cybermen and the Daleks, and featuring former companions of The Doctor like Sarah Jane Smith while creating new characters to be loved and/or feared.  Over the past nine years, the show's popularity has exploded - so much so that Matt Smith, who portrayed the Eleventh Doctor was voted "Fan Favorite" and was on the cover of TV Guide here in the United States.

As a consistent viewer of the new Dr. Who series, I now understand why the show has always had so much appeal and staying power. It is due to talented show runners/writers and the ability to change actors without losing continuity, but at the same time keeping the show fresh by moving into new directions.

Dr. Who is one of the few television series that has the power to gear me up emotionally.  One of the first episodes that had me weeping was "Father's Day", when the 9th Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler, went back in time and saved her father on the day he was hit by a car.  Her act ended up causing a time paradox, nearly destroying the world.  When her father realized his death would cease the destruction, he sacrificed himself, but at least Rose had the chance to say a final goodbye to her father which she did not had before.

Rose Tyler saved her father, only to lose him again.

The show also has the ability to terrify without being gory or gross.  In 2007, the show introduced a new alien species that feeds on people's future years by sending them into the past before they were ever born.  They appear to look like statues while you look at them, but if you cannot see them, or even if you blink they can move and their touch is deadly.  The "weeping angels" as they are called have become one of the most feared in the series history, and they introduced in what is considered a "Doctor Light" episode, where the 10th Doctor and his companion at the time, Martha, had very little screen time.  Instead, the episode revolved around a one-time episode character by the name of Sally Sparrow, who many fans would love to see again.

"Blink" is considered one of the best episodes of the "new" Dr. Who.

  
Another wonderful facet of the series, is that the show, at times, can bring to light social issues for discussion.  In 2010, in the episode "Vincent and The Doctor", the 11th Doctor and his companion Amy visited Vincent van Gogh in a touching episode that focused on the painter's struggles with bi-polar disorder and his suicide.  The performance by Tony Curran at the tortured artist gained much praise. At the end of the episode, the actors did a public service announcement about mental illness and suicide prevention.

Van Gogh shares his view of the world with Amy and The Doctor.

No one knows how long the new Doctor Who series will run. Tonight, a new Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi takes the helm of the Tardis with companion Clara by his side.  Whenever there is a new Doctor on the scene, there is much discussion and a lot of controversy.  After tonight, there will be a lot of chatter on the new Doctor and the new, long awaited episode.  All I know is this - our family will be watching with millions of others who are captivated by the mysterious Doctor and his flying blue Police Call Box.

A new Doctor and new adventures begin.

Until next time, I am

Sci-Fi Fan FL

A Star Trek: The Next Generation Special Edition : "Sub Rosa" from Script to Screen

I love Ebay!  As a sci-fi/fantasy fan and collector, I do a lot of my "yard sale" searches on the internet in hopes of finding a treasure or two from time to time.  A few weeks ago, I decided to go on a search for some Beverly Crusher items (I was hoping to find some stills from Star Trek:  TNG episodes that showcased her character), and came across something else - a First Draft of the episode "Sub Rosa".  It was the fourteenth episode of the seventh and final season of the series, and it aired the week of January 31, 1994.  The episode centered around the funeral of Beverly Crusher's Grandmother (Nana) on a Scotland type colony on Caldos IV, and her mysterious lover, Ronin, who lures Beverly into his dark, erotic world.

Until I started researching this episode, I never knew what the title meant, but as soon as I Googled it, I found out that "Sub Rosa" is a Latin term for "under the rose"  and "secrecy", which makes sense since Beverly was keeping a secret that she was having an affair with what appeared to be a phantom.  The original idea for the episode was from a freelance writer named Jeanna F. Gallo, who wanted to showcase Beverly Crusher's "Scottish" heritage, but Jeri Taylor wrote the story and Brannon Braga wrote the teleplay, which was originally titled "Passions", and I speculate that was changed because it sounded too much like the Soap Opera of the same name.    

Initially, "Sub Rosa" was widely panned by TNG fans.   In the  book Star Trek:  The Next Generation Companion written by Larry Nemeck, he calls it "one of the most atypical episodes ever".  Director Jonathan Frakes called it "...a wonderful out-of-the-box non Star Trek episode"  (Star Trek:  The Next Generation 365).   It was always one of my favorites, due to the fact that it explored a different side of Beverly Crusher, one of vulnerability and addiction that almost destroys her career and her closest relationships.  Of course, I could not wait to get my hands on a copy of the First Draft of the script, to see if there was more to the original script than what was shown on screen.

In the beginning of the First Draft, Beverly's grandmother's funeral scene runs a lot longer than what we see in the final on-screen version.  In it, Beverly recites a recipe for her Grandmother's Gingerbread, which according to Brannon Braga, "was the same eulogy his mother used at his grandmother's funeral", (The Star Trek:  The Next Generation Companion):

There is also a very long scene shortly thereafter, which was most likely cut for time, which centers on Deanna Troi and Beverly at Beverly's grandmother's house, where Beverly finds some old play jewelry she had hidden as a child.  Beverly talks about her make-believe marriage to a childhood friend named David Mullen.  This scene may have also been cut, because it sounded very similar to a scene from Season Four in the episode, "The Host", where Beverly talks about another childhood crush about an eleven year-old soccer player named Stefan, who she imagined being married to, but who "never even knew {she} existed." Throughout the series, Beverly's love affairs have both short and tragic, (her husband Jack's death and her ultimate break up with Odin in "The Host"), and also combined with her own suppressed feelings for Captain Jean-Luc Picard, reflects Beverly vulnerable side, and this cut scene from "Sub Rosa" makes a coherent connection to Beverly's fantasy love life and explains why perhaps why Ronin has such a grip on her early on.

