Doctor Who's Unsung MVP, Best TV Shows of 2023... and Some Rants!
Before we get started, a shameless plug! New Mutants: Lethal Legion, the collected edition of the miniseries I wrote last year, is coming out January 14. It's about Escapade, the superhero I co-created, and her attempt to help her friend Cerebella get over some recent trauma by doing the thing that always makes Escapade feel better: stealing from evil jerks. Except this time? They pick the wrong evil jerk. It's a very silly romp that has a serious undertone along with a lot of queer joy. I'm super proud of how it turned out, thanks in large part to gorgeous artwork by Enid Balam and Elisabetta D'Amico. Anyway, you can pre-order it from Folio Books, and:
I will sign and personalize to you or whoever you want
I will draw a picture of a cat doing whatever you specify
Folio Books will donate to the TGI Justice Project, which helps trans people in need, and I will match their donations.
So... for this week's newsletter, I'm serving up a grab bag of rants and listicles. I'll be back next week with a proper newsletter-length slapface, I promise.
First a quick rant:
This year is going to be... I don't even know the word. Atrociousriffic? Horrifuck? It's going to be a lot. And if there's one thing I'd love to see everyone do, it's: Don't only read opinions, read actual information.
I'm serious. Opinions need facts to sustain them, and the pundit-sphere has a way of losing all nutrition: one person's opinion gets chewed up by someone else, who spits it into a third person's brain to be chewed again, and so on. And especially lately, newspaper opinion sections are heavily skewed towards centrists and right-wingers.
I used to go straight to the "opinion" section when I opened the Washington Post front page, but over the past year or two, I've trained myself out of that habit. I try to read articles written by actual reporters (along with analysis that's largely fact-based) before I go for the high-fructose opinion syrup. As a former regular op-ed contributor myself, I have tremendous respect for what opinion writers do — but opinions are dessert, not a meal. Sorry to run this metaphor into the ground, but facts are harder to digest and put more fiber into your diet. Reading nothing but someone's "take" on the news is very satisfying, thrilling even — but you can become disconnected from the details of a situation, and it's bad for you. And bad for democracy.
Newsletters like the one you're reading right now tend to serve up nothing but some rando's opinion. In fact, when Substack started, it deliberately recruited opinion writers from newspapers and magazines to come write newsletters instead. And then a lot of people who were giving money to newspapers, in part because they enjoyed their opinion sections, switched to paying for newsletters. We've seen actual reporting suffer as a result.
So as I wrote a while back, I urge you to support publications that put resources into reporting and fact-finding — not simply ones that feed you righteous rants that (mostly) confirm your existing worldview. I personally love Mother Jones, and for local SF Bay Area news, 48 Hills. Part of why democracy is dying is because we decided opinions were more important than facts, so please get yourself some facts!
Richard Franklin Played a Key Role in Doctor Who History
I've been meaning to write something about Richard Franklin, who passed away a week or so ago. I haven't seen too much about him elsewhere, which is a shame because he played an absolutely crucial role in the history of Doctor Who.
Basically, if you like that Doctor Who nowadays has complicated characters who grow and change over time, you have Richard Franklin, in part, to thank.
When Franklin joined the cast of Who, the whole notion of a supporting character, having an arc was pretty foreign. The Doctor's companions and other friends tended to be pretty static, except that they became more familiar with the Doctor and the TARDIS, and maybe they picked up some skills. Captain Mike Yates, the character Franklin played, was arguably the first Doctor Who character to go through some really intense changes.
In a nutshell, Mike Yates goes through a storyline across his three final stories in which he goes undercover at an evil, polluting corporation and gets brainwashed by a nasty supercomputer named B.O.S.S. The Doctor manages to deprogram Yates using a magic crystal (don't ask) and then he seems fine. But he's not fine!
The next time we really see Mike, he's joined a weird science cult that's trying to send a ton of people back in time to start human civilization over, along more sustainable lines -- which would wipe out everyone who's lived in history. Basically, after his experience with industrial capitalism at its worst, and in a fragile state, Yates gets seduced by some hippie scientists who have a radical solution for capitalism. (And they bring dinosaurs to the present to cover their tracks. Don't ask.) Captain Yates betrays his friends not because of any mind control, but because of a deep conviction that he is doing the right thing.
The final time Mike turns up on Doctor Who, he's retired to a Buddhist monastery, where he's getting his head together. Except that some of his fellow novices at the monastery are summoning giant spiders from another planet. (Don't ask). Mike calls on Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor for help.
It's an unusually ambitious storyline for 1970s Who, and Franklin does a wonderful job of selling it. It helps that Mike Yates is kind of a jerk before that -- he's always acting smug and hitting on Jo Grant, and he abuses his superior rank to steal food from his subordinates in "Day of the Daleks." (Memorably, in "The Daemons" the Brigadier asks him to dance, but he buys the Brig a drink instead.) Mike always seems like kind of a lad, and then he has a shocking experience that makes him rethink everything, and he gets in with some bad people. The fact that we'd seen him for a long time before his turn to the dark side makes it much more of a gutpunch.
So if you appreciate the complex, evolving characters of today's Who, give some thanks to Richard Franklin, who helped pave the way.
10 Best TV Shows of 2023
Okay, so everyone else has already done their lists of last year's best TV shows, but here's mine.
Extraordinary. Everyone should be talking way more about this incredible show about a world where (almost) everyone has superpowers. (Hulu)
Fellow Travelers. This show about two men who have a complicated relationship across the decades is gorgeous and a total gutpunch. (Showtime)
Reservation Dogs. The final season of this show leaned further into the spiritual and supernatural, and I loved it so much. (Hulu)
The Last of Us. This post-apocalyptic road trip really was baller. (Max)
Doctor Who. The four new episodes we got this year were a rollercoaster and reminded me why I'm a lifelong fan. (Disney Plus, at least Stateside)
Poker Face. I would watch Natasha Lyonne do almost anything, but she was utterly perfect in this ridic fun show. (Peacock)
Mrs. Davis. Not only was this show about A.I. gonzo bizarro hijinks, but everything actually made sense (pretty much) in the end. (Peacock)
Star Trek: Lower Decks. Still just a goddamn delight, and a love letter to all Star Treks. (Paramount Plus)
Hilda. I honestly thought this show had ended after they wrapped up all the storylines in a TV movie, but I'm so glad it got another season. Utterly gorgeous and lovely. (Netflix)
Minx. Another show I wish everyone was talking about. A 1970s-set romp about making a porn magazine for women, it actually has a lot of deep things to say about feminism. (Starz)
Bonus Extra Short Rant
I wrote a thing nearly 15 years ago speculating about why superhero movies were so much more successful than video game movies. And I just want to say... that's clearly no longer the case! I think part of what happened is that Hollywood no longer half-asses movies (and TV) based on games, but also superhero films are now copying each other as much as the comics source material. And maybe there's also been a generational shift, where people who grew up playing games are in positions of power? I dunno, what do you think?