#this is the end of my boxset so I'm gonna have to turn to more questionable sources for the next instalment

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Prescription: Murder

Yeah so here's something different. Very directly as a consequence of me mostly watching anime I don't enjoy recently, but then neither wanting to rewatch anything and being apprehensive about starting something new for a variety of reasons, I felt I needed a change of pace. Just launch myself into something completely different, that I could hopefully be invested in. And Columbo is what I ended up with. It's been implanted into my mind with its somewhat recent resurgance on tumblr, randomly getting recommended the blog Columbophile, seeing the very nice looking DVD boxset for sale in hmv, and the final nail in the coffin being some even more recent twitter memes regarding the series. "Let's watch Columbo" I decided. And here we are.

So, this is my first introduction to Columbo, with its pilot episode. And I liked it! Quite a bit! This is a very different type of media in general for me, so I don't know how much I'll have to say about any given episodes just because they're completely not what I'm used to, but certainly I like where we're at right now.

There's a lot of time well spent on merely setting up the murder - I believe this is what's famous about the series anyway but it's entirely not a whodunnit - we see exactly how the murder happens, exactly who does it, pretty much every part of why they did it, and even a lot of time spent on clean-up. Honestly at the beginning of the episode, Flemming is so meticulous that you begin to wonder how he's even gonna be caught. And throughout the episode they answer that very well, and very very gradually.

It turns into this clash of personalities really, two bright minds up against one another, one intentionally demeaning himself and the other so prideful that he basically admits to everything. But the pair have a read on one another as well - Columbo knows Flemming did it and Flemming basically explains Columbo's entire shtick to us anyway. Undermine himself, present as small, unkempt, distracting, downright annoying most of the time. Flemming gets the read on him but even then Columbo is so persistent and annoying that the man cracks.

Although per the episode's own calling attention to it, Joan was the real weak link in the entire ordeal - frankly she was just less invested than Flemming was, tripped him up because of it. I do think the final scene that plays out to get the confession was maybe a little contrived - wasn't really a conclusion to the bouncing pride and intelligence of Columbo and Flemming, rather just a scenario that came up to end the story, but like, eh. I appreciate that Joan... doesn't quite get off scot-free or anything but she could've had it worse, I think Flemming would rather she had it worse. This ending ends up working the best narratively for pretty much everyone involved. Like if she died it'd be unfair that she had the worst fate even though she was hesitant, you know? This was good.

That's pretty much the main things I've got to say about the episode. Fascinating as a more general statement to go back to a live action show from this long ago - honestly there are devices I don't even recognise, an aesthetic so far removed from my life but recent enough to feel real, or something. It's neat. I don't usually watch anything this old or anything live action to begin with, so like, yeah.

As two other quick little notes - I don't actually know if every episode has a neat title card like this one does, but I would like the format for these posts to be the episode title as the tumblr post title, followed by the episode title card. I hope the show lets me keep to that. Also, I've not got a schedule for this or anything. I've got 68 episodes still to watch which would be a lot even if they were 24 minutes long a la the anime I spend all my time watching. Instead, they're all 70-90 minutes long. I cannot even pretend to promise a consistent "yeah I'll watch it this week" or something. Next post on Columbo will be when I watch the next episode. I will watch the next episode whenever I watch it. You know how it is. But yeah, swag.

[elizabethshaw]

Okay. Thoughts on Stranded 3! (under the cut for spoilers):

Starting off, I really enjoyed this boxset!! I'll be honest and say I did kinda miss the more domestic aspects of the previous two, but the creativity of the stories this time definitely made up for it! There were some really cool concepts in each of them, and the atmosphere of each story was also done very well.

The first episode was probably my favourite - it was very unhinged and kinda trippy but in a good way, and was very satisfying to see come together. I also loved how the characters were paired off in different ways, it made for some interesting dynamics and a fresh perspective on the team as a whole I think. (Andy and Liv's dynamic was also just. Really fucking hilarious ngl, right from the off. Loved it.)

The second episode was also really cool! There was something disorientating about being dropped in in the middle of an adventure, but it actually worked, and the tension of everyone working undercover was really well done too.

