Month: September 2014

In Our Time: Sources of Early Chinese History

Over the last century or so several caches of documents from early Chinese history have been found (often during the building of roads or modern buildings). These have provided scholars with a lot more information to reinterpret the tradition historical sources for early Chinese history. In this episode of In Our Time Roel Sterckx (University of Cambridge), Tim Barrett (SOAS, University of London) and Hilde de Weerdt (Leiden University) talked about what the traditional sources are, what they contain and a bit about what the new sources add to the picture.

The earliest written records in China are from the Shang dynasty, around 1200BC. These are the oracle bones (and I believe this is thought to be what writing was invented for in China although they didn’t talk about that on the programme). Each of the bones is a record of a divination – the king would ask a question which was written on the bone. The bone was then cracked with a hot poker and the pattern of the cracks interpreted by the priest in order to answer the question. The answer was written on the bone, and subsequently the actual outcome was also recorded on the bone. An example they gave on the programme was: the King wishes to know if he will fall ill this year; the answer is that if he doesn’t go to battle, then he will not fall ill; and it was so. These were not written with the intention of providing historical data, but a certain amount of information about the courts and politics of the time can be gleaned from these. When the Shang dynasty were replaced by the Zhou dynasty these oracles were no longer performed in the same way. But later scholars can get similar information about the courts of the time from the inscribed bronze vessels that became common during this dynasty. These inscriptions tend to commemorate significant events – like someone’s appointment to an important office, or a victory and so on.

The first written texts (that survive) that are intended to be history also date back to the Shang or Zhou dynasties. This the “Book of Documents”, and the exact date of it is complicated – firstly because it only survives in later editions so the date of the first physical copies of it are always going to be conjecture. But also because it is a collection of disparate documents, some of which certainly post-date the Shang (they are about the Zhou dynasty) and some of which may well have been written earlier. These documents are records of speeches which may or may not be mythological in many cases – but they still tell later historians about the concerns and so on of the people of this era. Some are similar to the inscriptions on the Zhou bronze vessels – a speech from the king appointing someone to a position etc. Others are from Kings to their advisers (or vice versa) concerning good government, and the reasons for particular decisions.

The next major source is a book called “Springs and Autumns” which is a very dry and terse record of the major events each year for a period covering a couple of centuries in the mid-first millenium BC. It is traditionally believed to’ve been written by Confucius however there is no evidence to actually support this. These annals provide a lot of factual data (this person was born, this one died, this battle was fought), but little nuance and no interpretation. This gave rise to other texts written a few centuries later during the 2nd Century BC which are commentaries on the “Springs and Autumns” and explain the significance of events.

After this the programme moved on to discuss the historian who occupies the same sort of place in Chinese history writing as Herodotus does in the Western historical tradition – a sort of Father of History. This was Sima Qian who was one of the two authors of a history of China, writing in the early Han dynasty (in the 2nd Century BC). The book (the Records of the Grand Historian) was begun by his father, but often Sima Qian is listed as the only author. This book set the pattern for all subsequent official dynastic histories in China – even to the modern day, as the Qing dynasty history in this format is still being compiled. The book is divided into sections which each contain a different sort of look at the history, so events are often seen in different ways in the different sections. One of these is an annal of a similar type to “Springs and Autumns” – dry and factual, recording the events of each year in order. Another is a set of tables of things like chronologies of the kings & emperors. A large part of the text is taken up with biographies of significant figures – kings, courtiers, generals, but also jesters and other less high ranked persons. Sima Qian was putting forth the idea that history is made by people, and so to understand what happened you need to understand the people who were involved. Another section of the book is taken up with treatises on subjects like the economy, or music, or the rivers.

As I said, this was the pattern of official histories from then on. There were families of historians who took on the task of keeping Sima Qian’s history up to date during the Han dynasty. In later dynasties detailed records were kept during each ruler’s reign, and each official’s tenure and then biographies were compiled after their deaths from these records to go with the annals. These were then all gathered together and later compiled into a history of the dynasty, along with treatises and so on (presumably after the next dynasty took power – I’m not entirely clear on that tho). They talked a bit on the programme about what the general purpose was of these historical records. Bragg asked if it was partly about setting out what sort of people the Chinese were – a sort of statement of cultural values. But the experts were clear that this wasn’t really the point, and particularly not at first (in the Han dynasty and immediately after). In part because this was seen to have been done the Book of Documents, but also because as the only literate culture in the vicinity there wasn’t an audience they needed to convince. Instead the histories were often used to find precedents – things like when nomads started raiding the administration of the day could look back to see how this had been dealt with previously and how well it had worked out then. And they were often written with an eye to justifying decisions taken based on precedent or outcome.

