Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: Clyde Langer (The Sarah Jane Adventures)

(Note:  I'm out of town at the moment without access to my Sarah Jane DVDs, so I can't grab any screencaps.  I'll add pictures to this post tomorrow.)

 

I still have a few more recurring new Whocharacters to give a Top Five to, but I figured I might as well get started on the spin-offs.  There’s a lot to love about Clyde; here are five good reasons (spoilers.)

Deducing the Slitheen’s Weakness (Series 1, Episode 2 – “Revenge of the Slitheen:  Part 2”)

Mr. Smith has been disabled just before he can tell our heroes what common kitchen ingredient can destroy the Slitheen, and Clyde, in his first rodeo with Team Sarah Jane, works out what it is.  He remembers how the Slitheen disguised as his teacher reacted to the cold chip sandwich he brought to school and, reasoning that bread, salt, and potatoes are too ubiquitous to be the answer, realizes that it has to be the vinegar.  Not bad for a tagalong!

Communicating with the Outside World (Series 1, Episode 10 – “The Lost Boy:  Part 2”)

I love Clyde’s spidey sense about realizing when something’s not on the up-and-up, but it does tend to get him sidelined by the villains, since he’s not too discreet about revealing his suspicions.  Here, he’s trapped inside an alien computer (never mind how that works,) and he still manages to help, mentally sending a message to the Jacksons’ computer so the others will know who the bad guy/computer is.  (Also, bonus points for correctly visualizing the layout of a keyboard.)

Finishing Off Odd Bob (Series 2, Episode 4 – “Day of the Clown:  Part 2”)

Yes – using laughter to destroy an alien that feeds on fear is super cheesy, as are the incredibly lame jokes Clyde tells to get the job done, but I love this moment anyway.  Maybe it’s because Clyde has spent a lot of time getting criticized for being a “class clown,” with people confusing levity for trouble-making.  In light of that, I like seeing him use this quality to save the day, and I love how pleased he is with himself about it!

Realizing the Truth about Gavin (Series 4, Episode 8 – “The Empty Planet:  Part 2”)

More of Clyde’s spidey sense.  Gavin isn’t the villain here, but Clyde gets that something’s up.  He notes the lack of kid-friendly anything at Gavin’s flat – from the absence of DVDs and video games to the “rubbish biscuits” (cookie) – and while Rani takes that to mean Gavin’s life is rougher than theirs, Clyde sees it as something more, which helps lead them to the truth of who Gavin really is.

Standing Up to Frickin’ Nazis (Series 4, Episode 10 – “Lost in Time:  Part 2”)

Yep, this scene again.  Sick of it yet?  Me, neither.  Not only does Clyde call out an officer who’s racist to him, but he also taunts the Nazis with his foreknowledge of their eventual loss and buys himself just enough time to escape them by making them think his superior future technology (ie, his phone) is a high-tech bomb.  Clyde Langer for the win!

Relationship Spotlight: Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson (Daredevil)

Realizing that Marvel has too much for me to only talk about in periodic write-ups, here’s a new regular feature:  Marvelous Wednesdays!  The MCU has a real way with depicting relationships between a superhero and their nonpowered friend.  Jessica and Trish, Steve and Bucky in the first Captain America, Peggy and Jarvis (although, in their case, the “super” part isn’t required,) and here, Matt and Foggy.  Much love for these two, who might get the deepest examination of this type of relationship.  Some Foggy-Matt-related Daredevil spoilers, including season 2.

The early episodes of the series quickly and clearly set up Matt and Foggy’s dynamic.  They’ve been through the trenches of law school together and are now ready to take on the world as defense attorneys looking out for the little guy.  They’re quite the “little guys” themselves; even though they know their stuff and aren’t afraid to mess with the big dogs, their operation looks decidedly ramshackle, what with their tiny, bare offices, their sole employee, and their zero dollars.  Still, they’re undaunted by what they don’t have and instead focus on what they can do.  Both give each other the sort of hard time that only best friends can, but both also know how to buckle down and give it their all when it comes to helping out someone in trouble.