"Snow" was one I was predicting would make me cry based off what had been said about it before release, and, in a surprising turn of events, I Was Right. For some reason I've got incredibly attached to Ron and Tony while listening to Stranded, so the whole plotline around Ron's grief over Tony's death... it got to me, to say the least. Add in the scenes between Liv and Tania, and the stuff with Zakia... it was a Lot (in the best way!!)

And the last episode. I knew before it was gonna be ordered weirdly, but hearing the credits at the start proper disorientated me akskfjgjksjf Anyway, this was a very interesting one (that I think I'm definitely going to have to relisten to to really get the most out of) - it was definitely an experiment, but I think it worked, and did a great job at showing the impact the smallest events or words can have on the bigger picture. Absolutely devastated at what happened to Andy though 😭 Hope he gets out of it somehow...

However, (as there are with these things), there were a few creative choices I didn't like quite as much unfortunately. I mentioned in the tags of an earlier post that I was a bit disappointed in how sidelined Helen felt at times (mainly in the last two episodes) - I'm a massive fan of her as a character (like, I absolutely cannot understate how much I love her, idk exactly why but I have vibed with her on an unreal level), and tbh I would have liked her to feel a little more involved at times this boxset.

I also would've liked a bit more between the central trio of Eight, Liv and Helen, because I really love their weird little found family dynamic, and their friendship is the main reason I've loved their audios so much, and if I'm being honest it didn't really feel like they interacted as a trio at all in these episodes which was a bit of a shame. The same also goes for the individual dynamics between them - Eight and Helen got some good material as a duo, but Liv didn't actually have that many proper scenes with the others :/ (However, I did really love the scenes she had with Tania this series!!! I am admittedly still a Liv/Helen fan and clowning myself hoping something still might happen with those two, but I've really liked how Liv and Tania's relationship has grown so far, and I thought they had the best emotional content by far in this boxset.)

(I am now very worried Liv's gonna leave at the end of Stranded though. I reckoned that would be what would happen for a while, but now it seems a bit more real and. I'm not ready for her to leave yet aaaaaaaaaaaaa-)

Overall though, very good boxset!! I think I'm going to have to relisten, and at a bit of a slower pace, to really appreciate everything, but I definitely enjoyed this rather crazy first listenthrough :)

Other misc thoughts, in no particular order, and not coherent in any way:

"There's an alien chair! Two alien chairs! By an alien table!" "Stop saying alien." "No, it's just... oh, what's that feeling?" "Sunstroke." 💀💀

I said earlier that Liv and Andy's dynamic was one of my favourite parts of ep1, the comedy of it all was just... so funny

Helen and Tania's dynamic was also very cool; I've always liked the little we've got of their friendship and it was nice to see it explored a bit more :)

The way I unironically thought when the psychic stuff and visions started being brought up that the writers might actually have decided to do something more with Helen's eldritch psychic powers... i am such an idiot

(I may or may not have a whole mini essay of a post about said powers currently sitting in my drafts... not sure whether to post it though)

Tania just. Lying on the floor feeling slightly dead inside... mood

"I used to think I couldn't... wouldn't find what you've found. But seeing you two... it gives me hope." Shut up shut up i am actually going to cry

They didn't really touch on it much this time around, unlike with stranded 2, but I'm glad they did still have some continuation of the subtextual arc about Helen coming to terms with her sexuality and that she can be happy as who she is; it makes me Feel Things and I hope it's still given time to breathe in stranded 4

Liked the intermittent scenes with Eight narrating a story with this ep, kinda reminded me a bit of Better Watch Out/Fairytale of Salzburg and his storytelling then

Liv being described as a "rainbow dolphin" is singlehandedly one of the funniest things to come out of this series istg

Ah yes, solitary, my favourite card game

Episode two my beloved thank you for giving me the Helen Content i owe you my life <3

Helen deciding that if Liv was gonna die she was too definitely Got Me emotionally (their devotion to each other... god), but also uh. She was very quick to decide dying was the best option there. Is she okay

Also Liv is very much Going Through It this time round - hope she gets a break at some point

The snow keeping Ron company because he missed Tony so much 😭 this is fine (it's not fine.)

The stuff between Liv and Tania in ep3 was so heartbreaking too!!! The bond between them both felt so much deeper this boxset, and in a way that was such a natural progression from the previous stories, and really helped make the emotional crux of this episode even stronger

This story was also very much Fairytale of Salzburg if Fairytale of Salzburg was just. Really really depressing

Anyway this is irrelevant but what happened to their eighty-year-old stasis field cat from 2.3?? Is she okay???

