So on Sunday I went to go see the full, two-part season premiere of Doctor Who screened in a movie theater and I really enjoyed it! It was definitely worth the hour drive to get there, and even the live (simulcast) Q&A afterwards felt worth sticking around for.

( Spoiler cut for 'Spyfall' )

In other viewing news, I finished Dracula. It was... an experience. It was definitely a show written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I hoped that after how good series 10 of Doctor Who was that this would be a turning point in how they construct and write shows but clearly not. It has some of the same, specific kind of bizarre story rot that Sherlock had in it's latter seasons - complete with an ending that just kind of confused and pissed everyone off. I wasn't as taken aback as others apparently were, but it's hard to argue that the third and final episode wasn't a major creative misstep on so many levels. It's especially frustrating because Claes Bang and Dolly Wells are genuinely great in this and it was honestly depressing watching them get progressively worse material. That ending scene also felt particularly bad tropey and, for me, undercut why their character dynamic worked on a show where a lot of things really didn't.

I also finished two seasons of two different anime series over the past couple of days. Golden Kamuy has been a delight that I'm really happy I dived back into, even if it does skate very close to some bad tropes in episode 11. The show feels refreshing and unlike anything else I've ever watched, and provides a genuinely informative and engaging look at aspects of Ainu culture and the pre-World War era of Japan. Also, ever since I watched Silver Spoon, I've found Hokkaido specifically very captivating and it's nice to see that region get such a major spotlight in this show. My one complaint is that I feel like the late season plot twist that re-contextualizes the whole show may have been a bit much, and reminds me of a particular plot twist in a recent motion picture, but it's early enough in the overall story I'm not particularly put off by it. If anything, it's a testament to how much affection the show's built for this (very large) group of characters over a relatively short period of time that I'm willing to put up with plot twists like that and still derive immense enjoyment from the show.

I also, after a very long break, finished the first cour of Attack on Titan season 3. I've had a very weird relationship with this show, as I opted to binge the first season after the fact instead of watching it week-to-week like some of my friends obsessively did when it aired in 2013. All of them have since fallen off of it, though I've managed to stick with it (with a lot of breaks). Part of the problem is that the show has never had particularly great pacing. The first season in particular moves at a crawl, and midway through 3A I hit another one of those patches where the show kind of sits in one spot for several episodes and spits out exposition. This was back in late 2018 when this portion originally aired, and I only just now binged the final five episodes of this block and, as a whole, they were much better than what came before. The first one had that same pacing issue, but the final four actually had a kind of forward momentum and conciseness that I'm not sure the show has quite achieved since it first started. It also nicely set up what the trajectory for the second cour of the season will be: get to the basement and see what's inside (and finally patch Wall Maria I guess). I know the show will probably sink into a lore-tangled mess sooner rather than later, but I'm enjoying the current high point.

Part of what also kept me from jumping back on until now was because the show has some very unfortunately allegory that's getting progressively harder to ignore (especially with what I know is to come). The author, Hajime Isayama, has been plagued with accusations of nationalistic leanings for years, and it's not a stretch to link aspects of this story to real life counterparts in World War II that paint imperial Japan in a very sympathetic light. I don't particularly want to get into the nitty-gritty of it here, but it was enough to make me wary of the property for a while. But now, in a post-"JK Rowling is openly a TERF" world, it feels like much less of a moral consumption issue than it once did? In consuming the show, even though I'm using legal streaming, I'm not otherwise supporting the series monetarily, so at a certain point it's just weighing pros and cons of consuming a particular "messy" piece of media in a sea of "messy" pieces of media.

Speaking of mess, I got a new comment on that fanfic I really wanted to finished by the end of 2019 (before the year decimated all my creative energy). If I can, I'm going to see if I can knock that out at some point over the next couple of weeks now that I can feel myself getting my mojo back. Feels like a much simpler goal compared to the lofty ambitions of the past October and November.

Bad, depressing stuff out of the way first:

I was going to make a New Year's post but I've been to preoccupied this week with all the bad things happening in the world and Star Wars fandom basically imploding in on itself. The latter was bad enough I changed my usernames on twitter, instagram, and pillowfort in order to distance myself from the property and spent part of yesterday running blockchains. Yet another reminder how the mainstreaming of fandom brings a lot of bad with the fringe benefits. Suffice to say all the stress has zapped all my productivity and creativity for the past three weeks and I'm only just now managing to claw my way back. So watch this space because hopefully I'll be in a much better headspace and talk about and create things for stuff I'm actually enjoying.

Onto the fun stuff:

People really seem to like The Witcher! I'm only a little ways into Sword of Destiny, which is the second of the two short story collections the first season is based off of. My plan is to finish all the books and then dig into the show, but I'm getting through them at a slower pace than I would like (partly because I'm alternating with the His Dark Materials books) so if I get really impatient I may start the show after I finish this book. But considering we aren't going to get a second season for at least another year (ditto for His Dark Materials) it might be better if I just stick to my guns and be all caught up in the order I want to consume them for the next go around.

Speaking of the hot new property, I watched the first episode of the BBC/Netflix's new version of Dracula created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and... I honestly have no idea how I feel about it? It was easily one of the most bizarre viewing experiences of my entire life, and there's still two more episodes for me to watch. Like, I definitely didn't hate it? But I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I like it? All I know is that the opening credits look like a pretty blatant ripoff of Hannibal's and it's honestly kind of funny.

I haven't watched the Doctor Who premiere yet because tomorrow (or I guess today since I'm writing this post at 3:30 AM) I'm going to go see the first two episodes together as a complete serial in a movie theater! I'm really excited, and I hope it's worth it since it's going to take me an hour drive to get to the AMC theater where I bought my ticket. I've already been spoiled for one major element because Doctor Who social media is relentless even with muting and blacklisting, but I don't know the context so I'm interested to see how this all unfolds.

I'm also making a concentrated effort to get back into watching anime. I restarted Golden Kamuy from the beginning because I originally took a stab at it all the way back in 2018, and I absolutely adore it. If all goes according to plan I'll be done with season 1 tomorrow night!

Basically, a lot of things in the world and in fandom suck right now (and, to be honest, 2019 was pretty terrible for fandom in general) so in 2020 I'm going to channel as much energy into creating and positive fandom experiences as I can.