Father/Daughter TVpalooza: Night 1

Margie’s off to Oracle World (or whatever they’re calling it these days), so Kay and I got to watch TV until our eyes bled.

Well, we actually normally watch a fair amount of TV as it is, but Margie being out lets us indulge (and impose upon one another) things we might not throw up on the screen normally.  Usually that’s movies, but, for some reason, yesterday was all about TV shows … I took the first shot:

Dave: Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks:  We’d actually watched the first two segments of this 6-part serial (1975) several months back, before Kay decided that OldWho was unutterably cheesy and would have nothing more to do with it.  Faced with being cut off from her watch of the current series while Margie was away, though, she relented, and as I wanted to get her to this first appearance of Davros before he pops up at the end of the Fourth Series of NewWho, it was all win-win.

To start out with, yes, Kay was right, it is unutterably cheesy. BBC always produced Doctor Who on a shoestring, and this episode demonstrates that over and over again.  Writing-wise, the half-hour multi-part format makes for cliffhangers and convenient rescues that would put the Saturday Afternoon Movie Serial to shame.

That said, Tom Baker is his usual excellent as the Fourth Doctor, veering between huge grins, tragic grief, and monstrous indecision about whether to commit genocide against the nascent Dalek race. Liz Sladen’s Sarah Jane does a lot of screaming and squealing, but also demonstrates initiative and independence (Kay couldn’t get over her wearing a yellow rain slicker for much for the first half of the serial).  Ian Marter’s Harry is stolid, plucky, and everything the third banana Companion is supposed to be.

Worth a rewatch for the morality plays, mass (bloodless) killings of extras and billed players, and, of course, to see the origin of the Daleks.

Kay seemed to enjoy it — and actually found herself liking the Fourth Doctor and his scarf, despite herself.

Kay: Sarah Jane Adventures, Series 1:  We watched the first season and change of this back when it was first out on DVD, but now that Kay has actually watched Doctor Who, she wanted to go back to it.

We rewatched the pilot special (“Invasion of the Bane“), as well as the two-part “Revenge of the Slitheen“. They’re both good fun, even if a bit young-folk-skewed in plot and story sophistication. Sladen’s wistful but resolute Sarah Jane is a fine character, as she finds herself drawn back both to Investigating the Weird and, even more uncomfortably, becoming a surrogate parent to her Scooby Gang.

There are some witty fan service bits in the first few eps, with the sonic lipstick applicator, a cameo by K-9, and an expository deus ex machina in the form of “Mr. Smith.” The FX are competent, if hardly cutting edge, but they do the job.

Young folks could do far worse than watching this series, especially as a gateway drug to Doctor Who.

Dave: Star Trek: The Next Generation: “Encounter at Farpoint“: For some reason I happened upon this on Amazon and noted it was free to view for Prime subscribers.  So I threw it up there to see how it was (after not having watched it for a decade or more).

The results were mixed.  My recollections of the first season of TNG being slow-paced, stolid, full of wonder about the universe and being happy and peaceful galactic campers were, apparently, correct.  If not for “Star Trek” on the label (in a period — 1987! — when there was a huge desire for same), this show would have died a deserved death.

Which would have been a shame, because this two-part ep also does a hell of a job establishing the TNG cast and their nascent character drivers.  Compassionate and controlled Picard, ambitious but sort of snotty Riker, over-emotive Troi, flamebrand Worf, somewhat less believable flamebrand Yar, professional and aloof Crusher, geeky fanboy Wesley, VISOR-wearing LaForge …

The directorial pacing on this premiere is horrifyingly slow (this same sort of story could be and was compressed down to a single ep in future TNG tales), and there’s so much desire to exposit, and to show off the new, fancy, glossy, whiz-bang Enterprise D that even the brightest shining moment of the episode — the introduction of John DeLancie’s “Q” — barely manages to hold interest.

For all of that, Kay confessed she liked it better than she had expected (this being her first real exposure to TNG), and better than The Original Series.  So we’ll probably end up watching more over time.  TNG did have some remarkably good episodes over the years; the trick is moving through/past all of the generic-to-crappy ones.

(Weird technical note: the Amazon PPV version of this episode was missing an audio track, which meant that some music cues, and several audio FX, including background sounds, were missing. Which gave everything a slightly surreal sensation, both as explicit events like guns firing and Q (dis)appearing were silent, and the background hum and whoosh of the Enterprise were completely gone, but the squeaking floors under the  characters as they walked around were quite audible.  Very odd.)

Big stack o’ stuff to watch for the rest of the week.  Wonder what Kitten will choose for her next item?