"What Just Happened?" was the most appropriate title possible for that last episode. It was easier to grasp than I thought it'd be, but still Very Mad haha

Idk I feel like the way it was structured actually made the emotional impact stronger? Like there was something really compelling about seeing where the events were unfolding from, and realising the little things that were adding up to what happens at the beginning, and it made it retrospectively hit a lot harder

If Eight, Liv and Helen don't get at least one group hug in the next boxset I'm rioting

[janiedean]

Man, you have no idea how much I hate you. I hate you so much that I’m going to force you to choose between THREE songs to analyze. “Shut out the Light”, “Gypsy Biker” and “The Promise”. I’d wish you best of luck, but I so highly dislike you, that I wouldn’t DARE to offer you such a kindness. (Also, I'm just not sure if you've analyzed any of those yet so I'm covering my bases.)

HELLO ANON THIS IS AN OLD ASK BUT SPRINGSTEEN DAY IS COMING and therefore I’m going with my favorite out of the two I had left (I’ll do the other one asap tho!

*DRUM ROLL*

So: The Promise is one of those mythical songs from Bruce’s vault, in the sense that it’s from the late seventies and everyone knew it existed to the point that it was supposed to be the title-song instead of Darkness on that record but instead he never properly published it because it was too personal and he could never find the right version, which is why there’s like fifteen different takes of it in between the one on tracks, the one on the promise boxset with all the darkness outtakes, the ten live versions and so on - basically he was reworking it for literal years. So I’m just going with my favorite version - I mean I love them all but this one to me is.. just… IT SPEAKS TO ME MORE THAN THE OTHERS? idk but I love this one above all others ;_; (I think I like that it starts slow and goes into full band while the others tend to go either all band all piano idk)

Now, context: in order to get what’s behind this, you need to know that post-Born to Run he ended up in a trial with his former manager of his first two records out of contractual reasons (tldr: the contract he signed at the beginning was shitty and the manager didn’t want to settle for new conditions he found more favorable/fair) that lasted two years and during which he couldn’t publish anything because in the contractual drama there were also song rights involved. So: it was not the best time of his life and he felt it as a betrayal of sorts since he was actually close to the guy and considered him a friend.

With that said, let’s go at it:

Johnny works in a factory and Billy works downtownTerry works in a rock and roll band looking for that million-dollar soundMe sometimes I don’t do nothing, some spend a lot of time aloneSome nights I go to the drive-in and some nights I stay home

Now: the two people in the first line are probably imaginary and they’re there to establish a situation, in the sense that factory and downtown are two types of job that he could have had and his friends could have had, while the third one is relevant to our discussion because he works in a rnr band looking for that million-dollar sound, which is what *he* was doing up until he actually published Born to Run and hit it.

And then, he doesn’t do nothing, spends time alone etc., which is (according to his autobiography too) what he was doing when he couldn’t write or record music thanks to the trial and when he was starting to hit a fairly bad phase in his life. So: he’s basically staying on his own with his thoughts. Not good.

Now: he goes to the drive-in.

I followed that dream just like those guys do way up on the screenRode down the Challenger down Route 9 trough the dead ends and all the bad sceneWhen the promise was broken, I cashed in a few of my own dreams

Key elements we have here: dreams and cars.

Now: follow that dream is the title of another seminal mythical Springsteen bootleg which also sums up a lot of his philosophy, and it’s in a few other songs of his, but in this case: he followed that dream the way people did in the movies, meaning, making music, but that can also apply to anyone trying to make their way through life following some dream they have.

Now: the Challenger is a car which is one of his most basic metaphors, and in this case he rides it ‘through dead ends and bad scenes’, but it’s kind of obvious that it’s about his music, not a car, which he brought through dead ends and bad scenes meaning all the false starts he had until he could actually publish his records.

