What did Lawrence Miles do on the 11th June?
Checking my stats I noticed that I go a rather large spike of hits for “lawrence miles blog” on this page which oddly is the no 1 google result for “lawrence miles blog”.
Let’s get it off the No 1 spot. Lawrence Miles’s blog is The Beasthouse and it is a very interesting read (whilst it is up and he takes it down again). Every week he posts a review of the current Doctor Who episode (something I promised to do and totally failed at) and shortly after it disappears again. Blink and you’ll miss it.
There is an FAQ by Arfie Mansfield for it on Gallifrey One and I’ll quote just a short part of it.
1. Who is Lawrence Miles?
Lawrence Miles (aka ‘Mad Larry’) is the author of a number of controversial Doctor Who novels, including the acclaimed Alien Bodies, the two-volume epic Interference and the very highly-regarded Dead Romance. He is also the co-author of the first five volumes of the About Time series of books on Doctor Who. His 8th Doctor novels defined much of the underlying story of the series introducing, amongst other things, a rather familiar-looking time war, and Faction Paradox, later to spin off into their own series of audios, novels and comics.
2. Why do people care about his reviews?
Miles’s reviews are often in-depth, entertaining and thought-provoking. Even when they aren’t, they’re almost invariably argument-provoking, and they tend to lead to a great deal of interesting [often tangential] discussion.
Also, since he was one of the foremost Doctor Who authors while the series was off the air, his views are of interest to many of those who read the novels in that period.
I love Lawrence Miles’s books, especially Alien Bodies which was one of the first I read, everything was slightly downhill from there (if only I’d read War of the Daleks first). He does extremely interesting reviews of the current series which I don’t really agree with. If you take each point in turn, I’d agree with it, but I feel that his reviews are like examining each part of the mosaic and not looking at the whole picture to see if you like it or not. Of course, half the time, he never actually reviews the episode really.
Take for example, his review of Blink (no link as it has disappeared)
Exactly how does the Doctor “trick” the angels into looking at each other, when he has no reason to suppose that they’ll form a neat ring around the TARDIS? And when he might reasonably assume that they’re not stupid enough to arrange themselves around a wooden box which they know to be capable of dematerialising?
I wonder if I’m being unfair here. I don’t really think Lawrence is the sort of obsessive fan boy and he normally doesn’t pick holes like that. However it highlights something I want to point out for my next quote.
Unfortunately, “Blink” is only half a Doctor Who story, and the rest is almost as boring for regular viewers as it must be for any children watching.
Sorry, but my children thought Blink was the best episode ever (although also the scariest). There were stories of games being played at lunchtimes (move over Daleks and Cybermen!) and nearly a week later it is still being talked about by the neighbour (aged 6) that came round to watch it.
So what did he do on 11th June?
Paul Doctor Who, General
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