by Catriona Mills

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Twenty-One

Posted 4755 days ago in by Catriona

Geeky in-joke strange conversation.

ME: I’m going to do your Christmas present properly this year.
NICK: Woo hoo!
ME: Do you know what I mean by that?
NICK: No, but “properly” sounds awesome.
ME: Well, last year I bought you your steak knives …
NICK: Which I love.
ME: Yes, but also Robin of Sherwood, which accidentally turned out to be more of a present for me.
NICK: Yeah.
ME: Accidentally! It wasn’t my intent!
NICK: It may not have been your intent, but nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.
ME: Oh, sod off.

Doctor Who and Victorian Patterns of Publishing

Posted 4757 days ago in by Catriona

I’ve been thinking, over the past year or so, about the ways in which my professional interest in Victorian modes of publishing and my fangirl obsession with Doctor Who communicate with one another.

I’m not a cultural studies scholar (except in the most amateur of senses), nor will I ever be. But I can’t help—no doubt because I’m over educated in that highly specialised way that makes you unfit for most jobs—wondering how such things fit together. After all, I work on serial publications, and you can’t get more serial than television, can you?

So I’ve just sent off for consideration an article on Doctor Who and Australian national identity (following, of course, in the footsteps of the great Alan McKee), and I have sitting on my desktop half an article on Doctor Who and Victorian spectacular theatre. Let’s face it: neo-Victorianism is so hot right now, and there’s no reason why I can’t dip my toes in that water.

Then this happened: people started fluttering on Twitter about the rumours that a Doctor Who film was in the works. And I fluttered with everyone else, because I remember the last Doctor Who film, and the memories aren’t among my fondest.

But I wasn’t just fluttering because I feared that Doctor Who would be ruined: I’m old enough now and secure enough in my fangirlishness to never worry about that again. Doctor Who is one of those texts that’s down in the very bone and blood of me. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t watch Doctor Who, and only two other texts, two other men, occupy that same space in me: England’s three great national heroes, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Doctor Who.

So, no: the film will spoil nothing for me, should it ever even exist.

What made me flutter was that, suddenly, everything sounded so familiar. And I thought, “I’ve seen this pattern somewhere before.”

I’ve seen it 150 years ago, in Victorian patterns of publishing.

It seems to me that television networks don’t know what to do with the sudden, radical shift that’s happened in television-watching patterns since the advent of DVDs. Because DVDs aren’t just a slightly different version of videotapes. The market saturation is far greater with DVDs than it ever was with videos—particularly with television shows. Admittedly, Doctor Who (like Star Trek and certain other programs) was always available on video, but there was never the expectation with television shows that they’d be available on video: those that were available were the exception, not the rule.

But now DVD boxsets are the rule, and that’s where the analogy with Victorian publishing patterns comes in.

Because we now experience these televisual texts two distinct ways.

At the first stage of consumption, they’re serial texts, as they always have been. Like so many Victorian novels (but not all), the greater narrative is delivered up to us in digestible chunks, on the publisher’s schedule. We watch it, we discuss it, and we wait for the release of the next chunk, on the same day next week.

Not much difference there (at the level of analogy) between the televisation of a serial text and the serialised publication of a novel in a periodical.

At the second stage of consumption, there’s the DVD boxset. And, certainly, this text is still serial: simply selling an entire season in one package doesn’t change its serial nature. And this is also true of nineteenth-century novels, especially in the years before the 1890s, when novels were, by default, three-volume affairs. Once Mudie’s and the other circulating libraries lost their control over the publishing industry and we started moving into two-volume and one-volume editions and then into cheap paperbacks, the essentially serial nature of the original text was, to some extent, elided by the fact that the story was contained within a single codex.

But serial or not, the text is consumed differently in a DVD boxset than it is on television, because we’re no longer trapped by the publisher’s release schedule: we can consume an entire disk, an entire season, an entire novel in one sitting, if we so choose.

So where does a putative Doctor Who film fit into this analogy? Why are people fluttering about it, when this pattern of publishing is so venerable?

There’s a precedent for films based on television programs in Victorian patterns of publishing, as well. But it’s not a three-volume novel. It’s the dramatic adaptations of novels that proliferated on the nineteenth-century stage.

When I was looking at dramatic adaptations of Eliza Winstanley’s serials on the suburban (East End) stage (which you can read about here if you’re curious), I isolated two telling features.

Firstly, these plays heavily advertised their similarity to the original serials, both in their advertising posters (featuring scenes from the periodical publication of the story and prominent use of the author’s name) and in their on-stage re-creation (largely through tableaux) of key illustrations from the texts. But secondly, they show little real interest in actually being faithful adaptations—which is hardly surprising, given that they were often on stage before the serial had actually ended. Key plot points, key characters, key themes: these are far less important to the dramatists than the superficial sense of similarity.

In this sense, the adaptations simultaneously parade and deny their nature as adaptations, much in the same way as the Daily Mail article I linked to above uses an enormous picture of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan even while it declares the likelihood of an American script-writer and an entirely different actor as the Doctor.

This is why I’m no longer fluttering about the vague possibility of a Doctor Who film, even if the sentence “TV’s Doctor Who is to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster” makes my skin crawl.

It’s true that there’s a key point I’m skimming over here. The analogy stumbles slightly when you consider the relative cultural capital of films (high, even for Hollywood blockbusters) versus television (low, even for premium cable shows). The underlying assumption in much of the coverage of the putative Doctor Who film is that a film version elevates a lowly television program, which is not something critics would ever have said of an East End theatrical production, not matter how many punters it drew in.

But I’m still not fluttering.