And then the promise was broken and he cashed in a few of his dreams, meaning that when the legal drama started, he saw it as a broken promise which eventually ended up having to sell his music ie his dreams, which was not what he was hoping for when he went into the business. Actually:

Well now I built that Challenger by myself, but I needed money and so I sold itAnd I lived a secret I should’ve kept to myself, but I got drunk one night and I told itAll my life I fought the fight, the one that no man can ever winEvery day it just gets harder to live the dream I’m believing inThunder Road, here one ride in the morning till it turns lightThunder Road, there’s something dying out on the highway tonight

‘I built that Challenger by myself’ = I wrote that music by myself obviously, and ‘I needed money and so I sold it’ = ‘I signed a bad contract also to survive and bring it to the people’, but that goes into the main narrative of the *fictional character* he’s singing about who has built that car and then sold it. But what’s the real deal in this is the middle section ie I fought the fight no man can ever win + it gets harder to live the dream I’m believing in, as in, we’re back to the main themes of the album consisting in how following your dream doesn’t necessarily means getting what you want nor the end of your problems/fights (the fight that no man can ever win) and living in it can turn into a nightmare (because it gets harder).

Now: the Thunder road part in the refrain has another double meaning because it’s, again, both the title of one of his most iconic songs and the title of a noir movie (remember: he goes to the drive in and wants to live his dreams like people on a screen from before), and we have a) one ride in the morning until the light comes (hopeful imagery), b) something dying on the highway tonight (negative imagery), so that dream he achieved - or anyone else - can either end up hopeful or wrong and it can even be both at the same time, or maybe you can hope it goes well while in truth it’s wrong. Who knows. IT’S UP TO THE INTERPRETER.

Well now I won big once and I hit the coast, oh but somehow I paid that big costI feel like I was carrying the broken spirits of all the other ones who lostWhen the promise is broken you can go on living, but, man, it steals something from down in your soulLike when the truth is spoken, but it don’t make no difference, something in your heart grows coldWell I followed that dream in the southwestern flats to the dead ends and a two-bit barsWhen the promise was broken I was far away from home sleeping in the backseat of a borrowed car

And now we’re at the big guns.

‘I won big once and I hit the coast’: general enough that you can see yourself in it if it happened to you, but if you know the backstory you know it’s about him finally getting to publish his music and somehow paying that big cost anyway (count that in between that, the previous contractual conditions and having to pay off contracts and so on he was half-broke at least until the River tour);

‘the broken spirits of all the other ones who lost’: he feels like even if he won or partially won, he’s still feeling a kinship with anyone else who went through the same situation;

‘you go on living but it steals something down in your soul’: whenever someone breaks your trust in such a bad way when you were intimate friends or partners or whatever even if you go on it breaks something in you that might never change back and it’s actually… a very… universal thing I mean it’s true that if you get betrayed by someone you’re close to it’s usually a bad blow, which goes hand in hand with the ‘something in your heart goes cold’ the moment someone tells you the truth and for you it changes nothing when it should;

the final line is more his fictional character than him, but it lines up with the rest because we have again following a dream through dead ends and he sleeps in the seat of a borrowed car, because he sold the one he made with his own hands and so the breaking of that promise goes with having to sleep somewhere that’s not his and that he can’t relate to and that he feels like has been stolen from him - and he’s also far away from home ie in the place he should feel safest/more at ease.

And:

Thunder Road, here’s one for the lost lovers and all the fixed gamesThunder Road, here’s one for the tires rushing by in the rainThunder Road, remember me and Terry what we’d sayThunder Road, we’re gonna take it all and throw it all away

We’re back at the Thunder Road refrain, where it stands for: a) lost lovers/fixed games ie all the relationships he lost and all the *games* that he hadn’t thought existed before going into the business, b) tires rushing by in the rain ie an image of someone running away in a car under the rain which is not exactly a good omen but still is about getting out of a situation you don’t like, c) something he and the friend in the band used to say, which is d) we’re taking it all and throwing it all away which is the exact same idea as the it’s a town full of losers and we’re pulling out of here to win of Thunder Road’s ending, except that TR’s is optimistic, this one is more ‘we said we would do it and then look at how we ended up’. It’s probably interesting to note that Terry is also the name of the friend in Backstreets with whom the protagonist has a falling out thanks to a supposed betrayal:

Blame it on the lies that killed us Blame it on the truth that ran us down You can blame it all on me Terry It don’t matter to me now When the breakdown hit at midnight There was nothing left to say But I hated him And I hated you when you went away Laying here in the dark You’re like an angel on my chest Just another tramp of hearts Crying tears of faithlessness Remember all the movies, Terry We’d go see Trying to learn to walk like the heroes We thought we had to be Well after all this time To find we’re just like all the rest Stranded in the park And forced to confess To hiding on the backstreets

I mean, coincidences? We just don’t know, but I DON’T THINK IT’S 100% A COINCIDENCE that the name is similar and that this is the guy who gets mentioned again at least here rather than the other two. Anyway that’s me doing speculation lmao.

