setsuled

Here are a couple Doctor Who cosplayers I met on Friday, dressed as the Twelfth and Seventh Doctors. Apart from that there's not a whole lot of Doctor Who at Comic Con I can tell you about that you can't experience yourself by watching the full YouTube videos of both panels:





I took notes for the Classic Doctor panel figuring that one might not go online. Of course, it did. I am glad I managed to post a clip of Peter Davison, Sophie Aldred, and Colin Baker discussing the first female Doctor as early as it did, particularly with respect to Peter Davison who seems to be getting thrashed for having a past preference for a male Doctor despite expressing full support for Jodie Whittaker now. I kind of knew trouble was coming when, while Colin Baker was enthusiastically putting out tweet after tweet about how great it was to have a female Doctor, Peter Davison's first tweet on the subject was only one about how we should be encouraging to fans who are "uncertain about change." I'm sad to see now that Davison has deleted his Twitter account over the backlash he's faced. Though I think this may have been an overreaction on his part the rancour that has been aimed at him, even though he has more than once expressed his support for Whittaker, is disappointing and I can see how it might make him want to stay away from social media.

At the same time, the reason I do think Davison's initial tweet was a blunder was that it doesn't seem to reflect the nastiness with which people were reacting against Whittaker, posting flagrantly misogynist and sexist comments and commentaries. I have yet to see, apart from Davison himself, anyone expressing an articulation of "uncertainty" about a female Doctor that's truly respectful.

One of the problems I have with the vigorous efforts of so called Social Justice Warriors--I know many who self-describe that way, so I don't know if it's a pejorative anymore--is that there's a tendency in their publications to respond aggressively and dismissively to people for not knowing the definition of a term that's only current in Social Justice circles. For example, I saw an article recently that blasted an article in the New York Times that spoke in favour of cultural appropriation. The response to the article was to say that the author didn't understand that what he considered to be positive instances of cultural appropriation were in fact something called "cultural engagement". So I often see this seemingly unconscious, but aggressive and sometimes belligerent, conflation of an inevitable ignorance of niche or new definitions of terms with racism or sexism. It's no wonder when people are put off by what seems to be obnoxious pedantry.

I want to say this in preface because it seems Peter Davison is exhibiting the kind of misunderstanding that reflects white male privilege. He's not been forced to have the perspective of a woman and he evidently hasn't spent time trying to imagine what that perspective is like. Otherwise, he might be responding more like Colin Baker. Six remains my least favourite Doctor so it's somewhat awkward that I seem to be agreeing with him more in terms of social politics than with Davison--Colin Baker counters Davison's only really articulated argument so far, that it's a shame boys are losing a role model, by saying that there's no reason a woman can't be a role model for boys. Though I wonder if the realities of gender role barriers in English playgrounds support the viability of boys looking up to a woman.

Personally, I find the idea of not wanting the Doctor to be a woman to be difficult to imagine. Not just for statistical or political reasons but simply because I've always liked female protagonists and I like Doctor Who so it follows I should like a female Doctor Who. But since a young age I've been resistant to ideas of behaviour prescribed by gender so there's a whole lifetime of experience in trying to create oneself as a particular gender identity that I don't really have. People who have had that experience might support the idea of a female Doctor on an intellectual level but have to deal with residual feelings from that lifetime of experience.

In my first post about Whittaker, I casually referred to people who didn't like the idea as sexist, Davison's tweet made me wonder if this was the right tact for me to take. I think Davison failed to consider the issue fully but on the other hand I do agree with what I think is at the heart of what he's saying. The Doctor, after all, walked up to the Silurian and extended the hand of friendship. I'm not saying I feel the slightest sympathy with anyone expressing outright hostility to a female Doctor. But I find myself hesitant to express hostility myself when it might push away anyone for whom this upcoming season might be the thing that changes their minds about what--or who--women can be. This is the sense in which I think Davison advocated being "encouraging".

Someone has compiled a nice video of former Doctors reacting to the concept of a female Doctor:

One of the episodes most satisfyingly reminiscent of the first two seasons, last night's Twin Peaks, "There's Fire Where You're Going", also continued Lynch's discussion of the relationship between violence and children. It also showed how the forces for good are slow, misdirected, and mysterious, sometimes tragically so. I saw the episode on Friday at a screening at Comic Con--David Lynch had requested that no-one in the audience discuss the episode on social media until after it had aired and I was certainly willing to take direction from him. All the same, I'm glad I can talk about it now.



