photo of the day: queen elizabeth + guns!

I refuse to become one of those bloggers who constantly apologizes for the occasional radio silence ... so I trust you all to understand it's that time of the semester and chalk the lack of posts up to a busy work and academic schedule.

Meanwhile, I never followed through on my promise (threat?) to post more pictures of the women of Who last Friday. So in lieu of that, for now, some first impressions of the recently-released (here in the U.S. for those of us plebes who can't afford BBC America) Season 5 of Dr. Who.  Hanna and I got the first disk in the mail and watched it last night.

(Hanna's planning a post on these episodes next week: watch this space for a link)

Mild spoilers below for those who haven't seen "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Beast Below."

In short, my feelings are something like this:

Queen Elizabeth the Tenth (Sophie Okonedo), Starship UK
The Beast Below

Which definitely suggested to me that someone on the writing team had been watching this:

Zoe (Gina Torres), Firefly

Queen Elizabeth X was just maybe my favorite thing about the first two episodes.

Although I admit partly this is because I'm kinda waiting to get more of a feel for the Eleventh Doctor and his companion, Ms. Pond.

They seem to be trying to get around the breaking-in period with the new companion by doing a sort of time-traveler's-wife number on her; not entirely sure how it's working out, but it seems to have given her an edge in terms of not letting the Doctor bully her.


I'd love to see her and Donna work together (are you listening Mr. Moffett?), since I think Donna could offer her some advice on how to refine her instincts vis a vis the Doctor into something sharper and more effective.


Both episodes had lots of energy and I'm really liking the steampunk look of the repaired (regenerated? healed?) Tardis.

I felt like there was something essentially unsound about the premise of "The Beast Below" (5.2) but I have to think about it more before I can articulate it.Something flawed in the psychological manipulation in which only two choices are presented: to remember (and die) or forget (and comply). Particularly in the case of the Queen, who seems to have convinced herself she must perpetually forget and remember and forget and remember over and over again.

I'm also hazy on why the "beast" would eat those very adult citizens who chose to remember and protest. If it has enough agency to refuse to eat the children who have been chosen as sacrifices, why would it accept the very adult humans who could be its allies?

So yeah: I'm left with niggling questions.

But I'm a fan of the Queen ... and her cape ... and her guns.