Anyway: this song had endless versions and it only ever was published two decades after the fact because it was Too Personal and he couldn’t find the proper, but even if it’s really personal it still manages to be relatable thanks to those key passages in stanzas 2 and 3 (the fight that no man can ever win/when the promise is broken it steals something from down in your soul) and while I don’t know if it’s The Best Springsteen song as a lot of people rightfully think (BECAUSE IT’S A FUCKING GREAT SONG) it’s definitely one of the most intimate, raw and beautiful Springsteen songs exactly for how his experiences are made relatable to everyone else in a way that’s imo heartwrenching and bye I love this and I love all of the other versions and BRUCE IS GREAT OKAY? okay. ;__;

[portuguesedisaster]

THE LEGACY OF TIME-The split infinite

Well, more The legacy of Time with financial accounting but a very different mood from the last one.

First, a disclaimer: my knowledge of the Counter measures stuff starts and ends in Remembrance of the Daleks, so I had very little context on the team and their relationships (they only exist in Remembrance, this Big finish idea of doing random spin offs with side characters mixes me up).

Seven and Ace got thrown up in a mess with someone who is aging up people (having Sara Kindgom vibes, thank you for remembering me of that BF). It turns up to be someone who is apparently already known in BF land, even if I have no idea where did they come from.

Apart that, it's a very generic seventh doctor stories, with explosions, military force and weird sci-fi concepts which don't really pay of that much and confuse scientists.

Also, UNIT controversy explanation! Which of course, only gives me an headache, really. Well, to me and to the Brigadier *wink*.

And, the mistery: Where did the crazy people go to? I'm pretty sure I'm gonna find out in this boxset, really. Just like the Doctor :)

It's a 8/10. I can't really give opinions on the characters, but the story is enjoyable, even if a little bit generic for the late seventh doctor Tv stories.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

all of this YES. but also, what i find very interesting is that throughout the story, up until that scene at the end when the Doctor leaves, he's very very caring and concerned about her. he's just really really soft and very aware of her condition (mentally and physically) and he doesn't want her to have to do all this, he doesn't like that she has to force herself to and past her breaking point over and over again. the only reason he asks her to is because the situation is so dire.

which does make it... very odd, i think, that he makes such an abrupt u-turn from how soft and gentle he is to "aight, i'm out" at the end??? and it almost makes that hurt even worse because she's been depending on his SO MUCH the entire time (i made this post the other day and i stick to what i said) and he's just leaving and isn't that just typical isn't that just Romana's whole life from here on out?

people always leaving and leaving and leaving and the Doctor (now) and the Doctor again (Neverland) and that time he's not coming back and then Brax (Pandora) and Leela (Forever) and everyone is always leaving always being taken from her when she's at her weakest most vulnerable and GAH i'm gonna start waxing poetic about this aren't i?? Romana is always the one who's left, the one anchoring the one who stays who stands who remains after everyone else is gone - look at the Matrix projection of Trey, in Rennaisance! she's alone she's standing in the ruins of Gallifrey and breaking a million million hearts to heal her own and she's the only one left, the one who's still there after it all giving and giving and giving of herself for her planet for the universe; we talk about Leela pouring herself out for others and running dry because she's not given enough of that same care (a lot of my own meta surrounding Forever is about this) but Romana is the same and on a much larger scale, it just doesn't show itself so viscerally because she's been starved like this almost her whole life.