Ronin's hold is like an ecstasy type drug addiction to Beverly.

The "B" storyline in "Sub Rosa", which centers around the damage to the weather substation on Caldos IV, does not really vary from the way it was originally written, with the exception of the scene where Ned Quint, a local who was the gardener for Beverly's Grandmother is killed.  In the First Draft, Ned Quint rants on and on about "a ghost" who is trying to kill all of them, before he ultimately dies.  The "ghost" aspect in the First Draft is much more prevalent than what is seen on screen.

The largest difference in "Sub Rosa" however, is the final act.  In the First Draft, a lot of the explanation of how Ronin was a anaphasic plasma life form that merged with Beverly's family's DNA throughout the centuries, is explained in a conversation between Deanna Troi and Beverly in Ten-Forward after Ronin's candle is destroyed and he flickers out of existence.  The screen version is much more dramatic as Beverly confronts Ronin in the cemetery after she discovers Ronin is not really a sensual "ghost", but a life form that has been feeding off her family for generations, and she ultimately has to destroy him when he tries to merge with her one final time. 

Sitting on my bed flipping through the screenplay while watching the actual episode was a pure delight for me.  Watching the nuances, little changes in the dialogue, and the performances from the page was remarkable.   It is something that I plan on doing again real soon.

Until next time, I am,

Sci-Fi Fan FL

Crusher Fan FL

Watching My Son Watching "Star Wars"

Disclaimer:  This week's blog contains spoilers for Star Wars:  Revenge of the Sith, so if you haven't seen it and still want to see it, then what are you waiting for?  The film was released nine years ago.

My son realizes he is different than his peers.  His classmates have called him "weird", "strange", ect.  It is hard to explain to other ten-year-olds that your brain processes things differently than other people, especially when it is difficult to understand that yourself.  My son high functioning Autism, which basically means that he is uncomfortable in many social situations, overtly shy, but mostly he becomes fixated on a topic and cannot shut it off in his brain and sometimes repeats things multiple times.  Last year, my son schooled me on the Marvel heroes, learned about all of them and their villain counterparts.  Now, if you ask me who Armin Zola is, I know the answer because my son spoke non-stop about him for weeks.

Although my house is filled with all things Star Wars related, my son never showed much interest in it until this past Spring, when Star Wars: The Clone Wars came out on Netflix.  He had seen many of the episodes before, but with he and his Dad watching them all in order, he really got hooked.  It is his favorite show of late, and he was recently watched "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones", he especially prefers Darth Maul and the light saber duels.

For weeks now, he has been begging me to watch "Revenge of the Sith" with him.  The Prequels are not my favorites, so I had been blowing him off until yesterday when he took a stand and called me a "liar" for telling him I would watch it with him and then blowing him off for the upteenth time.  He was right.  I was a liar. So in order to make things right, I grabbed the DVD and we went to the bedroom to watch.

As I was attempting to find the DVD remote, my son looked at the cover and asked, "Who are those two fighting on the front?", but before I could answer he had figured it out, "I don't want to see Obi-Wan and Anakin fight Mom, that will make me sad."  I told him that the scene where where Anakin goes to the Jedi Temple to kill the Younglings makes me sad, so we agreed to skip over those parts.  So, the movie started and my son starts his own commentary over the movie, which can get kind of distracting at times, because he likes to add scenes and dialogue that are not in the movie, so after a while, I was not really watching the movie, but was watching him watching the movie.  Some of his insights were rather interesting and at times humorous.  For example, when Mace Windu takes three other Jedi with him to arrest Supreme Chancellor  Palpatine, Palpatine kills three of them almost instantly.  My son laughed and said to me, "At least Kit Fisto (the green one) lasted a few seconds more than the other two, apparently they didn't know how to use their light sabers."  Later on, when Order 66 was issued, he screamed when one of the Jedi was killed, "Nooo!  Anyone, but Plo Koon!" When I saw this movie originally, most of the Jedi who were hunted down and killed were seen for a few seconds, so their deaths really did not have much impact, but my son had seen Star Wars:  The Clone Wars first, which gave many of these Jedi a back story and Plo Koon had a huge role on the series, so these scenes really meant much more to him because they were characters he had come to know and love instead of just some random Jedi getting killed.

 

Plo Koon's death hit my son hard.

We became so engrossed in watching the film, that we ended up not skipping over the parts we originally agreed to.  My son watched the final battle between Anakin and Obi Wan, it made him sad to see it, and it broke his heart when Anakin became Darth Vader, but he found hope in Luke and Leia being born, and I found new insight into a movie I originally thought was lackluster until I saw it through the eyes of my son.

Until next time, I am,
Sci-Fi Fan FL