However, Matt and Foggy are different from the other duos mentioned above in a key way:  at the start of the series, Foggy doesn’t know that Matt puts on a mask at night and fights gangsters.  He’s completely in the dark about Matt’s superpowers, and when he accidentally discovers the truth in the middle of season one, it’s rough.  He’s of course hurt by all the secrets Matt has kept from him, he’s naturally concerned for Matt’s safety, and he worries about the drive within Matt that makes him dish out such a brutal, self-determined brand of justice.  The revelations knock him over, and it takes time for them to get to any sort of good place again.

Even as Foggy struggles to reconcile Matt’s secret life, however, he can’t stop caring.  He gives Matt raw diatribes on how much his ever-present worry for Matt is tearing him up, but he still rushes in whenever Matt is hurt, dragging his bleeding friend home and helping to patch him up.  He puts himself in incredible danger at times to make sure Matt is safe.  Part of it is simply the depth of their friendship, but I imagine that part of it is also the fact that Foggy can’t shake the impression he’s developed over the years of Matt being slightly more in need of looking after.  Not that Foggy ever really patronized Matt or treated him with kid gloves due to his disability, but it’s clear in the little things that he’s accustomed to “helping out.”  Matt holds Foggy’s arm when they walk down busy sidewalks together, and Foggy frequently serves as his informal audio describer, filling him on visual details like someone’s facial reactions.  Although Matt’s powers essentially nullify his blindness and then some, I think Foggy’s gut still thinks of Matt as that guy, the one who needs an extra hand.  (In truth, I think any friend of a superhero would display much the same level of concern, but I think this particular detail gives the show more room to explore it.)

By the end of season two, I’m not quite sure where things will go moving forward with Matt and Foggy.  Their friendship has been put through the ringer, personally and professionally, and as much as Foggy still cares, he realizes he can over take so much of Matt putting himself in danger.  I hope things work out for our favorite avocados at law, and I suspect they probably will in the end, but it might be a long time coming.

Character Highlight: Wilfred Mott (Doctor Who)

There’s just something about Wilf.  With Sylvia around, Donna clearly needed some goodness in her life before she joined the Doctor, and Wilf is just the ticket.  The character adds to the humor, warmth, and sense of wonder in series 4, and although my feelings about “The End of Time” are mixed at best, I am glad that Wilf got a shot in an adventure of his own (a few Wilf-related spoilers.)

We don’t meet Wilf for the first time in “Partners in Crime.”  He makes his initial appearance before that in the Christmas special, in which he sells newspapers and shakes his fist at the sky, warning all “them aliens” not to attack London a third Christmas in a row.  There’s nothing in that episode to indicate he has any connection with Donna, but when “Partners in Crime” rolls around and Donna goes “up the hill” to see her grandpa and his telescope, there’s that little news vendor again.  That first scene with him and Donna is enough to make me love him, because I want all the best for Donna and it’s clear that they have a lovely relationship.  As Sylvia pessimistically critiques her daughter and father in equal measure, Donna and Wilf are both dreamers in their own way, and Donna is even able to speak to him – albeit obliquely – about her previous encounter with the Doctor.  When Donna does find the Doctor again, I love that she has him fly the TARDIS by Wilf’s star-gazing spot before taking off, letting him in on the fact that she’s leaving as well as giving him a sight for the ages.

Like the best “companion’s family” characters, Wilf worries for Donna’s safety, but he ultimately knows that she shouldn’t trade the incredible adventure she’s having for a more secure life.  He stands up for Donna when Sylvia finds out about the Doctor, and even as he frets over her when things hit the fan, alien-wise, in London, he encourages her to get out there and do what she can to help.  And Wilf doesn’t just talk the talk:  during the “stolen Earth” incident at the end of series 4, he takes to the streets with a paintball gun, planning to shoot the Daleks in the eyestalks and blind them (that is such a Doctor Who thing to do – I love it.)

