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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

16 Comments

  1. sleepyscholar
    April 1, 2013 @ 2:59 am

    Yes. And on a more mundane level, Scherzo's excellence was a disastrous way to start the divergent universe arc. I had been sceptical about how they'd tackle the whole idea, and Scherzo came as a welcome challenge to that scepticism. They're really going to go for it! I thought. And then everything after this story was standard epace-ish fare that might as well have been set in Cardiff. And that meant, for me, that Scherzo itself was diminished, by the implication that it, too, could have just as well have been set in our universe. Our universe is fairly big, after all. Were they deliberately taking the piss, I wonder, when C'Rizz comments, at the start of the Dalek story, on how dark our universe is, not apparently considering the possibility that our universe might extend beyond the tunnel he has arrived in?

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  2. Steven Clubb
    April 1, 2013 @ 5:39 am

    This is one of those stories that always left me slightly cold. The reason mostly being the way it has to carefully maneuver itself around Charlie's infatuation with the Doctor. No matter how you decorate it, the elephant in the room remains an elephant and Big Finish has put themselves in the untenable situation of having a story line which they can neither advance nor retreat from.

    Since their relationship takes center-stage, something fundamental being broken can't help but taint the rest of the work. It unpleasantly reminds me of times where I was involved in some unrequited drama, but lacks the necessary catharsis to make it worthwhile.

    It's certainly Big Finish at the height of the experimentation. In the early years, they were keen to showcase sound as much as possible and in many regards this is the most successful experiment (it merely requires a different pair of characters at its core). "Whispers of Terror" was their first foray in a purely audio villain and required the plot to jump through lots of hoops to side-line video (apparently a highly developed world where television never supplanted radio as the window into the world) and something like Rapture can never escape the silliness of its now middle-aged teenage hero being a gigantic embarrassment at a rave.

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  3. Ununnilium
    April 1, 2013 @ 7:04 am

    My god that's a beautiful cover.

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  4. janie-aire
    April 1, 2013 @ 11:05 am

    Of course there's a way to advance — by making the Doctor/Charley relationship a central focus of their time in the Divergent Universe! It was all set up, and there's plenty to play with given it's brand new and the Doctor's all alien and such, but no, they had to flinch, troubled no doubt by the keyboard-wielding anoraks pounding limply at the gates.

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  5. Josiah Rowe
    April 1, 2013 @ 11:57 am

    It manages the impressive feat of being both a lovely image and an execrable pun.

    Reply

  6. Pen Name Pending
    April 1, 2013 @ 12:45 pm

    What you said about the new series addressing the romance thing and getting it out of the way rings really true with Clara: she's just going to kiss him and then die, and we'll spend our time traveling with someone who doesn't know that it happened and it doesn't need to be addressed. I shouldn't get too much into this since it will be addressed later in the blog, but Clara strikes me as very postmodern. She was pointing out how one of the narrative structures of Doctor Who is that someone trusts a strange man and follows him into a box…which does sound dodgy, when put like that. But the viewers know (because they have their own relationship with the show) that it is not like that.

    What bugs me, though, is that fandom will grab hold of a single hint of romance and hold it against the character and make it be what they are about, when in fact all of the companions (except for Martha, initially, as you said) have a much more deeper relationship. But then again, this is just a general frustration for me in life.

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  7. Ununnilium
    April 1, 2013 @ 2:48 pm

    To that last paragraph: INDEED.

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  8. Scott
    April 1, 2013 @ 5:19 pm

    … I don't see the pun [/small voice].

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  9. Scott
    April 1, 2013 @ 5:24 pm

    Without wanting to get too far ahead but since you mention Clara and postmodernism, in light of "Bells of St. John" Moffat seems to be doing some very interesting deconstruction (or at least playing with) the standard companion tropes, at least as developed by the new series up to this point. She listens to his by this point standard-yet-seductive 'the universe is out there' travelling pitch … and laughs in his face about how he's almost trying to chat her up. She clearly wants to travel with him and likes him anyway … but where most of the other new series companions have dropped everything to run away with him (even Donna when she was reintroduced), she's responsible and wants to discharge her obligations first. She makes him come back tomorrow. She flirts with him, but it's almost matter-of-fact in a way. She takes over the hacking and makes him go for coffee.

    It's almost Doctorish in a way. Frankly, I'm a lot more interested in Clara after her first proper episode than I have been in any of the other new series companions so far (although granted, the fact that she's been seeded throughout the season already and there's a mystery around her does give her something of an edge).

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  10. Ununnilium
    April 1, 2013 @ 8:28 pm

    Same. o.o

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  11. jane
    April 2, 2013 @ 4:32 am

    Puns are joyous and wonderful, never execrable — assuming, of course, that we love words and love playing with them.

    Scott, Un, the pun is that a play featuring only two performers is called a "two hander" — so the cover is particularly meta.

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  12. jane
    April 2, 2013 @ 4:35 am

    Love how Clara calls the TARDIS a "snogging box" given the symbolic import of kissing in the Revival!

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  13. BerserkRL
    April 2, 2013 @ 9:14 pm

    From the Grumpy Grammar Nazi: "mitigates against" should be "militates against."

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  14. Ununnilium
    April 2, 2013 @ 10:08 pm

    Ohhhhhhh. XD <3 Sheesh, Dr. S even used it in the essay.

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  15. sleepyscholar
    April 2, 2013 @ 10:24 pm

    Writing as someone who has made the same mistake, can I just say that I appreciate you reminding me of it, while also noting that the use of correct vocabulary and collocation can only loosely be described as "grammar".

    Reply

  16. BerserkRL
    April 3, 2013 @ 7:56 am

    You Grumpy Vocabulary Nazi you.

    Reply

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