I have made an executive decision: every now and then Wednesdays around here will be Whodnesdays.
This was prompted by paralysis: because Lauredhel and I couldn’t decide from the plethora of choice available for a general Whoniverse Marry, Shag or Chuck Off A Cliff (MSC) edition – who could we have possibly left out? Far too limiting.
So now some Wednesdays will be Whodnesdays, and some Whodnesdays will be be MSCs, with only one trilemma per MSC from now on. That way we can eke the gratuitous ogling and the fangeek out for ages (or at least until Auntie starts showing us Season 4).
This week, Doctors Four, Nine and Ten – who would you Marry, Shag or Cliff?
* * *
Now, a taste of upcoming Whodnesdays: what exactly is it about the Whoniverse that you most enjoy?
Is it the intense gazes to camera?
(Proposed: the TARDIS crew can’t match the Torchwood crew when it comes to intense)
Is it the running? (lots of running (and wondering whether they need to be running?))
Or is it, in the end, all about the techy-toys?
Regarding Sarah Jane in the collage above, here is this post’s ObFeministContent: Who looks at a lipstick and thinks, “this could be a little more sonic”?
Heh. My main concern is that around here, “Wednesday” is pronounced “wensday”, more or less, which would make this … “Hoonsday”.
Moving on… goodness. Do I have to do one of each with each Doctor? Very well; I suppose I’d marry 10, shag 9 and very reluctantly chuck 4 off a cliff. 10 seems like he’d be the easiest to live with; 9 is far and away the sexiest of the three (and it’s not just the leather jacket); and I like 4 a lot, but hell, he’ll regenerate. (By which logic I’d rather cliff 3.)
Well, he does hoon around the spacetime continuum rather relentlessly, doesn’t he?
P.S. Actually, my favourite part of the Whoniverse is simply the sense that the actors regularly goof off together.
Squee!
Marry: Ten
Shag: Nine
Cliff: Four
I rather like the Fourth Doctor actually, but I don’t really want to marry or shag him. And I will point out that when he regenerated into the Fifth Doctor, it was by falling (although not off a cliff), so it’s sort of appropriate.
Regarding the Sonic Lipstick– I agree with much of the ObFeminist commentary. The only alternative I can come up with is that it could be read as subversive– turning something from a tool of unrealistic beauty standards into something practical. Nonetheless, the other criticisms still stand.
This might be a slight spoiler, but I’ll try to make it vague enough that it won’t be a problem– in both S2 of Torchwood and S4 of Doctor Who we see women wielding gender-neutral sonic devices at different times. When we’re allowed to talk about it openly, it would be interesting to do an analysis of the way that women wield sonic objects.
I’d shag all three (although only one or two at a time), marry none of them, and want to chuck each of them off a cliff from time to time, but probably for different reasons.
As for what I most enjoy about the Whoniverse:
1. It’s fun.
2. Women from all walks of life kick arse.
3. Jack/Ianto. It’s so cute. :)
(Er, that should really be “women from many walks of life”, rather than “all”– obviously there are many women who are not well represented in the Whoniverse– that was my privilege talking again).
Gah! Decisions, decisions.
Okay, I’ll marry ten, since he’s my favourite thus far. I’ll shag nine, and very relcutantly I’m throwing four off a cliff.
The thing I love most about Whoniverse is that none of the characters is infallible. They all make mistakes or take actions they don’t particularly want to, or shouldn’t.
Shag Ten, Marry Nine, Cliff Four (though I do still like him. I have faith that a simple cliff-fall isn’t going to do the Doctor any harm). I’ve always been a Nine fan. As I was mentioning elsewhere, my TV-boyfriends have a striking and slightly disturbing similarity: Giles from Buffy, Sayid from Lost, Ninth Doctor, and Horn Rimmed Glasses Guy from Heroes.
Marry 10, shag 9, chuck 4 off the cliff (but only on the grounds that if I marry 10 I get to shag him multiple times, because he is utterly HOTT).
Actually 9 doesn’t do it for me particularly. And 4, blech. He looks like someone’s slightly creepy uncle.
Harsh – the Fourth Doctor was one of my first TV crushes way back when.
I have to say now though that I’d Marry Nine, Shag Doctor TenInch, and would also shag Four before chucking him off the Cliff so that he can get on with regenerating into the other two.
Poor old Tom Baker– I think everyone has cliffed him so far! Maybe it’s because his hair is so damn big…
Well I’ll marry 4 though I know we ultimately divorce and there’s a nasty custody battle for K-9. Don’t say a word about his hair or his scarf or his velvety hat. I must be the only one who is so-so about 10- I’ll cliff him and shag t’other.
Am I the only one who thinks the sonic screwdriver was always a kind of visual single entendre?
As for Big Tommy B – i was just looking at footage of him at Invasion 2008 and he has aged well in both body and voice – Pertwee really looked his age and had frailty in his voice at this point but Big Tommy B sounds just as powerful as he did in his heyday
Hes probably the only Doctor that will get a really big send off in the media some day too
Oh yes. That was largely the point of The Master trumping him with the laser screwdriver, wasn’t it?
BTW, do you have any idea how long it took me to find a PR shot of Freema Agyeman just looking intense, like the others, in a PR shot? She mostly looked way too cheerful and excited. I had to cheat and use one from Season 4 to get the intense Martha – she seems to have got the hang of it now!
