Rocketboom Replacement

Jeffrey Wells observes a cinematic trend that I remarked upon in contemporary literature a few months ago: movies that, in Wells’ words, involve “GenX guys in their early to mid 30s who’re having trouble growing up.” (Wells doesn’t cite Adam Sternbergh’s “grups” article from earlier in the year, but it does tie into the nagging question.) Personally, I think that any films or literature dealing with the subject might offer a few valuable reasons why. But to expand Wells’ question, speaking as a man in his early thirties happily immature in a lot of ways, has he not observed the dark underbelly of the American dream (i.e., rising real estate prices, the disparity between the rich and the poor)? Has he not observed the troubling sense of self-entitlement that many twentysomethings (and even thirtysomethings) seem to possess? Has he not observed that couples are getting married and having children later? Or the bedlam of luxuries (cell phones, DVDs, SUVs, the Internet, Scandanivan furniture) that have sent a cultural shock wave through the Western world and beyond during the past fifteen years?

While there is certainly something to be said for growing old gracefully, one might also argue that prudence in choosing one’s calling is sometimes a virtue. Even so, it saddens me to see friends with remarkable potential remaining quite blissfully inert after living lives devoid of chance-taking. Then again, if they’re happy, who am I to pass judgment?

• Keith Richards will play Depp’s dad in Pirates 3. Let us hope that the scene doesn’t involve coconut trees.
• Great Ormond Street Hospital, owner of the Peter Pan rights, is getting its panties in a bunch over Alan Moore’s Lost Girls. Interestingly, the copyright on Wendy is still active in the United Kingdom, despite the book and the play being a little less than a century old. I was baffled by this devleopment until I read up on crazed EU copyright law. Here’s the irony: The UK copyright expired at 1987, but an EU directive extended copyright from 50 years to 70 years after the author’s death. The situation is complicated in the United States, where GOSH claims that they own the Peter Pan copyright through 2023, despite the original edition of Peter and Wendy being published in 1911.
• The Old Hag is blogging again, but for how long?
• Heidi McDonald’s invaluable comic blog, The Beat, has jumped ship from Comicon to PW. (via Galleycat)
• I will control my worst impulses and say nothing about the Sean Connery memoir. Nothing! Ever lose your car keys? Shithead! The gun is good, the penis is evil! You have the gift, Jamal! Damn.
• Birnbaum talks with Gay Talese.
• Pussies. (via Jeff)
• Jean Cocteau sound files (via wood s lot)
• The Six Most Feared But Least Likely Causes of Death. Consider how much airtime much of these highly improbable deaths get on the news. Now consider a parallel universe in which your local anchorman reports on more quotidian deaths: “Robert Harris died today of lung cancer. He was 72, entirely unremarkable in every way, but, in his prime, could kick your ass in lacrosse.” (via Quiddity)
• Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• The Rocketboom flap becomes a soap opera.

Amanda Congdon leaves Rocketboom. While there is no clear-cut answer on what went down, the upshot is that Congdon wanted to move to Los Angeles, that producer Andrew Baron couldn’t afford to do this, and so Congdon was “unboomed.” Congdon says she was fired. Baron says she quit.

It is almost certain that Congdon will find work elsewhere. But what of Baron? And what of Rocketboom’s future? Will Congdon’s replacement garner the same results as Congdon? Will Rocketboom be Rocketboom?

It certainly hasn’t prevented some folks from egregious posturing.

The London Review of Books examines the new Doctor Who series and concludes, “It’s obvious that the future is not with families, or sofas, or even tellies as we imagine them: though they sit in bedrooms and in the backs of cars, and hang on walls, made of plasma, opposite massive empty fridges, in apartments in which the only seating is on one of those healthful rubber balls. The BBC claims to be looking forward to a newly interactive and demanding audience of ‘participants and partners’ and ‘communities’ and so on; but there is an opposing possibility, a movement to lonely super-consumerism, fan and fantasy fused together in wi-fi symbiosis. Sometimes, I think Russell T. Davies and his team have built a commentary on this process into Doctor Who’s current storylines. Sometimes, I think I am hallucinating this notion, from watching too much Doctor Who too close together, causing plots to ripple and shimmer with interference, story-arcs to swim across my eyes.” (via Bookish)

I will confess that the fanboy in me was shouting at the climax of last week’s episode. But Who‘s second season has been very problematic, suffering from lackluster scripts, Tennant’s inability to find the same firm footing that his predecessor did, and a base capitulation to giving the fans what they want (Sarah Jane Smith, K-9, the Cybermen, et al.). When Who explores intriguing ideas (a parallel universe featuring zeppelins in homage to Michael Moorcock’s Oswald Bastable series, Satan embedded near a black hole), it stops short from weaving these ideas into a taut emotional quilt, opting for blockbuster action and shaky narrative conclusions instead. It’s a telling sign that the only episode that has reached last year’s high watermark, “The Girl in the Fireplace,” didn’t find a way to figure Rose, who struck me as a far more integral component last year, into the picture at all. Perhaps this is why Billie Piper is leaving. In fact, there was one episode, while entertaining on a crass level, that had little to do with the Doctor at all, telling the story from an unemployed thirtysomething named Elton and lingering far too long on the man dancing around in his flat. (No surprise. Russell T. Davies, the show’s producer and worst writer, penned this story.)

If Who is to maintain its impact and its freshness, it must take more chances. It must find more ways to rethink its own mythology (such as last year’s “Dalek”). I suspect last year’s success had more to do with the performance and the characterization of Christopher Eccleston, who provided a dark and often peremptory edge that we hadn’t seen so frequently in the Doctor before. Tennant, twelve shows or so in, plays like an awkward and better-looking amalgam between Troughton and McCoy — almost as disposable as Paul McGann was in that terrible TV movie from a few years ago. Unlike Eccleston, Tennant, who is a natural comic actor who deserves more room to breathe, isn’t convincing when he tries to be threatening. Every actor who has played the Doctor (including Tom Baker) has understood that this dramatic heft is a pivotal part of the Doctor’s character, essential to maintaining his mystique. But I’m not convinced that Russell T. Davies or his writers completely understand this.