I'd caught the panel for Twin Peaks in Hall H on Friday afternoon, despite knowing most of it would likely end up on YouTube anyway, which it has:





My favourite moment is in around 20:10 in the second video where Everett McGill talks about Lynch's "sharp edge" after everyone else had been talking about how warm and comfortable the experience of working with Lynch is.

There are a couple things not in the videos, though. The panel was moderated by Damon Lindelof, the creator of The Leftovers and co-creator of Lost. It's unusual to see someone like Lindelof moderate a panel, which in itself speaks to the nature of Twin Peaks' influence, but to make it even clearer, Lindelof began with a speech in which he listed off the variety of great television shows, mentioning The X-Files, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Stranger Things among others, that wouldn't exist without Twin Peaks, concluding by saying that Lost would most certainly not have existed if not for Twin Peaks.

After this, a video David Lynch recorded for the panel was shown. It looked like it was filmed at the same time as his promos for the Japanese station, Wowow, that's airing Twin Peaks in Japan--Lynch sitting, talking to the camera with a black background. But this was much longer than the Wowow promo with Lynch pretending to do multiple takes of his Comic Con message, each time getting interrupted by something absurd--a man off camera jumping out of the window, someone evidently riding into the room on a horse. It was a funny video in an anachronistically corny way but also slightly disturbing. I'm glad I saw it.



When I found out that there was going to be a screening that night at 10pm of episode 11, two days before it aired, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Did seeing it two days early really matter and did I really want to see it in a crowded room with uncontrolled potential distractions? Not to mention I had left my apartment at 7:30am and leaving Comic Con at 11pm meant I wouldn't get home until at least 1am. But I finally decided I wanted the experience of seeing an episode of the new series with an audience of fans reacting to it for the first time. Apparently David Lynch thought the same thing because we were informed that he was watching us watching the show. I suppose there hasn't been a screening for the show since Cannes and this would be Lynch's chance to gauge the reaction of a completely different kind of audience.



The screening started a few minutes late because some "talent", we were informed, were unable to get into the building. It being so late, a lot of doors were evidently locked. But finally we were surprised to see walking into the room Kimmy Robertson, Everett McGill, James Marshall, and Don Murray who plays Bushnell Mullins on the new series, Dougie's boss. Before they arrived, I found myself in agreement with someone I overheard sitting behind me who said he hoped people would avoid too much cheering or applause during the episode. But as it turned out, I felt really good when the audience broke out into applause when Don Murray appeared on screen, doing little push-ups on his desk. It must have felt good for him to hear that.



None of the surprise guests spoke except a woman whose name I didn't catch who told us that she had just face timed with Lynch, informing us that Lynch could see us, and saying that Lynch had instructed her to recite a poem and asked those of us who could to speak it along with her. I wish I'd had more memory left on my camera by that point to get more than this brief clip:



She started it quickly but many people in the room did catch up and start saying it along with her.

I felt sort of worried that people were going to laugh at the wrong moments during the screening and I hoped people wouldn't respond in a way that would disappoint Lynch. The screening was held in Room 6A, one of the larger rooms upstairs and I sat through several panels before it. Any asshole could've walked in but the Con crowd is generally pretty cool and civil to one another. That and the fact that it was held so late, I think, ensured that it was a screening blessedly free of distraction. "There's Fire Where You are Going" turned out to be a particularly good episode for the occasion, featuring as it did several crowd-pleasing moments.

Spoilers after the screenshot



The episode begins with a rather old fashioned scene of three little boys playing catch. One of them is older than the other two and seems to be using his higher rank responsibly, encouraging the other two, complementing a successful catch and saying it was okay when a catch was missed. When he ran out into the street to get the ball, worried sounds from people in the screening audience told me everyone was thinking he was going to get hit by a car. But instead we see Miriam (Sarah Jean Long) who has managed to survive her encounter with Richard and crawl away. The sweet pie lover from the RR now looks pretty horrific.



I guess she doesn't have a phone--this would explain why she chose to report Richard via letter and why she couldn't call for help. Why doesn't she have a phone? Why can't Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) wake up? The paths to safety and effectiveness are mysteriously blocked.