Here’s a classic example of what I mean:
c’mon Freema – it is a lovely smile, but if you’re promoting an ep where Martha’s family is being held hostage, just maybe look a little more sombre and determined?
I have this image as my wallpaper, and I think Martha looks pretty intense there, while Jack looks overly cheerful. She also looks pretty intense in this one.
I think that in a lot of the promo photos for the Season 3 finale, they just photoshopped in images of the actors that were taken for earlier promotional material, so I wouldn’t blame Freema too much for her smiles. :)
Also, lest anyone think that I was dissing Tom Baker’s big hair, that was actually a reference to the original Marry, Shag or Cliff, in which John Barrowman chose to cliff the person whose hair was bigger than his (implying that big hair is something to be envied).
She is a little out of whack with the others in that photo to be sure. Actually it is the excess of cheerfulness that is the problem with no.10. He just seems a little uncomplicated for mine, cf no.9 whose smile seemed more deranged than cheery. If you made it Whoydensday you could have a 3 fer 1.
I only just approved Beppie’s comment prior to yours (caught up in mod due to the number of links) but I think her explanation of them photoshopping those promo shots must be right – Freema is in the exact same poses as earlier promo shots, and I just hadn’t twigged. OK, then she’s forgiven and the it’s BBC Publicity Dept who gets a razzing!
I rather like Ten’s cheerful smugness and the way it drops away to dead seriousness when the moment demands it. Very Fifth Doctor, who was another of my faves. Nine still tops him for mine, but I don’t know how much of that is due to my fancrush on Eccleston being of the highest order even before he did Who.
I’d shag Martha, marry Donna and throw Rose off the cliff (in her Bad Wolf aspect so she could utterly pwn.)
My favourite thing about Doctor Who is the constant changing. I get bored of shows that have the same people in the same place. I wish it were a little less human-centric though.
Hellonhairylegss last blog post..Pas des Excuses!
Beppie – I need to watch more TV, I had no idea about the origin of MSC. Mopheads like me do tend to twitch neurotically at the big hair slur and good timelord, now that I look at those pics again- apart from Eccleston hasn’t there been a positive dandruff storm of odd hairdos in the Whoverse over the years? Colin Firth- Hahhahhahhhha!
Baker, Baker. Dear Goddess let me not start imagining wet shirts now.
su, it’s an old game to play at the pub over a few drinks, to get the conversation relaxed, although the first time I played it was “Marry, Screw or Murder?” – I think “Marry, Shag or Cliff?” is much more euphonious!
Did I hear someone say wet shirts?
Look, the BBC Publicity Dept made it glow, even!
FIEND! That’d be the optical brighteners in their inauthentic-for-the-19thC wash powder, tuttut. Or possibly someone’s crossed Darcy with a jellyfish.
I can sense the hentai manga slash coalescing, called forth simply by you typing that phrase.
How could you not shag the doctor who’s nickname is David “teninch”?!
Oh, boy, I’m running with the crowd here, but I’d:
Marry 10,
Shag 9,
and Cliff 4. Sorry 4, you were My Doctor, but that was when I was 7 or so, and you just don’t reside in the “Potentially Shaggable” area of my head.
As for what I like about the series, it’s a lot to do with whimsy, and hidden worlds just alongside ours, and mystery-not-magic, and the techy toys, but what really seals the deal is the interaction between Doctor and Companion. It changes with each configuration, but there’s always that dynamic of the Doctor having a Big Damn Brain with lots of esoteric knowledge and mostly kicking butt, occasionally getting pwned by his companion with her/his more practical sensibilities (or explosives).
baroquestars last blog post..Hump Day Link Fest
Agreed, the rapport between Doctor and Companion is crucial, and it’s the Companion’s reactions that generally drive the narrative. There’s the sense that all those centuries of seeing other lives fleet past, and all those crises that spawn horror and atrocity and grief, could paralyse the Doctor at intervals. Although his instincts are always to intervene for justice, his ethics regarding the timeline, and doubts at times of whether his intervention will only make things worse, have always throughout the series made him sometimes stand back, and it’s usually the Companion who pushes him off the fence.
Nooooooo! Don’t make me choose! Okay Marry (10), Shag (4) but only in his hey-day and mostly because of the VOICE and very sadly (9) for the cliff chuck and only because he left too soon.
And tig-tog, bless you for the wet shirt photo. *fans self* Ohhh boy. Now post something of a half naked Gerard Butler, there’s a good woman.
My goodness, now there was an interesting Google session! I didn’t recognise the name.
I found a noice set of images on Flickr – you should find something satisfactory in this!
Oooh, squee! Ommm nom nom nom
I have been remiss in sharing important news: for the last few hours I have been enjoying a Dr Who marathon on UK-TV – Season 2 of the new series.
Back to Reinette!
I thought the blog seemed quiet. :P
Although that’s a good thing, as I’m technically studying.
And then I’m going to watch Ark in Space, which I purchased on Thursday.
[...] lipstick. Back in the Inaugral Whoydensday Post Tigtog linked to Sonic Stereotypes at the Feminist SF Blog, which explains exactly why it’s so [...]