Crush the lesser races! Conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! Unlimited rice pudding!
Welcome to my blog!
posted January 24th 2024
Hello! Chances are, if you're reading this, I've bothered you into doing it, but whether you know me or not, thank you for stopping by!
If you do know me, then you will certainly know that I am more than slightly in love with the audio drama of Big Finish Productions. And if you don't, reading this blog will certainly make that clear quite quickly. more...
Warrior Leela of Gallifrey
posted March 17th 2024
Gallifrey and its powerful people have only ever cared about Leela when she is useful to them. This sounds obvious to say and indeed is definitely true, but something I have thought about a lot is the way that Leela is always used as a tool by the people around her - even by her closest friends. I think I must have said this on the blog before, but Leela serves two functions on Gallifrey - she is the Alien Other or she is the Warrior. Here, I would like to focus on her identity as a Warrior, and how her perception of herself as 'Warrior of the Sevateem' is very different from the Time Lords' view of her.more...
'I don't have a career, I just go to work' - Rachel Jensen, the brilliant, lonely scientist
posted February 28th 2024
One of the most iconic Doctor Who episodes of all time is Remembrance of the Daleks, and justly so - it is very good. It also introduces us to the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group, and despite being the only TV episode these characters ever appear in, Big Finish has given them the full spin-off character treatment by producing seven series worth of audio stories[1]. What is perhaps most notable about this series, and even about Remembrance itself are Professor Rachel Jensen and Doctor Allison Williams as characters who transcend the period-typical presentation of female scientists. Here, I will be looking specifically at Rachel and how extraordinary she is, especially considering the context she was concieved in and written to exist in. more...
A Death in the Family
posted February 21st 2024
No time to write anything particularly thoughtful or eloquent this week, but I absolutely have to talk about A Death in the Family which I listened to for the very first time this week, and despite vaguely already knowing what was going to happen, oh boy. That one hurts, huh? But in the very best of ways, as so much Big Finish does. more...
The Evils of Technology
posted February 14th 2024
I recently wrote an essay elsewhere about classic SF and the effect technological dependence has on dystopias. Though the spooky house of Order of Simplicity is nowhere near the post-apocalyptic dystopia of Blade Runner, technology as a force for evil is a theme that Doctor Who has used over and over again in various different ways, from the Daleks to Gridlock to Mr Smith. more...
Leela in A Blind Eye
posted February 8th 2024
One of the few constants in Gallifrey is the tension between the way Leela sees herself and how everyone else sees her. This episode is an important one for her, and is one of the better ones for deconstructing the assumptions everyone in her world make about her. So often, Leela is treated like she's stupid or lesser just because she isn't like anyone else around her. Indeed, Leela's story is one of profound loneliness because no matter where she is or who she is with, she doesn't fit in or think alike. more...
Damaged Mothers and Damaged Children in Counter-Measures
posted January 31st 2024
Mothers in SF rarely get the complexity or even acknowledgement that they do in other fiction. Indeed, more often than not, motherhood in SF is a death sentence - for the mother or for her child. I desire at this point to go off on a tangent about Benny whose audio adventures I recently completed to for the first time (though I'm still working on the books), and for whom motherhood is an intrinsic part of her character in a way that is rarely ever seen in SF as it neither reduces her nor serves as a tragedy in the typical way. However, for now I am yet again thinking about Rachel and Allison, and the world of Counter-Measures where mothers and their children do suffer the classic SF problem of dying for the narrative. more...
Is Gallifrey Feminist SF?
posted January 24th 2024
About two years ago now, I got sent a link to a blog post which proclaims that Gallifrey is 'what feminist SF looks like'. Though it cannot be denied that Big Finish do wonders for the female characters of the Doctor Who Universe and beyond, I would hesitate to describe the entire catalogue as 'feminist SF', and the question of Gallifrey being an explicitly feminist series is one that I have been mulling over for months. more...