Very quick Merlin and SJA post
Nov. 23rd, 2010 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcProblems with my computer, so I'm doing this very quickly at my sister's before I go to work (Christmas Casual at Royal Mail.)
"Goodbye Sarah Jane Smith" was a pretty effective (if somewhat obvious) alien-as-a-metaphor-for-aging story. Ruby White was very effective as "a younger Sarah Jane", and it nicely wrongfooted us by having her first dismissive and then friendly. Whereas if she'd been friendly from the start, the viewer, like the gang, would have been instantly suspicious.
The idea that Ruby had planned Sarah Jane's reactions perfectly, but had underestimated the kids was nicely done, and it was nice to see Luke return and more from K9. (I take it they still have to ration out his appearances due to the accord with the makers of his own series?)
Since it was written by Roberts, had Sarah's name in the title, and gave her a crisis of concience, I was still waiting for the Trickster to show up even after Ruby had revealed her true plan...
"The Sorcerer's Shadow" was interesting - basically an exercise in clearly establishing Merlin's position when it comes to other sorcerers (he's opposed to Uther's policy - obviously - but doesn't agree with people using magic for personal gain ... which includes actively opposing Uther's policy). Since most of the sorcerers he's met have been outright villains, it's nice to get this clarified.
Uther gets a bit of depth - he knows Arthur let him win and commends him for it. It's nice he sees this as compassion and a good thing in a future king, rather than weakness to be deplored. Compare to the dragon, who's supposed to be on the side of Arthur's shining new future, but who's solution to everything is to kill someone, and who can't understand why Merlin tries to avoid this.
(I generally resist the urge to suggest Merlin's debt to early Smallville is more than just the general idea of a Destined Hero's confused teenage years, but the honourable villain and ends-justify-the-means mentor do map nicely onto early Lionel and Jor-El. The difference is that our hero isn't the destined hero - it's like if Lex was going to be Superman, and we were looking at things from the perspective of, I dunno, Pete Ross with powers...)
"Goodbye Sarah Jane Smith" was a pretty effective (if somewhat obvious) alien-as-a-metaphor-for-aging story. Ruby White was very effective as "a younger Sarah Jane", and it nicely wrongfooted us by having her first dismissive and then friendly. Whereas if she'd been friendly from the start, the viewer, like the gang, would have been instantly suspicious.
The idea that Ruby had planned Sarah Jane's reactions perfectly, but had underestimated the kids was nicely done, and it was nice to see Luke return and more from K9. (I take it they still have to ration out his appearances due to the accord with the makers of his own series?)
Since it was written by Roberts, had Sarah's name in the title, and gave her a crisis of concience, I was still waiting for the Trickster to show up even after Ruby had revealed her true plan...
"The Sorcerer's Shadow" was interesting - basically an exercise in clearly establishing Merlin's position when it comes to other sorcerers (he's opposed to Uther's policy - obviously - but doesn't agree with people using magic for personal gain ... which includes actively opposing Uther's policy). Since most of the sorcerers he's met have been outright villains, it's nice to get this clarified.
Uther gets a bit of depth - he knows Arthur let him win and commends him for it. It's nice he sees this as compassion and a good thing in a future king, rather than weakness to be deplored. Compare to the dragon, who's supposed to be on the side of Arthur's shining new future, but who's solution to everything is to kill someone, and who can't understand why Merlin tries to avoid this.
(I generally resist the urge to suggest Merlin's debt to early Smallville is more than just the general idea of a Destined Hero's confused teenage years, but the honourable villain and ends-justify-the-means mentor do map nicely onto early Lionel and Jor-El. The difference is that our hero isn't the destined hero - it's like if Lex was going to be Superman, and we were looking at things from the perspective of, I dunno, Pete Ross with powers...)
