The struggle in terms of the strange

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Jack Graham

Jack Graham writes and podcasts about culture and politics from a Gothic Marxist-Humanist perspective. He co-hosts the I Don't Speak German podcast with Daniel Harper. Support Jack on Patreon.

4 Comments

  1. Anonymous
    May 23, 2011 @ 7:54 am

    Great review, Jack. Now I shall have to go and watch these again.

    Happy JN-T day

    IO-HE-VO-HE Azal!

    Reply

  2. Jack Graham
    May 23, 2011 @ 8:08 am

    Happy JN-T Day to you too!

    Reply

  3. JS
    May 24, 2011 @ 11:13 am

    Great review, particularly the conclusion-really got me seeing these stories in a new light, as your reviews often do

    What I find really interesting is Song of the Space Whale by Pat Mills was originally intended for the Mawdryn Undead slot. (I don't whether you've heard the Big Finish version)
    And in that story there are again these same themes of the curse of immortality, stranded people, and in this case the whale's life as a commodity.

    Oh and here's to JNT! For several wonderful and wonderfully different eras

    Reply

  4. Jack Graham
    May 24, 2011 @ 2:10 pm

    Thanks JS – that's really interesting. I'm not familiar with 'Song of the Space Whale', though I've heard of it. I'll have to look it up.

    It's interesting how the same themes keep popping up in 80s Who. They submerge and then resurface, shift and realign, but they're oddly consistent.

    I'm resistant to the idea that certain themes keep reoccuring in particular places and moments because of underlying social/political circumstances… it strikes me as a rather reductionist approach to culture… but sometimes the idea of coincidence seems even less plausible.

    Of course, JNT and Saward probably didn't set out to make the Black Guardian Trilogy thematically consistent… but they hired talented people who were, somehow, tuning into the same cultural frequencies and expressed them in diverse but complementary ways.

    Reply

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