Because you know what? There’s nothing new in this. This is a venerable pattern of publishing. And severely truncated and manipulated versions of Charles Dickens, or Mary Elizabeth Braddon, or even Eliza Winstanley didn’t destroy the texts from which they were derived.

And let’s face it: no one thinks of the theatrical versions of his texts when they think of Charles Dickens, do they?

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Twenty

Posted 4757 days ago in by Catriona

In which my mother copes with the idea of having grandchildren.

ME: But if I have children, they won’t be Millses. They’ll be Caldwells.
MOTHER: Well, if they’re Nick’s.
ME: Thank you, Mother.
MOTHER: It’s worth clarifying that.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Nineteen

Posted 4760 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: Well, this seems as good a time as any for this this game to crash.
ME: Nick, don’t be mean to the game.
NICK: I’m not!
ME: You love the game. And if you’re mean to it, it’ll leave you. And it’ll take all your achievements with it.
NICK: You’re the best.
ME: I know.
NICK: All my achievements?
ME: All of them.

Strange Conversations: The Opposing Viewpoints Edition

Posted 4760 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: Oh, bugger.
ME: I thought you’d really damaged that dragon, but now I see it’s called a “blood dragon”. So I guess it’s always covered in blood?
NICK: Yeah.
ME: Oh, there’s a beetle!
NICK: I need to change weapons!
ME: It’s a Christmas beetle! I can see it flapping around near the fridge!
NICK: Apparently, I just levelled up. That’ll be useful.
ME: You know what else would be useful? Getting rid of that beetle.
NICK: I just died, you know.
ME: Good. Now you can get rid of that beetle.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Eighteen

Posted 4762 days ago in by Catriona

ME: The plumber said it wouldn’t damage the tree, and I guess plumbers have to work with trees a fair bit?
NICK: Yeah.
ME: Plus, it’s a jacaranda, and those are impossible to kill.
NICK: They’re pretty much weeds.
ME: Well, they are weeds in some areas. Any plant has the potential to become a weed. I don’t think you’re using the word “weed” correctly.
NICK: I’m using it in the colloquial sense, which is perfectly fine and couldn’t possibly be objected to by anyone.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Seventeen

Posted 4762 days ago in by Catriona

ME: You’re secretly playing Skyrim!
NICK: Yes.
ME: I bet you’ve been secretly playing Skyrim since dinner.
NICK: I have not! Do you want to check the logs?
ME: The logs wouldn’t mean anything to me, Nicholas.
NICK: Actually, I’m not sure the logs even exist. Though sometimes I do wonder …

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Sixteen

Posted 4763 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: Well, you seemed to want me to be decisive.
ME: Oh, yes. Because I’m so the sort of person who wants men to make decisions for me.
NICK: You do sometimes!
ME: No, sometimes I just don’t want to have to make all the decisions myself.
NICK: Oh my god.
ME: There’s a difference! It’s just very subtle!

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Fifteen

Posted 4764 days ago in by Catriona

Christmas-planning conversation:

ME: And then we already have the thingumajig for your sister.
NICK: Yep.
ME: Are you listening to me?
NICK: Yep.
ME: Then what thingumajig am I talking about?
NICK: Damn, you’re cunning.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Fourteen

Posted 4765 days ago in by Catriona

Skyrim meets marking deadline:

NICK: What’s wrong?
ME: Honey, why don’t you go and put the washing on the line? Because I have at least another four hours, maybe five, before I finish this marking, this is the eleventh day in a row that I’ve worked without a break, I have a splitting headache, and I just can’t cope with you sitting right behind me mashing buttons any more.
NICK: Maybe I can find another mouse? Another mouse might be a bit quieter.
(Long pause)
NICK: What? Why are you looking like that? That’s was a generous offer! I am being attentive to your needs!

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Thirteen

Posted 4769 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: I do want to go and get a cold drink, but then I’d have to put a shirt on.
ME: Well, it wouldn’t kill you. I mean, what happened to prettying yourself up before I get home from work, like you used to do in the ’50s?
NICK: What?
ME: You know. Fresh frock. Bit of make-up. I mean, has all the romance gone out of our relationship?
NICK: Too soon to say, really.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Twelve

Posted 4772 days ago in by Catriona

ME: Nick?
NICK: Yes, my love?
ME Why is there a packet of stale crackers, a tin of tomato soup, a packet of custard powder, and some caster sugar on the kitchen bench?
NICK: I had to find that tin of tuna.
ME: How on earth could the tuna be behind the custard powder, tomato soup, and caster sugar?
NICK: Well, turns out it wasn’t, but I wasn’t to know that.
ME: Which returns us to the question of why they’re on the bench.
NICK: Ah, you know. Stuff happens.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Eleven

Posted 4776 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: I know I’m not helping.
ME: No, you’re a hinderer. You’ve always been a hinderer. I think Vladimir Propp devoted a whole chapter to you.
NICK: He caught some of my best work, I thought.

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Ten

Posted 4777 days ago in by Catriona

ME: I can’t tell if I look tired or sultry.
NICK: Let me see. Hmm … just tired.
ME: Thank you, dear.
NICK: Wait, that was the wrong option, wasn’t it? You tricked me!

Strange Conversations: Part Four Hundred and Nine

Posted 4777 days ago in by Catriona

NICK: When I tread heavily in the bedroom, something jingles and it sounds like the noise a landmine makes in Fallout 3.
ME: Are you saying there’s a landmine in the bedroom?
NICK: No.
ME: Then why are you telling me this?
NICK: I thought you’d be amused by my silliness.
ME: No, I’m worried that there’s a landmine in the bedroom.

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