Like I said, my overall feelings about “The End of Time” aside, I love that Wilf gets to be an actual companion.  Like any other companion, his reactions to the big alien goings-on range from flabbergasted (calling the Vinvocci “cactus” people) to horrified (watching the Master subsume the human race) to awed (looking down on the Earth from his vantage point on the Vinvocci ship.)  Unfortunately, he doesn’t get too many big moments as a companion.  His most hands-on scene is probably the one where he uses the Vinvocci’s asteroid lasers to shoot the missiles the Master launches at them, and before the actual companioning starts, he does an impressive bit of sleuthing to track down the Doctor with the aid of the “Silver Cloak,” his pensioner friends with their ears to the ground.  Aside from that, his larger purpose as a companion is to be someone the Doctor can have weighty conversations with.  Not that this is always a good thing, since Ten is rapidly approaching critical angst mass within the first fifteen minutes of this story and throwing in a teary Wilf isn’t playing fair, so some of this can be a bit much.  Other scenes between them, however, are really lovely.  It’s to see the Doctor relating to an old man asan old man, and because Wilf has been connected to the Doctor through Donna but has never traveled with the Doctor himself, he’s as just about the right level of familiarity:  close enough to be able to get what’s going on with the Doctor, but still removed enough that he can get real when he needs to.

A Few Thoughts on the “Hybrid”

I’ve already talked a bit about Doctor Who’s fabled “Hybrid,” which was part of the big series 9 arc, and I’ve already made it clear that I’m not much of a fan of the plot.  However, beyond the (IMO) sloppy execution of the mystery and my general aversion to the existence of prophecy in a frickin’ time travel show (didn’t like it in “The Stolen Earth” / “Journey’s End,” still don’t like it now,) there are other reasons the plot bugs me (Hybrid-related spoilers for series 9.)

Now, obviously, the meta reason that we never heard of this super-important, potentially-world-destroying(?) Hybrid prophecy before season 9 is because that’s when Moffat dreamed it up.  I get that, and there’s nothing he can do about it.  But when he establishes this prophecy as going so far back that it may in fact constitute the reason the First Doctor left Gallifrey (more on that in a minute,) it feels really conspicuous that it’s never come up before.  The show tells us that this prophecy is both very old and An Enormous Deal.  It’s so important, it seems, that the newly-returned-to-our-universe Time Lords bribe Me to lure the Doctor onto her street with a mystery and a threat of death to one of his acquaintances so he can be taken captive and what he knows about the Hybrid can be discovered (why is it that the Doctor is their only option for Hybrid intel, by the way?  He got his info from the Matrix on Gallifrey, right?  Why can’t they just look at it like he did?)  It’s so important that they then trap him inside his confession dial, killing him over and over again and looping him through the same time cycle with aim of getting him to reveal his secret (and yet they’re cool with him evidently stalling on this for four billion years?  Is the situation so urgent that they need to torture him to get their information or isn’t it?  And how does the four billion years work?  Is that just within the confession dial itself, from the Doctor’s perspective, or do the Time Lords honestly sit around that long waiting for him?)  In light of all this massive direness, why did they never once broach the subject at any of the many times the Doctor was on Gallifrey willingly (if not generally eagerly) over the in-show centuries of the classic series?  If they need to know so badly, why did they apparently not care until now?

Again, I get that this whole Hybrid business only entered the canon last season, so there’s no real-world way the Time Lords couldhave asked the Doctor about it before now, but this makes the fictional-world logic completely frakked up.  There either needs to be an explanation for whyit wasn’t so vital for them to know then as it is now, or else they can’t be so obsessively, psychotically desperate to know it.  Without either qualifier, none of it makes a lick of sense.

Getting back to One possibly leaving Gallifrey because he was afraid of what he knew… I really, really don’t want that.  Unless I get empirical evidence to the contrary, I’m going to believe that was a lie (and even with empirical evidence, I might need further convincing.)  Messing with the Doctor’s origins is so dicey, and Moffat doesn’t exactly have a careful hand on this front.  The idea that the Doctor fled Gallifrey in fear over this super-important prophecy that has never before come up in the 50+ year history of the show feels so stupid, so small, so simplistic.  I really dislike that.  I prefer to keep the Doctor’s beginning mysterious.  Hints are okay – the suggestion that the Doctor was diverging from the typical Time Lord mindset, the idea that he wanted more than a sterile life on Gallifrey, vague references to running but not why or from what.  But I don’t want to get clear, cut-and-dry “this is why this happened,” and even if I did, this flimsy, half-formed “Hybrid” idea is nowhere neargood enough to serve as an impetus for why The Doctor’s story even happened in the first place.