Except Dougie seems to be getting by on pure instinct. When Dougie's meet up with the Mitchum brothers concluded in the desert with Rodney (Robert Knepper) and Bradley (Jim Belushi) ecstatic over the 30 million dollar check, the audience applauded widely and it occurred to me how the episode was broken down into little stories and how masterfully Lynch orchestrates the telling of them with sound and editing. Dialogue, too, but I think what Twin Peaks is showing is how many aspects of cinematic storytelling are being neglected for the fact that the star of this modern age of television tends to be the writer. I can see this being related to the joy in experiencing Twin Peaks without the spoilers of trailers and synopses--audiences who are used to getting all the material via language might see little difference between getting the description of an episode plot from Wikipedia and actually experiencing the episode itself. Obviously I'm a great lover of writing but Twin Peaks is highlighting the other methods of storytelling.



The episode features two instances of guns being fired but failing to harm or kill--Becky (Amanda Seyfried) firing a gun into the apartment of Donna's sister, Gersten (Alicia Witt), and the little boy who finds a gun in his parents' car and fires off two shots. Where the first seasons of Twin Peaks began with the horror of a child murdered by an adult, Lynch is now writing for a world where the horror often comes from the fact that kids are murdering kids. Neither Becky or the little boy ought to have had access to a firearm, I think that much is clear.



The one point where I felt like the audience had an inappropriate reaction was when they laughed at this shot of the little boy. I think Lynch meant for it to be a little more disturbing though I think laughter is sometimes provoked by nervousness and fear. Lynch tellingly juxtaposes the kid with his father, both looking like hunters in their camoflage--or one could say woodsmen.

This sequence, beginning to end, is in itself a masterpiece. From where it starts in the diner to where it ends with the sick girl in the car, Lynch strings along surprising pieces of information with the instincts of a great orchestra conducter. I want to point out again how much mileage he gets from the briefest shots of Peggy Lipton.



This actress has become a genius at communicating with subtle facial expressions. I'd also be surprised if Dana Ashbrook doesn't get a lot of phone calls for cop roles after this.



We finally get filled in on the details of the new Briggs family dynamics and we see Shelly (Madchen Amick) has once again fallen for a bad boy, Red (Balthazar Getty), though he seems to be a lot worse than Bobby ever was. It was nice to see the brief look of sympathy Becky gives to Bobby, as was her sudden realisation that she'd very nearly killed her mother in one of the show's most effective stunt sequences.



Becky does love her parents and, like Shelly's love for Red, Becky's love for Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) seems misguided though one is given pause when one considers the same might have been said for Shelly's love for Bobby in the original series. Like those gunshots, things never seem to hit the mark.



And I can talk about all this and I still haven't mentioned Gordon's (David Lynch) encounter with the woodsmen and the death of William Hastings (Matthew Lillard). That was wonderfully done and I loved the compositions in the police station afterwards--I mean, jeez, look at this, where do you see anything like this in film or television?



Laura Dern is making Diane a strange and beautiful femme fatale.

And after all this greatness, the episode ends with a scene that might be the best of all, the Mitchum Brothers and Dougie dining on cherry pie and champagne with the piano tune that magically switches from heartbroken to mysterious and playful at just the right moments. I loved how Candie (Amy Shiels) seemed about to break into a song about the traffic on the strip.



Seeing her with Dougie, and their similarly spaced out personalities, made me feel more and more that, if the question this season is "Who is Laura Palmer," my money is on Candie.

Twitter Sonnet #1016

In future darkness dreams of pie await.
In space magicians long to see a play.
Between two worlds of dawn and night we ate.
In steady step with fire I assay.
In dough began the sign of coffee smoke.
In dreams the special box directs the heat.
Tobacco dragons saw the fated stroke.
Forensic cats ascend the hotter seat.
In turning skies the stairs descend on Earth.
In barrels ev'rywhere the shots'll miss.
Beneath enclosing air's encrusted worth.
A fighting bull awaits in quiet bliss.
The lights on asphalt crashed into the toad.
Electric stones begin to burn the road.

I haven't been taking many cosplay photos this year. Too many sites are doing a more exhaustive job of catching every interesting and halfway interesting costume than I can. So far I've only stopped two people to ask if I could take their picture.



