Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you’d like to participate in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2023 here. If you’re interested in reading other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.

Criticise Your Favourite Book, Show, or Movie

I really struggled to think of things to criticise about the things I love. It felt wrong somehow like I was going against the grain. After some consideration, however, I did come up with a few.

Favourite Book
So, first, there’s my favourite book, A Christmas Carol.
In A Christmas Carol, we witness the miserly old Scrooge change his ways thanks to a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the end, we see him totally transformed. It is a great story, and I can’t recommend it enough, though if I were to nitpick and criticise it, I’d say that I’d have loved to have seen him living in the world as a changed man a little more. I know that’s not really what the story is about, though I do remember asking questions as a child, such as, “…and did Scrooge and Bob Cratchit become best friends?” “Did he go to his nephew’s house for Christmas every year after?” “Did Scrooge decide to buy a Christmas tree the following Christmas?” “Did he stay kind until he died, or did he return to his old ways?” These are just some questions I would have liked to have been answered, though I know I’m being more than a little pedantic.

Favourite Movie
This next one is going to make a few people groan.
My favourite movie of all time is James Cameron’s Titanic. It holds a special place in my heart because I went with my nanna to see it when it came out way back when (I was 12, and one scene in particular made for very uncomfortable viewing… yep, that one).

My nanna felt that she had no other recourse than to take me to see the film if she was to ever get any peace again. I could never shut up about the ship. I was forever saying things like, “Did you know, nanna, that the Titanic was the largest ship in the world when she was built?” Or “Nanna, did you know that if you stood the Titanic on its end, it would be taller than Big Ben?” Or even “Nanna, did you know that 12 dogs were sailing aboard the Titanic and only 3 survived?”

It’s this fact that draws a slight criticism from me in an otherwise smasher of a film.

There is a scene towards the end when the animals are released, and we see some dogs moving about the boat deck…but that’s it. We aren’t told about them – the 9 who perished nor the 3 saved, though we do see a couple of pups in the lifeboats.

After watching the film (because I’m such a bleeding heart), I couldn’t stop thinking about the animals. I know a lot of people will roll their eyes and say human lives are more important than the lives of dogs (apparently, the ship’s cat, Jenny, had just given birth days before the sinking and took herself and her babies off in Southampton – did she sense something?). But I disagree; I think every living thing deserves to exist, and that when anything or anyone comes to the end of their life, it’s tragic, be they human, dog or bumble bee.

I’m unsure how Mr Cameron would have squeezed in a subplot about a canine Jack and Rose, especially since the film was already over 3 hours long. But I wish he did.

Favourite TV Show
Now, this one might be a little controversial.

I am a loyal and dedicated fan of the wonderfully spectacular TV series ‘Doctor Who’ but… I could have done with a little less sledgehammering to the show’s canon regarding ‘The Timeless Child’ storyline.

As exciting and epic as it was, I would have preferred the plot’s focus to be less about the Doctor and more about their nemesis, the Master.

The timeless child storyline, for those who aren’t in the know, effectively rewrote the main character, the Doctor’s history. The Doctor began as an elderly-looking man who stole a tardis (a space-time machine) and travelled the universe, making friends and enemies along the way. When fatally injured, the Doctor’s people, ‘the Time Lords’, can regenerate every cell in their body, changing their appearance and some personality traits while remaining the same person. However… The Timeless Child storyline introduced incarnations of the Doctor from before the first televised incarnation (William Hartnell).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the story – and we did get to meet the incredible Jo Martin’s Ruth (the Renegade Doctor) – and it does give more opportunity and scope to rejuvenate the beloved million-year-old series, offering lots of potential for more stories to be told… I merely wish it had been handled a little differently…

It’s funny because I couldn’t think of a single criticism for anything at first, then I got a little drip going, and before I knew it, that drip became a deluge. I could go on and on… I won’t because who has the time?…. but I could…

Anyway, that’s me for now. I’m looking forward to seeing what sorts of things you all criticise.

Thank you, as ever, for taking the time to read my words. I really do appreciate you all!

Until next time,

George

© 2023 GLT

Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

Tags: A Christmas Carol, animals, blog, challenge, Doctor Who, dogs, Titanic, Wednesday, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge