Kite

It's been forever since the last season and I don't remember much, same goes for the book, so mea culpa for not understanding quite a bit of this episode. It did seem this episode whenever it could take the "edgy" option, it did on cue. Yes, life sucks and is mean and tough and then you die you'll learn kid etc. I tend to avoid a lot of books written by men. But importantly, it was leavened with humour and beauty. I nerdily love alternate retellings with Norse mythology (like, reading Scandi language novels nerdy), so here I am despite the show not being quite up my alley. I LOVED the dream Asgard sequence with the emptiness and grandeur and cold and skulls rolling around on the beach, and the reality-bending scene of all the gods in full aspect with flaming eyes. Gods are not usually shown or written very well as gods, as avatars of power and belief, I liked how this was done, 8/10. I LOVE Mr Nancy, I could watch him all day. Just, so great. Favourite character. Come on Shadow, I know you're meant to be the audience avatar, but the bemusement is getting to me. You're not THAT much of a babe in the woods, especially by now. I don't feel much affinity for US culture, I feel it would really help if I did, it's a homage. The brains looked just like the defrosted mixed berries on my breakfast. In general I really like the surrealism, like a free drug trip, I just half-arsedly couldn't figure out what was going on half the time.

I feel that didn't work for me. She seemed more driven by grief and anger at Ivar by the end, and seemed surprised when he strangled her. I've seen the same beautiful sexualised passivity for ~drama played out with female characters way too many times, it just didn't seem to jive with her other actions in the episode, imho.

Lol I missed that!!! My favourite reverse anachronism was the use of brass plumbers chain as a fancy chainmail mantle for the King of Mercia.

Enjoyed the last ep, after a season I didn't enjoy very much. Good battle. Epic ending (I like the mystic and myth cultural stuff and wish there was more) though I don't really remember the show's backstories that much. I've always liked Bjorn. (Only thing that took me out of the story was Freydis being really super-dumb, c'mon, if she's that determined and brave as to betray Ivar, is she just going to meekly roll over and beautifully let him kill her? No, except in some writer's plot logic. Also, Norse folk exposed babies all the damn time.)

That was a fabulous fight between Ubbe and Frodo. Really well done, visceral, very tense, animalistic. Bye Judith, that was quick. So Alfred's wife already knew she murdered her other son, or? I just can't with the shieldmaiden stuff in this show... the pre-Christian Norse had such an intensely macho culture, it's possible there were some women who were warriors (controversial), but they would have not been happily back and forth between kids, pretty dresses and fighting. I wish the show would show more realistic gender politics, rather than idealising it as a modern wish-fulfilment fantasy, but *shrug* common fantasy trope. The bro slap after Bjorn and Harald's fight was the funniest thing ever. Lol I really hope Floki is dead, the end of that storyline. If he isn't he's not human, that cave's gotta be full of tiny glass particles and sulphur. I knew Christian monks were supposed to have found Iceland first, but I wasn't expecting his find, it was a great scene. The death of the old ways. Ummm okay so everyone wants a piece of Kattegat, but surely Ivar the Boneless has gotta go back to England and do some serious raiding first? Or? I don't mind that Ivar's not dead, crappy powerful people stay alive and in power all the time, and hey, next to the Game of Thrones baddies we love to hate, he's a saint. Alfred acknowledging the heathen gods was interesting, especially as he was the hallowed pilgrim. Not sure if Christian rulers would have ever realistically done that for diplomacy, I'd love to know. Their ideas of faith as being beyond one's culture were very different from the heathens. Hvitserk seems slightly more mature here, rather than a hopeless manboy. Sending such a violent, strong and resolute character weak and crazy because two of their ex-lovers died is such a boring cliched thing to do to a female character, and very unusual for a male character. I hope Lagertha gets something interesting and proactive to do soon. Oh, and Torvi's chainmail headband was hilarious Viking chic. So fashionable.