I loved this woman's hat. She told me the costume is normally meant to be a storm but she added the sharks because of Sharknado and Comic Con. I wonder at what occasions she dresses as just a storm.



I was surprised to see a Lum costume, and this woman was very surprised I recognised it.



She explained to me she had sewn the bikini bottom too but that her husband wouldn't let her wear it because it was too small in the back.

Yesterday was one of the longest days I've spent at the Con, leaving my apartment at 7:30am and not getting home until after 1:00am. But it was worth it. I'll have to wait til Monday to write more about it. To-day, more Con . . .

This was outside Comic Con yesterday. I don't know what it's for but it seemed to say something about dedication.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was Preview Night, I generally just go in to pick up my bag and programme on Wednesday. In previous years I went in that day to pick up my badge but for the past couple years they've been mailing this out. I still had to follow a special route inside, though, because it looks like they're cracking down on people who try to take multiple bags and programmes--the security card system they use at the entrances now is also used at the bag pick up. So if you were planning to make a dress out of just this year's bag (as some do), good luck, it's kind of small this year.

It was more crowded than I'm used to seeing it on a Wednesday. I took a chance and got on the trolley closer to the Con than I normally do but there was still standing room only. I actually live relatively close to the Con but this counts for nothing if you don't actually live downtown. To give you an idea:



After that trolley station people are packed like sardines inside. Even going that far out I'm not guaranteed to get a seat.

There are no panels I want to see to-day so I'm going in relatively late. I plan to just roam the floor to-day. Entries here should be short until after the Con, though, when I'll give fuller Con reports.

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday:

Well, it's time once again to play the Game of Thrones. Sunday's premiere got season seven off to kind of a meek start. As usual for a first episode of the season, a lot of time was spent refreshing the viewer on the previous season but even for that it seemed like it waffled quite a bit.

Spoilers after the screenshot



The splashiest moment came at the beginning when David Bradley turned out to be Arya Stark, following up her turn as Titus Andronicus with a simpler mass poisoning. It was fun watching Arya's glee on David Bradley's face but Maisie Williams soon resumes Arya duties.



Once again I get the sense she would be the world's most inept assassin if she hadn't stolen magic powers. She doesn't even have a story ready when she's asked why she's going to King's Landing and her encounter with Ed Sheeran's band of Lannister soldiers seems to indicate this is the first time she's even thought about the fact that the common footsoldiers are just regular people unattached to the machinations of Lannister nobility. I guess that's the kind of thing she was supposed to be learning when she was posing as fish monger. But, no thanks, Arya wants the good grades without having to actually learn anything.

I always used to say the Starks were the dullest characters on the show except for Arya. But after her dramatic seaborne departure from Westeros a couple seasons ago she's done her best to take over the legacy of Stark dullness.



Meanwhile, Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Jon (Kit Harrington) are squabbling in front of a full council. Sansa wants to massacre the whole families of traitors, Jon wants to leave them in charge, no one suggests imprisoning them. I am still so on Team Cersei (Lena Headey).



I feel especially bad for her now that Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is constantly whining. When she says the Freys were untrustworthy allies, Jaime argues it's better to have untrustworthy allies than none, nevermind Cersei wasn't saying anything to the contrary. Then when Cersei brings in Urine (sorry, Euron) Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek), suddenly Jaime's complaining they're not good enough. You want to wait for a perfect ally now, Jaime? Can Cersei do anything right with you? Why not try being supportive?



My favourite section was Samwell (John Bradley) having to do menial chores in maester training. I've always said I wanted to see more of the mundane stuff in Westeros and here it is. I love how the food he serves is almost indistinguishable from the stuff in the chamber pots he collects. Of course, the plot doesn't make much sense--if Samwell can't look at the forbidden books, what's the harm in someone else looking up how to defeat the White Walkers, like Jim Broadbent's character, who says he believes Sam? It seems like a pretty artificial roadblock to draw things out. It is nice seeing Jim Broadbent. After Jonathan Pryce and Peter Vaughan I wonder if eventually every cast member from Brazil will appear on Game of Thrones. I'm looking forward to seeing Katherine Helmond, if that's the case.

Once again, the show has some amazing costumes and locations.

