Robin Hood and A2A

[jedi_of_urth]

Okay, so in terms of getting up to date on things I got a couple of them ticked off yesterday.

Went and saw the new Robin Hood movie:

It was okay, not great not bad, just okay. It left me with a hankering to rewatch *my* Robin Hood show (probably a good idea anyway if I plan to participate in my own big bang challenge at bigbanghood).

My parents commented on the historical inaccuracies (in that they were able to mostly ignore them but they were there) and I kind of laughed. Anything less than copious amounts of eye liner and camo pants and twelfth century Casino Royal action can pass for more accurate; and since all of those things were absent I didn’t have much to comment on.

Also absent however, Armitage’s Gisborne, which is a great loss to just about any story. Godfrey is just not a suitable replacement.

It was also a lesson in just how accustomed I am to seeing the story from the perspective of the villains (or at least not-heroes). Because early on, when John was chewing out Eleanor (also lacking in really crazy Peej and frisky Eleanor), I was like “yeah that’s pretty much the gist of it,” because Richard just wasn’t all that awesome a king. All this brought on by JA’s Robin having such obsessive devotion to the man and me thinking it was a pretty stupid attitude.

I think I would say Robin is one area where I may have preferred movie version to show version, this Robin didn’t have a lot of the flaws (that weren’t treated as flaws) that I so disliked in JA-Robin. Movie-Marian was…similar to LG-Marian but hard to compare. I love show-Marian and didn’t love movie-Marian, but I did like her and the rest could just be how much time we had with the characters.

The amount of time was a huge factor with the merry men/outlaws/gang. I don’t feel like I really know any of the movie versions, they had familiar names and seemed likable enough, but there was very little character development for them. Also less eye candy than their show counterparts imo. And a lack of Much, not that it would have been the Much I adore even if he had been there, but…well, Much (and Djaq for that matter).

Contrary to my parent’s stance I wanted *more* crack in my Robin Hood, I’m just used to it that way. I mean, those forest kids could totally have gone to the randomly appearing Locksley orphanage right? Where’s the James Bond villain style slowly lowering Robin into a pit of snakes? Can’t we get one reference to homeland security?

Basically what this proves is that while the movie was far from bad, it wasn’t engaging enough to make me stop thinking about where it was different from my preferred RH, and is in no danger of replacing it.





And then, I watched the end of Ashes to Ashes:

When my f-list started talking about it I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to know if it ended well, but I ended up spoiled for a few things so I knew approximately how it ended. So I drug my feet a bit on my rewatch of LoM and the first two seasons of A2A before I belatedly started season 3 because I was kind of dreading the end. It was so…final. Sure I had already heard this was going to be the last season, probably like when the season started, but knowing it was coming I just didn’t think I was ready.

I’m still not sure I was but it had reached the point where I needed to see it through, I wanted to actually *see* it more than I dreaded it.

Some general season three thoughts before I get to the finale:

I think I need to rewatch the season because while watching it the tone seemed off, but I think it’ll hold better on rewatch. Because some things, like the lack of other world voices was bugging me, but if Alex was already dead, well it makes sense that she would no longer be getting messages/visions from the “real world.”

I’m really not sure about the approach the writers took with Keats, so I need to judge it better in light of the end. The problem was, Keats was *always* creepy, it wasn’t just that he was trying to split up the main team, he was just…slimy feeling all along, so it was harder to figure out why the team would trust him so much. Especially Alex who knew the world wasn’t entirely real and therefore can judge some things on a more meta textual level than the others. Keats is in there fighting to bring down Gene, I could buy her not being sure if her way out was through breaking down the world down or if she should hold on to it, but she seemed to trust him a little too much for my tastes.

Still not sure how I feel about Sam being such a big deal this season. I get that it was a way to lead up to the finale but it felt really drawn out with little forward motion most of the time. All it did was throw an elephant in the room with Gene and Alex all season, and considering last season ended with her telling him the truth and his shooting her I think they had enough issues that the Sam one could have waited a bit and then moved faster in the lessened time. The fact that they never deal with the fallout from the big fight bugged me, sure the shooting thing takes precedence but it seems like to me that the fight and the truth should have been made something of.