Ehhhh I'm a week behind with this episode, I discovered The Last Kingdom, though I wandered back after I got annoyed at that main character being all kind of modern self-inserty. Anyway, this season of Vikings is still sucking, and I rolled my eyes a lot. Yep, I'm nearly into hate-watch territory. (My sis enthusiastically told me this week that it's her favourite show.) I guess it's not terrible, it's just... not what it used to be. I'm really pissed off at Lagertha's story, it's ticking so many boxes for a sexist handling of a "strong female character". Floki made a really cool not-threat. That was about the most interesting thing that's happened in Iceland for me. Not saying much. Actually, showing how Norse men routinely raped their male captives (plus, heaps of consensual or semi-consensual homosex) would have been an interesting window into pre-Christian Norse culture, but it's been relentlessly heterosexual except for the tedious "I killed my lesbian lover" trope. The birth scene was handled quite well I thought. Although maybe I'm projecting cos I had a birth that went wrong. The scenes with Hvitserk were just weird. He's unrealistically goofy. Still, at least something interesting plot-wise is happening with that. Why would Bjorn and his new wife bait Harald? Is the script just putting in some good put-downs and ignoring the apparent lack of wisdom in it? Hmm. I closed my eyes through the burning the family thing. NOPE. It was interesting seeing some Saxon witchcraft. Oh well, bye Judith. Really super uninterested by the conversation between the three women at the end, felt like some dude's idea of how women talk to each other about women things. For some reason I really don't care about Ubbe's story, though the actor is great. Perhaps something unexpected will happen next week.

I've just discovered this show exists! My first ever time with Netflix last night, that autoplay at 10pm was fatal. My god I'm enjoying it so much more than the last couple of seasons of Vikings. It's very entertaining seeing parallel takes on history. Alfred is actually scary in TLK, but in a good way.

Historically, don't you have to invent or seize upon some kind of huge pressing threat to roll back democracy? (*cough*) That's how it always seems to go. People don't willingly give up their freedom and their power unless they're convinced by fear (psychology has found people are more "conservative" when in a fear mindset), and Ivar just isn't providing it, apart from vague "let's make things greater, we have lots of enemies". As for Norse revenge culture eating itself from within (which I think is fuelled by their belief systems), are they going to show any transition to Christianity, with the different things it had to offer? It's probably beyond the scope of the show, and besides, I think they're trying to be fairly neutral about both traditions which is fair enough. (I kinda wish they'd show just a little more of Norse heathen culture, eg casual supersitions, their fluid ideas of gender, all the ways men could insult one another and challenge each other to fights, and what happened if someone refused- but then they'd have to show the culture as a hella lot more sexist than on screen. The show is just a gloss on all that, and again, fair enough.)

Iceland is just like a comedy sketch where everything is hilariously awfully bad. Of course whoever-that-was was going to kill herself. DRA-MAT-ICALLY! I just can't get over the raining indoors. Everyone would die of hypothermia within a day. Since there's no fcking plants anywhere, where did they get the completely inadequate brushwood anyway, and couldn't they live closer to wherever that came from? So many questions I don't really care about. Still Team Judith. Slayyyy, queen. Tell your son to pull himself together, yesssss. Finally Bjorn is being proactive about something rather than just Brooding. Lol Alfred getting owned by Torvi. So we're getting a Nazi type parallel with Ivar. Okay. His logo even looks like the Black Sun fascist symbol. Yadayadayada. Something unpredictable happen soon in Kattegat, please.

Now is the perfect time to off Æthelred. If she didn't, he would take over while Alfred was still gravely ill. I'm not sure Judith cares more for herself than Alfred (unlike, say Cersei from GoT). Æthelred's hissing at Judith I found truly terrifying. To me that showed how he was not to be trusted, that he still craved power, that he was still garnering support. But also overall that he was weak, if he had been strong perhaps Judith would have been not quite as strong in her favouritism of Alfred. (Interesting but irrelevant mythological fact: "Alfred" means "elf counsel".) Team Judith. Powerful people were always being offed throughout history, part of the game of thrones. We've seen it enough in Kattegat, even from people we like. Even royal family members in history were offing each other, and Æthelred's mother decided to off him before he offed his brother. It was really affecting to see how she was as she was doing it though. I actually like her, even though the showrunners are so sexist in making Floki look a million years old but none of the women. Glad Bjorn's striking off on his own, doing something that will lead to plenty more plot trouble. Don't get the Buddha thing except to get Ivan's hilarious confusion and show how cosmopolitan the Vikings were. Hvitserk is just spinning his wheels. I know Ivar the Boneless is destined to face off against Alfred the Great (millenia old spoilers?) so I feel like they're gonna be okay for a good long while, despite the show's ahistoricity Iceland subplot just breaking a lot of rules of writing in that it feels like it has no relevance to anything else and is leading nowhere. It's just so moany and improbably miserable, like raining inside the houses. Iceland actually had a nicer climate than now when it was settled, and covered in trees, but they just have to make it look like a volcanic hellscape, I just don't believe they could survive on growing/hunting ANYTHING in that landscape. Also, interesting historical fact, seems there may have been Christians there who buggered off when the Norse heathens arrived.

