Volume 5 and Some Thoughts on "The Writer's Tale"

The Remains of my Lunch, approx. 2:00pm

This is what my desk looks like organized (you should see it messy!), approx. 4:15pm

A (delicious) snack, approx. 4:30pm

Reading The Writer's Tale in my Pajamas, approx. 5:45pm

Picking Up Dinner, approx. 6:30pm

Listening to Doctor Who soundtracks, approx. 10:45pm

I've been reading The Writer's Tale all afternoon, just throwing myself back into the end of series 4 of Doctor Who full force (a feat that would be significantly easier if I could actually watch the end of series 4, but that will have to wait for tomorrow), and I'm finding that, reading these scripts (almost as they happen, as they come in unfinished pieces, interspersed with the e-mails that make up the body of the book) is nearly as intense–possible equally as intense–as watching the episodes.

Not long ago I got to the reunion between Rose and Ten, at the end of the penultimate episode of series 4. Watching it was all giddy joy and pumping blood and bounce-off-your-chair happiness followed immediately by complete terror (as was intended), but I was not expecting the same feeling from the words on the page, not because I don't think that words can carry that kind of intense emotion (they absolutely can), but because I already knew what was going to happen; I've witnessed it several times. I think that says so much about the writing itself, the tiniest phrasings and details:

Far off in the distance, as far away as possible, on a cold and empty ordinary street...

A woman. Walking towards them.

ROSE.

And the Doctor smiles.

CUT to Rose. And she smiles. The best smile.

It's that "the best smile" that gets me. All of the emotion in their reunion is in that smile. Well, the happy emotion...

I'm also adoring this book because it's so much more than just teleplays. Last semester I was reading all of those Buffy and West Wing scripts, and they were wonderful, but there was no sense of the process in them, not like there is with this.

If I hadn't treated myself to this book, I'd never have known that they wanted Kate Winslet to play River Song in "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead" (and if they'd gotten her I might have actually liked River Song...maybe) or that they'd hoped to bring Midshipman Frame back for the end of series 4 (and how amazing would that have been?!). It's an insight into the whole machine of television making (at least of British television making...I think a lot of it works differently over this-a-way).

Now, it's 40 minutes till midnight and the end of my self-imposed week without TV. I've got some more reading to do before I queue up Monday's How I Met Your Mother (followed by Wednesday's Lost and then last night's Dollhouse and then after that...well the list goes on and on. Some of it I'll have to save for tomorrow).