Twitter Sonnet #1014

The cherry fish in chambers parsed for rice
Upheld the pickle yard, contorted keys
Involved in island growth assort the mice
From small to smaller graces make the trees.
Domestic pop imports a soda can,
In quarters clamped to pin machines affirmed
In shining blue or red or metal tan,
Though some say copper, bronze, or gold's confirmed.
No fleece affronted fifty clicking claws
Impounded by the stalks of dreamy crabs
Collecting coin for church's certain law
Or buying frames to make the metal cabs.
The sounds of mallets make the hollow beat.
In storms, the lounge has grown the softest seat.

It's Jodie Whittaker, aka the Thirteenth Doctor, seen here where I first saw her in the first season of Broadchurch. Her casting was announced to-day after the Wimbledon Men's Final (I thought it was funny they chose to do it after Wimbledon Men's Final) with this kind of cheesy video:



Here the young Doctor can be seen foraging and she has a lot of work to do laying up acorns for the winter. It's kind of like Planet Earth: Time Lord. Time Lady? I guess "Time Lady" is considered sexist but I'm not really clear on why.

I'm really happy to see a female Doctor. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next season and where new showrunner Chris Chibnall takes the series. I had varied reactions to his previous episodes of Doctor Who but I really liked the first season of Broadchurch, which he created and wrote every episode of. I don't see him approaching the heights of Steven Moffat or Russell T. Davis at their best but I'll be happy to be proved wrong.

I think Jodie Whittaker's a good actress and I look forward to see what she does. And yet . . .

Well, she's kind of normal. Theoretically, being a good actress means she can put in an appropriately weird performance for the Doctor. I don't know. It feels to me like another baby step--throughout the past few seasons, despite the impression you might get from the ravenous Moffat haters, the show has been seeded with little things to build up to a female Doctor, repeatedly confirming a Time Lord can change sex with a regeneration, changing the sex of the show's second most prominent Time Lord character, the Master, and finally the recent finale which is loaded with big hints about a more female future. Hopefully all this helped coax some of the more sexist fans into being a little less sexist and, to make a really optimistic statement, make the world a little less sexist generally. But there's something kind of default about Whittaker. I don't know, maybe it's too much to ask for the first female Doctor to have bug eyes, a big nose, and/or prominent teeth. Or someone like Michelle Gomez who has a wonderful, intense weirdness.

But I'll keep an open mind. I hope she at least gets a weird costume.

I finished reading this last night, the autobiography of a 17th century seaman called Edward Coxere (pronounced "Coxery"). It has humour and tension but clearly comes from a time when the novel as an artform was still in its infancy. It has the free-roaming quality of a picaresque as Coxere simply reports one episode after another. It's filled with wonderful detail and incidental glimpses into how people talked and behaved. Coxere describes being sent to France in 1647 as a child in order to learn the language by being brought up in a French household. It's not long before he goes to sea. The book shows how fluid was the national loyalty of a seaman at the time as Coxere served on Dutch, French, Spanish, and English ships.

As I was at first with the Hollanders against the English I continued in this frigate in the wars against the Hollanders till about the peace. I had not been long in this ship but I was made coxswain: so that I served several masters in the wars between King and Parliament at sea. Next I served the Spaniards against the French, then the Hollanders against the English; then I was taken by the English out of a Dunkirker; and then I served the English against the Hollanders; and last I was taken by the Turks, where I was forced to serve then against English, French, Dutch, and Spaniards, and all Christendom.

In one of the more amusing anecdotes, he describes going home to England at last where everyone, including his mother, thought for certain he was Dutch.

My mother, spying of us, says to the other woman, 'Here come Master Dehase with a Fleming. It may be they may bring some news of Ned.' she little knowing I was he. The old man bid me say nothing, he being pleased at the conceit. When we came to my mother, she looked on me, but knew me not, but asked the old man if he could tell no news of her child, not thinking her child stood before her. The old man bid her patience; she should well hear. This was to her but the old tone, I suppose. I discerned the yearning bowels of a mother, yet notwithstanding I kept myself undiscovered awhile, till at last I made myself known with much joy and gladness.

Yes, there was a time when "yearning bowels of a mother" could be written without thoughts of other connotations.

Coxere also describes the period of time he spent as a slave, having been captured by the Turks. As bad as he makes it sound, even worse is his imprisonment in England after becoming a Quaker and refusing to swear oaths.