"modern day female" dude wtf with the phrasing. I think he looks sillier now, like I said, cosplaying as an adult.

I'm just watching this show out of habit now and also just that I'm interested in this period of history. Plus the pretty if inaccurate costumes/visuals. Ivar's not being offed soon, due to history (spoilers?), I don't mind him too much as long as he has some interesting opposition. I'm finding the Wessex stuff far more interesting. All the intrigue. Love seeing Alfred become the Great, I really like the actor. Hilarious how his delightfully androgynous boyish look got transformed this episode into cosplaying an Adult. Heahmund was almost interesting last episode, here he's kind of boring again. Lagertha has no chemistry with him. I don't caaaaaare about Iceland either, everyone is being rained on, even indoors (LOL), there is nothing green shown anywhere, the show is going way OTT on this, and again, I just don't care. Please do something interesting soon with this.

Re the spiders, I found that bit annoying. You can have an anti-gun message without it conflicting with times when euthanasia might be necessary (such as with pets). Be kind, not nice, Doctor. Also, the "Ghostbusters" visual reference was freaking funny, but "essential oils" vs "guns" was too on the nose for me personally. But I'm not a kid and this show is sometimes for kids, like the farting aliens! I reckon Yaz thinks she's going to get back half an hour later like last time. I reckon that might not be the case. I found the episode definitely got more fun with a rewatch (like with ep2), and have come to terms with the fact that the plot is pretty much incidental to the characterisation, and that's probably a Chibnall thing. blarghhh not this "I'm not homophobic/etc BUT..." again. (It's been attenuating off the last few years thankfully.) Get used to it, we're not visible to be all about YOU being virtue-signalled or w/ever, we're visible cos um, WE EXIST.

Wasn't that a joke about being a nun or did I mishear? ETA: Also, I've been thinking about the Doctor's portrayal in the episode, I don't know for sure, I feel it might have been written as a bit too... vulnerable? What do other people think? So far I've been really keen on 13, but wasn't quite sure about some of the lines in this episode. I haven't watched any Peter Davison episodes for years (as a child I found him a bit boring, unlike 13, the actor plays him as quite testy in the recent audios though) but a lot of people have been drawing comparisons between 5 and 13 re being pleasant and vulnerable. I feel there might be some gender stuff going on re 13 though.

I don't think it was just the American one, I got the full length sans ads and it was confusingly resolved. I thought I'd missed something but I don't think so. Plus, we have four villainous types who could come back (I hope they don't)... this one was a real caricature for children though. Over-egged.

Well, that was a lighter outing! I'm not freaked by spiders so wasn't really scared, but love the scene where the spiders are coming en masse down the hallway. Four for four episodes with toxic masculinity power corrupts type baddie, I think it's a theme? Definitely one for this age though, Trump being mentioned isn't a coincidence. I feel this episode was one for the kids, or at least the messages and dialogue in it seemed really super obvious to me. ETA: There kept being the "spiders don't usually do this" line, and I'm from Australia so I was like "but spiders are dangerous??" and then I remember how an episode of Peppa Pig (UK) got banned in Australia because it irresponsibly told children spiders were friendly. LOL. Also, I mean, the Guns Are Bad line was super obvious (and actually farmers shoot dying stock and roadkill here as it's considered kinder) but I guess it's not so bad, considering, to have some nationalist identity around "we don't worship guns here". (We have that same pride at not being like the US in Australia.)

The Incomparable DW podcast this week made a fantastic point about Rosa's space racist, saying that good science fiction isn't really about the future, it's about us, about the present. Krasko symbolises the responsibility we have in the present to guard the future. I woke up to hear that Krasko shot up a Jewish baby-naming ceremony yesterday, with no sense except blind, old, hatred. Just.... Krasko is everywhere, today, stupid and obscene and hungry for power. Krasko will continue into the future. Imprisoning and neutering and even shooting individual Kraskos seens to make them come back even harder, Captain America, random antifa dude, and even the Doctor punching Nazis feels good in a macho way, but to really address racism we have to fight them with our hearts and minds and bodies in other ways, with the identities we hold. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." (I've used my white body to try fight racism, I have confronted police many times, it felt awkward and scary and maybe the wrong thing, not heroic, just saying I'm not being a hypocrite here.) On the topic of Doctor Who podcasts (Podcasts!! are ❤), I've been hitting a few hard this series while I go about my work. Black voices in particular: TARBIS (three American women both snarky and really insightful) and Straight Outta Gallifrey who usually cover Timelord themed episodes did a special Rosa episode this week too. Much whiter, I can also recommend Verity (five women from four countries, Liz is their own Scottish Doctor), This Week in Time Travel (two thoughtful Americans woman/man), Debating Doctor Who (ditto), The Incomparable DW Flashcast (ditto), Radio Free Skaro (three amusingly self-deprecating nerd guys from Canada), honourable mentions to the Web of Queer (UK/US), the Doctor Who Show (Australia - with a "sports" awards section!) and Tin Dog (UK).