Chris, Shaz, and Ray were all amazing this season (even if I didn’t like that Chris and Shaz broke up between seasons when they were and are flipping adorable together…also adorable on their own, but added adorable together). Even if I hadn’t kind of guessed what was going to happen from my slight spoiling, it was pretty clear something was going to happen to them too. It wasn’t just coming to the end of Alex’s time in that world, something big was going on with the rest of them. Each of them got plenty of time to shine throughout the whole show, but particularly this season.

Not that the shipping is the main reason I watch this show but having both couples on the outs this time made things always feel…a bit wrong. Alex and Gene’s dysfunctional adorability shifted even more to the dysfunctional side and Chris and Shaz’s relationship just wandered off it seemed. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense with the story going on, I just wanted my ships to be making out instead of fighting and/or pretending they weren’t in love with each other.

Okay, so some more directly finale related thoughts, though still about the season over all.

Let me start off with, the person I feel most sorry for in all this is Molly. She had one truly crappy birthday. Even if Alex didn’t actually die until a few days later (seems logical enough) she still had like the worst birthday ever. And I nearly always feel worse for those left behind than for the ones who die (which as a side note is why Doomsday is so heartbreaking, *both* the Doctor and Rose are the one left behind).

On the flip side when it comes to Molly I feel sorry for Alex a lot too. She never even got to say goodbye, the last thing she said was to promise to be there for Molly’s birthday and that’s been with her all along. A promise the worlds wouldn’t let her keep, and knowing that while her daughter has plenty of people who love her, her life will never be the same.

By a similar token in the end of course I’m sorry for Gene, because he just lost all the people who matter to him (*and* had his car wrecked, but it can be replaced a lot easier) and he knows (at least for now) that they’re all in the pub waiting for him, that he *could* have gone with them but instead he stayed without them and now will just go through it again. I more or less get why he didn’t go in, but it’s still sad. Still, one day he will I’m sure (I have to think so) and all those he’s helped will given him a round of applause and a round of drinks and Alex will be there to welcome him in with a kiss.

I think maybe I ought to do a full review of…maybe a lot of eps now because I never do know when to draw the line, so if I want to this one I'll probably end up doing at least most of the season. And I do think this deserves more than trying to remember which scenes I wanted to talk about. So I’ll skip to some cracky last comments.

Notice my earlier points, yeah I have half a mind to write Gene and Molly adventures. If somehow Gene survived/didn’t move on into the twenty first century and Molly grew up and joined to police force, got hurt and ended up back when her mum got shot. Or maybe shortly after Alex left Gene’s world (just because Alex and Sam were both within their own lives and the rest must have been doesn’t mean that for cracky ideas I can't say Molly can't end up at another time in the pseudo-afterlife), mess with both their heads plenty.

And of course, because everything comes back to Doctor Who, I can totally see doing a story with Ten (I) ending up there as he’s regenerating. He didn’t want to go after all, and his lifeline is really confused. Sure he’s not a copper, but again half formed probably crack idea. And wasn’t it in 1987 that DW went off the air? That could be his mystery to figure out/try to avert and fail (or at least a non meta offshoot idea of that). I can totally see Ten and Gene moping at whatever replaces Luigi’s and ending up helping both of them accept that they can move on (and be reunited with the women they love because Ten I totally then wakes up as Ten II and the previously mentioned Alex/Gene making out in the pub).

There, close on a happy note.

Comments

[sunnytyler001.livejournal.com]

I like your fic idea :D

[jedi_of_urth]

I think I have enough writing projects in my hands at the moment so I probably will never actually get to this because if I wait too long it'll slip through my muses hands.

But anyway, which one?

[sunnytyler001.livejournal.com]

Ten becoming the new Sam Tyler XD

[jedi_of_urth]

I figured that was what you meant but since I also mentioned the adventures of Molly and Gene I couldn't be positive.

Also have I mentioned my notion that if they ever bring Roman back then Keely should totally play her for more interplay between the two shows.

[bron-v.livejournal.com]

The idea of Alex being dead didn't really hit me properly until I rewatched S1, and they had all the parts with Molly, and all the scenes of Alex promising to get back to her... then it hit me badly, and made me feel really sorry for Molly. Apart from the fact that it all happened (or started happening) on her birthday, I think young Alex kind of had it worse than Molly though. Or maybe not, the bit that really, really gets me when Alex's parents die is the fact that her mum was about to take a break from work for Alex, and she never finds out. So maybe not, I should just stop thinking too much about it really...