Romana is the one left behind. left behind in E-Space, left behind on Etra Prime left behind by the Doctor on Gallifrey not once but twice left behind by Brax (so many times) left behind by Leela - her best friend - once and almost again (Enemy Lines) left behind by her people her planet; left behind, i assume from all the vagueposting i've happened across, on Unity (and i'd imagine that's the only time Narvin leaves her, ever since they met he's refused to leave her behind even so early on as Lies, before he even loved her) and i know nothing about TW4 but bet icould drag this thread to it's inevitable unraveling end in that boxset, too.

that is what makes the scene at the end of TAE so heartbreaking: it's the beginning of all the times Romana will be left. that's why it's even worse on relisten, with all the more context you get as you go on and on and on (it's what makes Extermination so poignant, because it's the fulfilment of everything that happened on Etra Prime but Romana is not left behind; that's the point of all of Gallifrey s6 is that Romana is not left behind this time and that's why it's so meaningful). and the fact that the Doctor left at that point, when Romana needed him the most (how the actual frick is she up and about still by the end of TAE, she should have crashed way before then) - bc even for as unfortunate as his choice here is, i STILL stick to my point from the post i linked above that Sixie was the exact perfect person to be there for her - is absolutely gut-wrenching.

I just finished a relisten of the Apocalypse Element and hooooowheeeee do I have some thoughts on Romana’s trauma.

I simply cannot get over how awfully she is treated throughout the entire audio and not offered the smallest amount of comfort. She breaks herself out of Dalek prison and immediately upon return is set to work trying to save Gallifrey. She’s been through twenty years of intense unrelenting trauma both mentally and physically, she’s starved, half dead, vulnerable and in pain and yet she is expected to shake it off and become responsible for the welfare of an entire planet. And not only that, but she then is forced to work herself until she passes out at least three (maybe four?) times in the space of two hours, and STILL feels the need to apologise for it the moment she wakes. She is so completely broken and yet nobody acknowledges it or even asks her how she feels about it. The Doctor even tries to leave without even saying goodbye to her!

The way she acts after she’s passed out also worries me a lot, because she is able to move from unconscious and pushed to the furthest reaches of mental and physical exhaustion, to fully alert and working hard until she’s outstripping even the Doctor scarily quickly. It’s a really ominous indicator of the sort of things the Daleks forced her into and how they treated her while she was working for them as a slave. And what makes it even more painful is that this behaviour is immediately reinforced on her return to Gallifrey until working herself into unconsciousness and doing the same from the moment she wakes simply becomes her norm. We see her go through the same in Appropriation when she’s immediately pushing herself after being almost killed by Pandora, and in this way she clearly demonstrates that she believes working herself to that state is what’s expected of her. Gallifrey does nothing to help her unlearn that behaviour even though it is clearly a response to the Daleks’ abuse.

But honestly the saddest part of all of this is the fact that even after everything she doesn’t have a single person that cares about her there to comfort her. She’s not so close with Brax, she has no Leela or Narvin yet and even the Doctor was trying to leave without saying goodbye. So she goes through a twenty year ordeal of relentless daily abuse that reduces her to her weakest state, manages to get herself out and immediately pushes herself to save a whole galaxy, protect her people and went above and beyond anything that was expect of her, almost costing her life, and yet after all of that she doesn’t have a single person to comfort her or even tell her she did well. I can imagine her sitting alone in her rooms after everything has happened and honestly? Her situation isn’t that much better than it was on Etra Prime. She’s still scared for her safety, still trapped by circumstance and still entirely alone, except now she has a slightly comfier bed. It’s no wonder she acts the way she does around friendship and connections with others after this experience, and no wonder she almost kills herself to save gallifrey on multiple occasions, she’s been conditioned to think by both the daleks and the time lords that working herself to near death with no comfort or praise afterward is the bare minimum that’s expected from her.

On top of all of that, she then has to consider the trauma of spending her life on Gallifrey knowing that the things that haunt her most will inevitably be coming to get her someday, it’s just a matter of time and she’ll likely be the only defence between them and the rest of the planet. The inevitability of the time war mirrors Romana’s fears of Daleks coming down the corridor in prison, except it’s not just her safety she’s scared for anymore, it’s the whole planet she’s devoted her life to, and the people she loves most in the universe, the people she would die for without a second thought if she had to. The possibility of her having to die for her friends or be forced to watch them die is becoming more and more real by the day, and I’m sure to her that it’s infinitely more terrifying than only having to worry for herself.

Anyways as you can tell I’m extremely distraught about the fact that Romana went through all this trauma and ended up so damaged without anyone to give her a hug and let her know she’s going to be okay. She was left utterly alone after the worst experience of her life, when she needed a friend most, and it really hurts.