He describes the personalities of different shipmates, including a captain who's constantly trying to get drunk. Several times he describes having to rig sails and whole masts in disastrous battles or during storms. At one point he describes holing up in a gunroom and drinking wine during an attack.



The copy I found for a few dollars on Amazon is a lovely little 1946 edition marked "discard" from a school library in Montana. It includes a foldout map and Coxere's original illustrations.

Great crimes, tragedies, and suffering occur alongside the silly, mundane, and lovely. This can be difficult to illustrate in a film but Sadao Yamanaka accomplished it in his great 1936 film Kochiyama Soshun, one of the director's only three surviving films. The influence he exerted on Japan's better known great filmmakers can be seen in how Kochiyama Soshun starts out feeling like an Ozu film and ends feeling like Kurosawa.

Kochiyama Soshun was a real person, a well known figure in Japan from the early 19th century, Yamanaka's film is based on a kabuki play about his life. Played by Chojuro Kawarasaki, he comes across as a laid back, virtuous, and incredibly clever thief. We meet him playing shogi, a Japanese variant of chess, with a man who swindles people on the street by having them stake money on games. But Kochiyama outswindles the swindler, winning 50 ryo. Chess proves once again the universal shorthand for showing a character to be clever. Taking the money back to the gambling den he calls home with his wife, we see him telling her to grant every request for a loan that comes in, one of the ways we start meeting the diverse characters in what turns out to be a mostly ensemble film.

The standout is sixteen year old Setsuko Hara in one of her first films. She plays Onami, a sweet sake seller who's loved by everyone. She already conveys that uncanny, unaffected innocence and affectionate nature which made her one of the most popular actresses in Japan for decades. Her voice is a little higher pitched and she seems to speak a little more through her nose than she does later, maybe a sign of less confidence as a performer, but she's pretty adorable.

Onami's concerned about her younger brother, whom she seems to be acting as mother for. He spends his time at Kochiyama's gambling den and then he gets himself into real trouble when he runs off with a prostitute owned by the local yakuza boss. Onami, who we see is so shy she doesn't even want to enter the gambling den to look for her brother, suddenly finds herself faced with the idea she might need to sell herself to the yakuza as restitution.

A ronin named Kaneko (Kanemon Nakamura) has started working for the same gang though his sense of personal honour keeps him from feeling ashamed of disobeying an order, as when he goes to punish Kochiyama for winning the shogi scam but instead ends up becoming Kochiyama's drinking buddy.

Meanwhile, the film also gives us the story of an older samurai whose knife Hiro stole and then sold to an auctioneer. The film takes its time to follow a couple other guys competitively bidding on the item and then having them run into the samurai, who buys it back from the winner, though he seems convinced that it's fake. It's not perfectly clear he really thinks it's fake--it might be a bargaining tactic. This thread does end up becoming relevant in the end when several seemingly unrelated stories come together for an amazing and brutal fight sequence.

I'd been trying to track this movie down for years until a few nights ago when I found, as happens surprisingly often, the whole thing's been uploaded to YouTube. Check it out before some asshole decides he can claim to YouTube he somehow owns the copyright to this public domain 1936 film.



Twitter Sonnet #1012

The heart's in crossing lines of grey and gold.
Too fast the sandwich burns on greasy pans.
A tired stop removes the wheels of old.
The burning vales of Mars have many fans.
A car bereft of Flintstone feet was dead.
The circuit shadows drift around the room.
In longer gloves, a glory lies in bed.
Along the trails of rubber bats was doom.
Collections grew of variants to chess.
A hundred feathers tripped together first.
An idle bowl contains no worser cess.
Let drowsy monks and gamblers slake their thirst.
The brow became a hat when lines were pulled.
It's always hot when time and space are wooled.

Look at those colours and angles. Diane (Laura Dern) is a dragon on that couch.

Last night brought the most linear, logical episode of the new Twin Peaks season so far, but it was still wonderfully weird and refreshing.

Spoilers after the screenshot



Is it just me or did Constance (Jane Adams) and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) just fall for each other over Major Briggs' headless corpse? They seem like they'd be a good couple.

