The subject of today’s post was inspired by an old Robin Williams comedy album, back in the days when comedians recorded albums of their standup sketches. Do they still do that? I don’t think I’ve seen one in ages, though admittedly I haven’t gone looking.
Voyage of the Damned is the name of the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas special, which I had a chance to view yesterday. It has a couple of really funny bits. London is deserted at Christmas this year, because for the past two years, aliens have attacked the city so the only two people left in town are the Queen, staying as a show of faith, and a newspaper vendor, who stays as a plot device to explain to the Doctor why everyone is out of town. As inspirational Christmas stories go, this one is a bit dire, with the usual amounts of death and destruction we’ve grown to expect from DW. Kylie Minogue is terrific in her guest appearance, and it’s a shame that she’s not going to be continuing. The episode was fun, though a tad predictable (certain characters, as soon as you see them you know they’re trouble, like the musical Santas in the first special). There are a number of touching and affecting deaths, and the sonic screwdriver gets a good workout. Not necessarily a “feel-good” episode for the holidays, the final few moments are quite nice. It was good to see Clive Swift, Richard from the BBC/PBS series Keeping Up Appearances.
This afternoon, we watched Persuasion, the 1995 movie based on the Jane Austen novel of the same name. Another story of a woman who can’t have the man she wants at one point and almost gets tangled up with the wrong man in the interim until she finally ends up with the right man in the end. In this case, it wasn’t obvious to me for quite a while why the wrong man was wrong for her. He was her cousin, but that wasn’t a negative back then, as the right man for the main character in Mansfield Park was her cousin. Nicely filmed, well entrenched in the period. The main character was more dour than her counterpart in Mansfield Park, but it was another case of all’s well that ends well. There were a couple of characters I would gladly have strangled, including her sister and father.
Received a rejection yesterday for a story I submitted on Christmas Eve day, so someone was busy over the holidays spreading cheer!
3 Responses to Village of the Damned People