I had to look this up to check! I don't know if you get BBC America differently in different places, but when I searched for the show on its schedule, it's telling me there's a new ep at 8pm on the 4th. (Also on the BBC UK and ABC in Australia schedules.) Phew! (Although with time zones and schedule changes Australian fans are now bemoaning having to watch on Monday, luckily ABC politely fast tracks it online to sunrise.)

I've been waiting for my kids to get old enough to try shamelessly pushing my fave show onto them, I think they would enjoy that certain creature episode as an ideal way to introduce them! Being as they are 3 & 5 and lots of talking makes them zone out, Rosa will have to wait but they will!

Oh and of course til the cows come home you will insist that you're not uncomfortable, because that would give it the legitimacy of challenging you. Of course it's just "not your cup of tea, it's boring, it's not relevant, it's shoehorned in, etc". The word "didactic" is very telling though. Your reaction is SO common, whatever progressive social issue it is, you're in cosy company mate! Uh yes, hello, agree. This isn't some dry exercise. That's how I took this - much time travel fiction and DW itself has focused on some parts of time being more fragile and crucial than others, partly by the events and partly by the convenient mysterious handwavium properties of time. (In reality I think the butterfly effect would apply much more.)

Maybe for you, you haven't thought of the show in general as telling us a particular view of people, because most of the time, it's aligned with your own. And then an episode comes along that makes some people temporarily a bit uncomfortable (as opposed to all the episodes you didn't have a personal problem that had a constant wearing impact on others) and those people start losing their goddamn minds about the "heavy-handedness" that made them feel temporarily a bit uncomfortable. It's really telling how people react.

I've never seen Quantum Leap but Doctor Who has been a time-travelling show since the 60s with all sorts of very different takes on time travel. They've dealt with "not changing history" or "preserving history" in lots of ways before, though not quite like this, where the Doctor DOESN'T get to be a Big Damn Hero. (Or tries to NOT just stand quietly by, such as with the devastating Waters of Mars.) EDIT: I just remembered a story from the 60s like this where the Doctor and his team have to race to stop a time traveller from messing with a crucial point in history, and wreck his dimensional control to boot. (Are there any others like that?) There was a lot more bombs & fighting & heroics & such though, this was a much quieter episode. This is a nitpick or a DW/Torchwood nerdy continuity question, but I feel like if Time Nazi knew what a TARDIS was, he'd know what a Time Lord was? But did people throughout time know what happened to them given the Time War did weird things to time (at least some races did?), and has that been undone with the weird Gallifrey is sorta back thing? (I've kind of blanked on a lot of the Moffat era.) If he did know what they were, he may have pegged they're pretty knowledgeable and not asked the "who are you?" (Still, great moment.)

IMO, further back there wasn't much going on that would empower Black people, this was the beginning. He can go back to a time with even less technology, and even more retrogressive views, where he belongs. I wouldn't call Ryan stupid for this.

No, he was a human alright, from the 79th century. And a racist one. If he'd been an alien out to get humans, his knowledge of and intention to mess with a small but pivotal aspect of human history to stop triggering the civil rights movement to give Black people & other non-white people more power on into (his) future, would have made no sense.

Oh my. What an episode. I teared up during the final confrontational scene, and I'm not usually that emotional about shows. I'm sure I can nitpick later, but OMG Doctor Who pulled off this big risk, and props to this old show for moving forward. "Stormcage" OMFG well played show. And also for showing that racism is not going to be just magically erased by The Future like a lot of sci fi does. We got a little more about the companions, even Yaz. But we're going to get a romance... okay I suppose... The Doctor was even more badass, which is giving me so much life. EDIT: okay I remember Stormcage was a prison River Song was in (right?), but it sounded a heck of a lot like Stormfront, and so many of those actively Nazi types are ex-cons too.