Don S. Davis, who played Major Briggs in the original series--and was forever typecast as a military man afterwards--died some years ago but he's still a big presence on the new series. The sequence of scenes where Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), Frank Truman (Robert Forster), and Hawk (Michael Horse) uncover the capsule that's been kept hidden by Betty Briggs (Charlotte Stewart) all this time was wonderful. Mostly a call back to the surprisingly tender moment from the première of season two between Bobby and the Major at the RR, the scenes in the new episode were both effectively sweet and engrossing as puzzle pieces falling into place.



Sound is playing a very prominent role so far on the new season. This episode features two examples of a strange hum, both in Briggs' capsule and the recurring mystery hum in the Great Northern.



I love these little scenes between Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and Beverly (Ashley Judd). Beymer's mannerisms as Ben have always been strange and funny and the two actors play out these moments well as little pockets of tension. They're fascinating as a potential affair largely because the sound, Beymer's performance, and the knowledge of Beverly's home life make you wonder what else is going on beneath the surface. Ben Horne was always one of my favourite characters--he was funny, sweet, and scary, and sort of like a dangerous, unpredictable predator. At least until he thought he was Robert E. Lee in season two. I'm glad no-one's dwelling on that.



I wondered if we were going to see Johnny Horne (Eric Rondell) in this season. Apparently that's Ben's wife, Sylvia (Jan D'Arcy) with him though we don't get a good look. It suggests Ben's family life is still as dysfunctional and cold as ever, something where maybe he and Beverly might have a lot in common.



Poor Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) continues his bad trip in the woods. He finds himself in an estranged relationship with his foot, which could be seen as a version of what Ben is going through, though it might also be, like his feeling that his car had been stolen a few episodes earlier, a reflection of Cooper's (Kyle MacLachlan) story, a man whose life is certainly not his own.



Mr. C arrives at the farm and things feel a bit Tarantino-ish for the presence of Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I hope we'll see more of them both. I love the unexplained pair of people motionless on the ground in the background--such a Lynchian detail.



One of Lynch's talents it's easy to forget about if you watch his movies over and over (like I do) is how good he is at crafting surprises that are strange but also just close enough to credible keep you in the reality. I really, really love the three big cops investigating Dougie's case. I love the one credited as "Smiley" Fusco (Eric Edelstein) whose laugh Lynch deploys with surgical precision. The cops are like classic, cynical noir detectives just tipped into the surreal. Even the sergeant who comes in to take the fingerprints--he's in such a good mood and he's got those weird, big gestures, but it's weird like real people are weird.



I wasn't familiar with Sky Ferrera before this but I loved her scene in the roadhouse where she talks about working fast food places and scratches the huge rash in her armpit. I was reminded of the idea Lynch and Isabella Rossellini had for Rossellini's character in Wild at Heart, that she should somehow be both ugly and beautiful at the same time and that the two qualities should be related to each other in a strange way. Ferrera's conversation with her friend (Karolina Wydra) was also like a deranged version of the conversation between Donna and Maddy in the season two première.

Last night's episode ended with a welcome second performance from Au Revoir Simone. This season of Twin Peaks may end up having one of the greatest soundtracks in the history of television.

Last night I read "Fairy Tale of Wood Street", one of the best Caitlin R. Kiernan stories I've read, featured in the new Sirenia Digest. The story of two lovers who go to see a movie, it's very simple on the surface but tells something much bigger with a kind of magical restraint. There's a sweetness to the understated rapport between the two protagonists, the narrator and her girlfriend, Hana, that culminates in a wonderfully sensual sympathy between a supernatural creature and a human, or the delicate nature of learning to live a life where perceptions are inevitably uncertain. It's also a much better hulda story than Thale.

Yesterday I also listened to a 2011 Sixth Doctor Doctor Who audioplay called "Industrial Evolution", an entertaining sci-fi perspective on the Industrial Revolution, featuring an alien robot who hates machines. The story starts with the POV of Thomas Brewster (John Pickard), a recurring audio play character--a Victorian urchin--whom the Doctor (Colin Baker) has set up with a job in a brass mill in the 19th century. The story complicates the usual narrative of exploitative industrial tycoons and desperate labour forces by introducing a secret alien. Not one of the greatest audio plays, but perfectly serviceable, especially since it feature's Six's best companion, Evelyn Smythe (Maggie Stables).