News Satire Roundup: May 22nd-May 26th

Sunday, May 22 – Amid protests and a severe economic crisis in Venezuela, President Maduro would be hard-pressed to be less helpful.  In contrast, PM Trudeau in Canada has apparently spent the week apologizing for “Elbowgate,"” in which he elbowed a government representative while trying to help another squeeze through; this might be one of the most stereotypically Canadian things ever.  The main story was on the absolute free-for-all that is the US primary/caucus system.  I knew it was messed up, inconsistent, and not very democratic, but as usual, John handily demonstrated just how far the insanity goes.  I particularly liked his point that many Americans think they have a basic understanding of how the system works but they really don't, and why that's an obvious problem.  Finally, there was a story about Chechnyan leader Kadyrov, who took to social media to deputize the people to find his missing cat – wow.

Monday, May 23 – Opening bit on the leader of the Taliban being killed in a drone strike; I liked the joke that ISIS has been a decoy all this time to make the Taliban think the US forgot about them.  The story on Trump’s appearance at a fundraiser for paying off Chris Christie's campaign debt was amusing.  I loved the bit about children in Africa deciding Christie needs the money more, and Trump shrugging off the threat of a trade war with China is insane but, sadly, not unexpected.  The story on TSA shortages was a bit fluff but fine.  I enjoyed Trevor's horror at adding clowns to a stressful situation, and he had a great riff on a reporter’s “humble bragging” about his reward membership.  The interview with Rose Byrne was a little ho-hum.  I was surprised to realize she was Australian (I’d always assumed British,) and Trevor’s revelation that the Australian soap Neighbours is apparently huge in South Africa made me smile.

Tuesday, May 24 – I liked having single thematic through line for the episode, doing a whole show on the NRA and gun safety regulation.  We started with the new union between Trump and the NRA, which seemed uneasy despite the similar MOs of furthering their aims by exploiting people’s fears; I loved Trevor’s crack about “the smell of demagoguery in the morning.”  The show also looked at the history of the NRA, which originally prioritized gun safety.  Desi had an interesting field piece reporting outside an NRA convention.  The angle, that the Constitution-obsessed group wouldn’t let her exercise her 1st-Amendment right to freedom of the press, was great, and I liked the observation that most NRA are opposed to the words “gun control” but not actual common-sense safety laws.  The guest, Katie Couric, talked about her new documentary Under the Gun.  It was an informative interview that flowed nicely from what came before.

Wednesday, May 25 – The first story looked at Brazil’s assorted crises as the Olympics approach, from political upheaval to horrific pollution to the Zika virus.  I loved the comment that the US wouldn’t skip the Olympics because Americans love winning and going on vacation so much, and Trevor’s gobsmacked reaction to Congress wanting to use Ebola money for Zika was cathartic.  Next came Trump’s latest conspiracy theory (latching onto an old outlandish theory about the Clintons murdering a guy) and revisited others he’s touted – Obama’s birth certificate, connecting Ted Cruz’s dad to Lee Harvey Oswald, vaccines causing autism – with the general thesis of, “And this guy should be trusted with the US military?”  The guest was Cory Pegues, a reformed gang member who became a police officer.  He discussed systemic problems in policing and the importance of not deciding someone’s entire future based on their past.

Thursday, May 26 – Some good jokes on Obama’s visit to Vietnam.  I liked the passive-aggressive technique of only selling weapons to Vietnam when China is watching, and Trevor had an amusing tangent about what Obama does/doesn’t need to carry on him.  The latest on Clinton’s emails was depressing, especially her approval rating dipping below Trump’s for the first time.  Trevor’s right – how on earth did we get here?  Michelle had some advice on how Clinton can get back on top, suggesting that America needs a boss more than a buddy.  Another tale from the Trump archives, this time a chauvinist “women in the kitchen” quote, once again demonstrating why his approval with women is so low.  Reporter Mike Allenwas the guest, talking about – what else? – the insane election.  He discussed the GOP’s resignation to Trump, Clinton’s poll numbers, and pointless but highly entertaining idea of a Trump-Sanders debate.