In the final episode, the person I felt really sorry for was Gene. Alex has kind of given him shit in most of the second half of the series, then when he's just gaining her trust again Keats ballses it up. And when they ort it out for good... the others all pop off to heaven. I've consolled myself by thinking that one day he'll go and join the others. Part of me would like to see a series in which Gene sorts out his "issue" like the others did, then follows them into the pub, but I know if that happened, it would just be atrocious without the others.

I agree with you about the ships this season, it has not been healthy to ship either of them this year. And I'm also 100% with you about Doomsday, it's always the character left behind I feel sorry for, so for them both to be stuck... it has me in floods every single time.

[jedi_of_urth]

I rewatched the first seasons before doing season three in about a week so it was pretty fresh in my mind what Alex had to loose back in her own time. But since the voices pretty much stopped in season 3 it wouldn't be as fresh in people's minds if they hadn't just seen the earlier times. Kid-Alex had a pretty bad time of it herself though, but somehow it doesn't hit me as hard as thinking about Molly does; maybe because we see where Alex ends up and though clearly that event still haunts her (especially with the previously subconscious knowledge that her father did it), we don't know what happened to Molly.

As for people actually *in* the finale, yeah Gene got a raw deal. Although I really felt sorry for him and Alex in 3x07 because Keats royally screwed both of them over there, because Alex had started to come around only to get lost again. Then he had to find out he was actually dead and so is everyone else he knows; be abandoned by most of his team; then lose his car, his team, and the woman he loves within like three hours; plus get taunted by Keats in there.

I don't think it would take much to round out Gene's story (and I badly want it because I need to see him get a happy ending too), and episode or two and a couple of good supporting characters. I mean, we were all pretty suspicious of doing A2A since it wouldn't have Sam in it so with this writing team I think if they wanted to they could pull it off and make us love it the way we have in two different series'. Of course I'd miss the rest of the cast but I also think telling the time traveling cop story from the perspective of the non-time traveler could be really interesting.

Even though the ships aren't the reason I watch the show, I'm still a shipper of both couples and it was really hard to hold out hope this season. They were just in a holding pattern most of the season, Shaz being angry at the world and Chris being a lonely puppy, Alex's suspicions about Gene, and Gene's reactive anger over that and her acceptance of Keats. It just...kept going and it hurt to watch the characters I love hurt each other. Especially my darling Chris, he was so obviously still in love with Shaz and just didn't have a way to reach her.

I remember even as a kid that character death hurt sure but the grieving of other characters was what would have me sobbing. That hasn't changed a lot, really I've just gotten to where I have a more emotional reaction to everything I read or watch than I did then, so everything hurts. But Doomsday just takes the cake because it combines all of that into what beautifully written gut punch.

[bron-v.livejournal.com]

I think the bit that gets me about young Alex is that she always, always looked sad, whereas Molly had a sortof happy-auror about her. And she knew that her mum loved her, which Young Alex never really knew.

I would me more worried about the lack of Ray and Chris than Alex or Sam. I originally thought an Alex/Sam type character would be needed, but I guess now that Gene's remembered the truth, that wouldn't be so necessary.

I was awful with character deaths as a kid.

[jedi_of_urth]

That is true about little Alex, can't argue with that at all.

After LoM I wouldn't have felt terrible about replacing Ray and Chris if they needed to, but now...yeah a bit of a bind. There's no supporting cast any more, the only character left is Gene (maybe they could bring Annie back finally) and well, I still think it can be done but it's going to feel really empty without some careful treading and maybe even then (but it can be used effectively if done wisely).

I don't remember reading a ton of books or watching much TV/movies with characters dying as a kid, I just avoided it, I'm really only recalling a couple specific instances where the shock waves of character death hit me harder than the initial dying.

[mattyroh07.livejournal.com]

My parents commented on the historical inaccuracies (in that they were able to mostly ignore them but they were there) and I kind of laughed. Anything less than copious amounts of eye liner and camo pants and twelfth century Casino Royal action can pass for more accurate; and since all of those things were absent I didn’t have much to comment on.

Yeah, some of my friends commented that this version was historically inaccurate and I was like "I've been watching the BBC version so long that I've forgotten what historical accuracy is". lol

[jedi_of_urth]

Being a BBC RH fan kind of means building up a thick skin or an ability to be amused by the historical inaccuracies, it's just there, if you can't find a way to deal you're probably not going to stick with the show. But now I take those attitudes/expectations to other RH stories, which also amuses me.