Finished Spare Parts last night, and now get what everyone was on about. First two episodes are fine enough, with some lovely post-Adric flailing inadequacy from the Doctor, and a brilliant bit where he shouts at Nyssa, er, rather a lot. But it all seems rather bitty and directionless, with the Doctor encountering a Cyberman! escaping the Cyberman! encountering another Cyberman! escaping again ad infinitum while Nyssa bumbles about facilitating guest character development.

And then BANG CRASH WALLOPY-DOO, parts three and four are feckin' marvo. I never really got Cybermen before: never thought they were scary, never thought they were interesting. (Apart from killing Adric, ahem.) And I was a wee quivering thing listening to this. One bit in part three is one of the most disturbingly 'eek' moments I think I've ever heard from Who: right up there with 'Are you my Mummy?' And Fivey inevitably gets tied to a table and poked till he squeaks, which never gets old. And there is aaaaaaaangst and consequences and all that good stuff. Hooray!

Oh, and one of the Cybermen has the best voice-pattern ever, all rises and falls in the wrong places. If they use that in the new thing I will be really quite delighted.


And lo, since my brain has apparently melted and I am incapable of useful work-type-stuff, I steal memes from ph34rthedragon and memeify!

List your six of your favourite TV shows.

1. Doctor Who
2. Firefly
3. The Professionals
4. Farscape
5. Buffy
6. Starsky and Hutch


1. Who is your favourite character from #2?
Hum. Probably Simon, no matter how adorable Cap'n Tightpants is. I like prim posh boys dragged out of context and desperately clinging onto their shoeshine in an effort to pretend their old life still exists. I shall not interrogate the whole 'big brother' thing because that tends to make one's brain hurt.

2. Who is your least favourite character from #4?
I don't think Sikozu ever worked. An experiment in a character with no backstory whatsoever, whose motivations were never clear, who could turn out to be hero or villain (or both) at any moment. In other words, an excuse to have a character do loads of weird unfathomable crap and never have to explain it. Bleh. Liked her sputnik hairdo, though: shame the suits insisted on her having flowing locks to up the totty count.

3. What would a crossover between #1 and #5 include?
Hee, I've nearly written this. The possibilities are endless, but I'm quite fond of magic shop-era Giles finding a strange blue box in his stock room, and Anya having jolly oneupmanship with Nine over who's oldest. Oh, and Nine taking the piss out of Giles for believing in magic, and being bossed about by his 'companion'.

4. Which is your favourite relationship from #6?
Starsky and his fiery red Torino?;)

5. If you were to set one person from #3 and one person from #6 on a blind date, who would they be?
Ohhhh, too perfect. I can see Bodie plotting to set Doyle up with Starsky, so Starsky can eat burritos at him and persuade Doyle that Bodie's not as much of a pig as he claims - all for fear that if Doyle and Hutch went on a date, they would force their respective partners to live on mung beans and alfalfa sprouts.

6. If you could meet one person from #4 and spend the day with them, who would it be, and what would you do?
Erm. Crichton. Things involving bed-hair. Ahem. Failing that: I'd take Chi to Barcelona, show her some Gaudi and feed her tapas.

7. If you could change one thing about #2's plot line, what would you change?
Well, obviously I'd like it to still be having one. I'm not sure it was around long enough for me to want to change anything, apart from Heart of Gold being rubbish.

8. Explain a relationship between two people (not necessarily romantic) from show #5, and why you like the relationship between them.
Tricky, because it's the relationships (especially the platonic ones) and their developments that make Buffy. I actually really liked the way Buffy and Tara played off one another: the way Tara wasn't instantly one of the gang, didn't immediately fit in, and that really that was OK, because not everyone has to be a Scooby and worship at the feet of the Tiny Blonde One. And then Tara being the one Buffy went to about the whole 'I came back wrong' business, because she needed to talk to the one person who wouldn't make it their problem.

9. If the lead title characters (first name in the credits) from #1 and #3 were both drowning, and you could only save one, who would it be?
The Doctor. Sorry, Raymond, but Bionic Golly versus Time Lord is not much of a contest. Even if he might regenerate and you presumably won't.

10. If you could change the title characters' order in the credits for #4, what order would you choose?
Fine as they are.

11. If you were able to add a new character, any kind of character you wanted, to the storyline for #6, what would the character be like and what would their role be?
Not really a serial plotline to add to. But I would ditch Captain Dobey in a heartbeat and replace him with someone who can act, and who extends beyond 'Irascible Boss With Faith In His Boys' to, I don't know, actual characterisation or something. Seriously, the man 1)is fat, 2) shouts, and 3) has a wife (in one whole episode). And that's your lot.

12. What happens in your favourite episode of show #2?
Argh! I can never figure out if it's Out of Gas or Objects in Space. Dying Captain fights against ticking clock while hi-larious flashbacks tell the tale of how his good ship's crew came to be, or Scary mercenary infiltrates ship and scarier supergirl fights back. Apparently I like claustrophobic jeopardy, with jokes.

13. If you could kill off one of the characters of #1, who would it be and how would you do it?
Good lord, we could be here all day. Restricting myself purely to the Five era, since that's where my head is at: well, the canon deaths of Adric and Fivey are actually bloody great, and the oodles of angst already floating around the TARDIS might make the poor Doctor turn into Colin Baker prematurely. But if Turlough were to have killed Nyssa while under the Black Guardian's influence, and the Doctor had to find a way to forgive him...

14. If you got the chance to visit the set for either show #3 or show #5, which would you choose?
Would have to be Buffy: there's more of a sense of it being a coherent production made by people who are actually invested in it, as opposed to some cheaparse crime drama with no continuity cobbled together by random hacks.

15. So, I saved the best question for last. If you could date anyone from any of these shows, which show and which person?
It doesn't work, this one. All the shmexy ones are nuts, or evil, or not really a plausible dating prospect. But I would quite like to be invited out for tea and cake with Fivey, even though he wouldn't turn up because he forgot he was meant to be shagging Turlough saving the planet that afternoon. I bet he'd send you a nice note to apologise, though. Eventually. You wouldn't actually ever get it, but you'd know it was in his pocket or lost in 1601 or something.



Now listening to The Mutant Phase. Five and Nyssa are having a snarking competition and being really rather lovely. There's a lot to be said for the solo companion thing: means they actually have a chance of doing a bit more than saying 'But what does that mean, Doctor?' in turn.