Game of Thrones: To Read, or Not to Read, That is the Question

There are many varieties of Game of Thrones fans; read the books and then watched the show, watched the show and then read the books, read the books and won't watch the show, watched the show and won't read the books, etc. I fall into the second group which is rare for me but has worked out very well. That feels like blasphemy as a bookworm but really it is probably the more logical approach for me because I'm that Lord of the Rings fan that is still mad that Tom Bombadil wasn't in Fellowship. I read Jaws years after seeing it and loved the added nuance to a perfect film (highly recommend it). If I'd read the book first I know I would have been pissed that spoiler and spoiler didn't spoiler.

Back to Game of Thrones though. I had never read any of the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series but I was very interested in the show when it originally aired. The problem was, I didn't have HBO. Subsequent seasons continued to pique my interest but then, on top of not having HBO, I felt like it would be difficult to catch up. I finally binge watched seasons 1-5 earlier this year and I absolutely loved it. I had to wait months for season 6 so I decided to read the books to fill the void. I bought all of them and began to read very quickly at first, delighting in those moments that the show had taken directly from the page because they were perfect. My reason for reading was to see the scenes that made me punch the air or cry in greater detail, with the characters thoughts and emotions behind them and in the first and second book that occurred often and I ate it up.

Doctor Who - The Enemy of the World ::Spoilers!::

WARNING: If you have ear plugs for reading you may need to insert them before reading this because the squeeing about this episode is going to be loud.

Yes, I know, that makes very little, if any, sense but, my excitement about this episode cannot be explained/contained with rational thought so why should the opening line of this post make any sense? That seems as though it would just be false advertising. I don't want to trick you into thinking this is going to be anything other than a completely disordered ramble-fest.

As you may already know, I am a bit of a geek, nerd, what have you. I may do some grownup things, like housework, half-assed but, "unimportant" things like getting acquainted with a TV show? I whole-ass that! It is normally easy, you catch an episode of Parks and Rec, realize you like it, run to Netflix or Hulu+ and stream every episode starting from the beginning. It can be time consuming but, oh so worth it in my opinion and I do it with any show that I enjoy.

When I fell in love with Doctor Who (see My #newtowho Story for more background), my geeky or selective OCD tendencies were put to the test. Starting from the beginning of Classic Doctor Who was and is incredibly difficult, right down to getting the first episode on DVD from Netflix. You see, Netflix has very little Classic Doctor Who available to stream. Thankfully I still get DVDs from them and they have the Doctor Who: The Beginning box set but, the discs are numbered incorrectly so, when I began my Classic Doctor Who journey I ordered disc 1 which should've been An Unearthly Child, but, was actually The Daleks. I got impatient, it was Friday, I would have had to wait until Tuesday to get it and then wait to get The Daleks disc back which I was just itching to watch.

It was frustrating but, if that hadn't happened I never would have found Dailymotion which is just a treasure trove of Classic Doctor Who. Making use of Dailymotion, Netflix streaming, and Netflix DVDs I've watched every story in order from the beginning. This includes reconstructions of all the missing episodes, ahh now you see why I'm telling you all of this, don't you? You don't? Oh my! I should explain.

Well, I suppose I should start with the fact that there are missing episodes. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan you must be a relative who just thinks I'm grand and loves reading my blog so I should explain or this won't be very enjoyable. Actually I think Richard Molesworth does a better job so here's a bit of the synopsis of his book Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes...

In the 1960s, the BBC screened 253 episodes of its cult science fiction show Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell and then Patrick Troughton as the time travelling Doctor. Yet by 1975, the Corporation had wiped the master tapes of every single one of these episodes. Of the 124 Doctor Who episodes starring Jon Pertwee shown between 1970 and 1974, the BBC destroyed over half of the original transmission tapes within two years of their original broadcast. 

In the years that followed, the BBC, along with dedicated fans of the series, began the arduous task of trying to track down copies of as many missing Doctor Who episodes as possible. The search covered BBC sales vaults, foreign television stations, overseas archives, and numerous networks of private film collectors, until the tally of missing programmes was reduced to just 108 episodes. 

Luckily his book is a little out of date and the number of missing episodes had decreased to 106, that was until October 10, 2013 when the BBC announced that 9 more episodes had been found; episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, & 6 of The Enemy of the World (which completed the story) and episodes 2, 4, 5, & 6 of The Web of Fear (now we're just missing ep 3)! Here is the official and current list of missing episodes. The BBC put the episodes up on iTunes that evening and I snapped them up as soon as I got home. Today I want to write about The Enemy of the World it will contain spoilers so if you intend to watch it you may want to come back and read this after you've done so.

Let me be completely honest, when I first heard that this was one of the stories they found I was excited but, more in an 'OMG "new" Troughton episodes!' state of glee than excitement about this story in particular. I had watched the reconstruction (which is the audio played over still images) and I didn't remember being wowed by it. Nevertheless, I very happily hit play that evening on episode 1 and I immediately remembered how badly I had wished that this was an episode that I could have seen. There are at least three things I clearly remember in the Troughton era that made me very sad to be listening to rather than watching and Troughton playing on the beach in this episose was one of them, Troughton playing with childlike Daleks in Evil of the Daleks is the second, and the third thing I still have my fingers crossed for is Troughton's makeover and his subsequent undoing of said makeover in The Macra Terror..."Who wants to see their face in a pair of suede shoes?". All three of these scenes just sounded like endearing, comedy gold to me and if the beginning of The Enemy of the World is any indication I doubt I'll be disappointed if Evil of the Daleks or The Macra Terror ever turn up.

So, I'm worried I'm getting off track here, how do I concisely review this episode without going off on tangents about what I now realize is amazing about this story that I did not notice when "watching" the reconstruction? Carefully? Oh well, stick with me, it might be worth it. Mind you, I'm not making any promises.

The Beach Scene

So, as I started explaining before I rudely interrupted myself, the episode begins with the TARDIS landing on a beach and before this episode was found I could only imagine how great this scene was. There is the fabulous lovely moment with Troughton rushing about like a kid, asking Jamie and Victoria to fetch some buckets and spades so they can make sandcastles, and frolicking in the waves. It's all fun until the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria notice the 3 men in the hovercraft who are coming toward them with guns drawn at which point a very Pertwee-esque chase ensues. There are guns and a hovercraft and a helicopter piloted by the fabulous Astrid Ferrier.

TO BE CONTINUED...
I'm posting this ridiculousness just to show how much I love this story and how off the wall with glee I was after watching it. I plan to finish this post in the near future but, for now enjoy my crazy fangirling.

Happy Mrs Rory is not an accredited TV critic nor does she hold an advanced degree in journalism or film studies. She is simply an enthusiastic young woman with an unfinished community college education and an abiding love for television. Share her love tonight on iguessijustlikelikingthings.blogspot.com.