Even bad days come to an end, eventually
Oct. 6th, 2009 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntiemeeshI should have done at least a little work this evening. I've volunteered to help with the annual bookfair coming up at some point in Nov/Dec, and the task I was given is to turn our Amazon wishlist into an Excel spreadsheet. Easy peasy (once I came up with a work around for entering isbn numbers that start with zeroes into a program that doesn't let numbers start with zeroes) but a little time consuming, and deadly boring if there isn't something else going on. So, instead I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on the laptop, via Netflix. I like that they now have unlimited Watch Instantly time, and I've been doing a lot of instant watching lately, mainly Doctor Who.
Yesterday was a dvd, however, of Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy, another Fourth Doctor and Leela episode. This was a fascinating episode in which everyone got infected by an intelligent virus that caused them to grow Mardi Gras masks on their faces and become maniacally evil. It also had a space ship crewed by a pilot at the controls and two crewmen who sat about in Barcaloungers looking as though the comfyness of their seats was swiftly lulling them into a drooling coma. Perhaps that is why they were such easy prey for the intelligent virus.
The Doctor, who was also infected by the virus, was able to resist the urge to become maniacally evil by putting himself into a real coma, but not before he'd cloned himself and Leela. Their clones were then shrunk down to microscopic size and injected into the Doctor's head, in order to find a cure for the virus somewhere in his brain-mind connection area. If you're thinking that sounds a bit Innerspace, you're not the only one. So, the Doctor and Leela spend some time running around in the Doctor's inner workings being chased by one of the maniacally evil virus sufferers, trying to kill them before they kill the Host of the Swarm, the head maniacally evil virus honcho.
Leela spends most of this episode acting a bit unbalanced. One minute she's scolding the Doctor to not be afraid of something, the next she's cowering in a corner, clutching an end of his scarf and rocking back and forth like a scared child.
This is also the episode that introduces K-9. He is, I must admit, rather awesome right from the get-go. It does leave me to wonder, though, how he ended up with Sarah Jane, when the Doctor didn't even meet K-9 until after he'd left Sarah Jane behind. I'll have to watch "School Reunion" (Ten and Rose) again and see if I missed an explanation.
It was a bit handwavy, in the sense that the Doctor seemed so very familiar with the inside of his brain, as seen from a microscopic perspective, as if he'd done all this before. And of course, maybe he has. He is the Doctor, after all.
In all, a bit ridiculous, very hilarious, and totally enjoyable, worth it for the magical Mardi Gras masks if nothing else.
Tonight's viewing, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was entertainment of a totally different nature. Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison are the main stars in this 1947 movie. Totally schmoopy romance between a young widow and the ghost of a salty sea captain, the kind of movie I can only enjoy if it was made before 1950ish. I've always liked this movie, with its seaside backdrop and quiet love. It's schmoopy and sappy, but not drippingly so. And the characters are save from the fallacy of being perfect paragons. Mrs. Muir is occasionally haughty and a bit too full of her own good breeding, while the ghostly Captain Gregg is capricious and quick to judge others. He is, underneath all that and an unsurprisingly earthy personality, a good, kind soul. And Mrs. Muir is much the same. And somehow, the movie provides a happy ending to such a star-crossed pair. It was a good movie for tonight.
Yesterday was a dvd, however, of Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy, another Fourth Doctor and Leela episode. This was a fascinating episode in which everyone got infected by an intelligent virus that caused them to grow Mardi Gras masks on their faces and become maniacally evil. It also had a space ship crewed by a pilot at the controls and two crewmen who sat about in Barcaloungers looking as though the comfyness of their seats was swiftly lulling them into a drooling coma. Perhaps that is why they were such easy prey for the intelligent virus.
The Doctor, who was also infected by the virus, was able to resist the urge to become maniacally evil by putting himself into a real coma, but not before he'd cloned himself and Leela. Their clones were then shrunk down to microscopic size and injected into the Doctor's head, in order to find a cure for the virus somewhere in his brain-mind connection area. If you're thinking that sounds a bit Innerspace, you're not the only one. So, the Doctor and Leela spend some time running around in the Doctor's inner workings being chased by one of the maniacally evil virus sufferers, trying to kill them before they kill the Host of the Swarm, the head maniacally evil virus honcho.
Leela spends most of this episode acting a bit unbalanced. One minute she's scolding the Doctor to not be afraid of something, the next she's cowering in a corner, clutching an end of his scarf and rocking back and forth like a scared child.
This is also the episode that introduces K-9. He is, I must admit, rather awesome right from the get-go. It does leave me to wonder, though, how he ended up with Sarah Jane, when the Doctor didn't even meet K-9 until after he'd left Sarah Jane behind. I'll have to watch "School Reunion" (Ten and Rose) again and see if I missed an explanation.
It was a bit handwavy, in the sense that the Doctor seemed so very familiar with the inside of his brain, as seen from a microscopic perspective, as if he'd done all this before. And of course, maybe he has. He is the Doctor, after all.
In all, a bit ridiculous, very hilarious, and totally enjoyable, worth it for the magical Mardi Gras masks if nothing else.
Tonight's viewing, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was entertainment of a totally different nature. Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison are the main stars in this 1947 movie. Totally schmoopy romance between a young widow and the ghost of a salty sea captain, the kind of movie I can only enjoy if it was made before 1950ish. I've always liked this movie, with its seaside backdrop and quiet love. It's schmoopy and sappy, but not drippingly so. And the characters are save from the fallacy of being perfect paragons. Mrs. Muir is occasionally haughty and a bit too full of her own good breeding, while the ghostly Captain Gregg is capricious and quick to judge others. He is, underneath all that and an unsurprisingly earthy personality, a good, kind soul. And Mrs. Muir is much the same. And somehow, the movie provides a happy ending to such a star-crossed pair. It was a good movie for tonight.