Obviously these sources are pretty centrally oriented – they are written by and for the seat of power. Women, and lower class people in general, are not often mentioned. And that is one of the things that makes the new discoveries of documents so exciting. They are often concerned with more everyday life, or the outskirts of the empire. They are the general written communication and recrods of the era they are from, rather than the curated selection that a historian (or a group of historians) thought were important enough to record for posterity. Some are caches of the documents that the historians used to compile the official histories and then discarded. These documents are not just a valuable historical resource in their own right, but they are also a good way to look at the official histories and see what the biases were.

I thought this was a particularly interesting programme – it’s a shame tho that the section about the new discoveries felt a bit rushed.

Doctor Who: Listen

This was my favourite episode of the series so far – a very creepy little story that would probably’ve given me nightmares if I’d seen it when I was little. And even the more farcical elements of it worked for me.

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I wasn’t surprised to see this was written by Moffat himself – it’s got a lot of the elements that made Blink such a good episode too. Time travel’s an integral part of the plot, and he’s done that thing of taking something ordinary and everyday and giving it a twist to make it creepy(/creepier than before). I also liked the way the episode tied it all up in the end with a rational explanation which only worked until you thought about it. I mean, obviously the Doctor has just been fixated on this because of his experience as a kid when Clara grabbed his foot from under the bed, right? Except (and I didn’t think of this till J pointed it out) there’s the thing on the bed in Rupert Pink’s room … probably just one of the other kids… probably.

I’d assumed at first that the date plot was just part of the frame or a subplot, but it was nicely tied into the whole thing. I’d also thought I’d end up cringing through it, that it would be a sort of romcomish thing of a sort I don’t like. But it was rather well done. I liked that they both stormed out at different points for perfectly reasonable reasons. I rather suspect the chain of causality doesn’t quite work through the whole episode if you inspect it too closely, however, so I shan’t 😉 I’m not quite sure what I think about how this sets up Clara & Danny’s relationship – there’s something a little reminiscent of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife. And I found the central relationship of that book rather disturbing and creepy.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of the date bit of it – why on earth didn’t Clara just tell the Doctor who she was on a date with? There didn’t seem any rational reason to me – I mean I get it that she’s not wanting the Doctor involved in her love life in general, particularly given this incarnation’s tendency for faux pas. But once it becomes clear that it’s getting mixed up in what’s going on then I don’t see why she didn’t just explain – well, probably out of earshot of Orson Pink. I can see how discussing your disastrous first date with the 3rd generation offspring of the eventual relationship might be a bit too awkward.

Then again, lies, evasion and hiding were the central themes of the episode. With pretty much every instance of it being just a bit too obvious a lie (or whatever) to be believed. I wonder what else in the episode is a lie/evasion that we just don’t know about yet – it’d be Moffat’s style to have another level of that that becomes clear later in the season.

The main season arc hook wasn’t apparent at all this week – no Promised Land, no Heaven, no Missy. No robots remaking themselves or in need of repair. The other threads – Clara as schoolteacher and the Doctor’s ambivalent relationship with soldiers – were in evidence tho. And obviously the Pink family were front & centre. Presuming it was the Doctor in that barn (and I think they’ve sold it too well for that to turn out to be misdirection*) then we’re being shown his Thing about soldiers is a deep rooted Thing. It feels like we’re getting quite a lot of mirroring between Danny & the Doctor here as well – tho Danny wanted to be a soldier (or at least did after Clara & the Doctor had seen him and messed with his memory anyway) and it seems the Doctor did not (the man in the barn scene talking about his lack of aptitude for the Academy and how he’d have to join the army instead despite not wanting to). But I was definitely wondering about whether this was the Doctor growing up in an orphanage, given the earlier section with Rupert Pink. And of course both picked names they liked better than their birth names once they grew up.

*Well, lies and evasion were the theme of the week. And the Master is a definite alternate candidate; we know that he & the Doctor were contemporaries on Gallifrey. But I don’t want that to be the truth coz I liked the way it loops the War Doctor & his choice of barn to set up the weapon in as something important to the Doctor. And they do sell it very well in the episode as genuinely being the Doctor.

A good episode tho, the season defintely feels like it’s found its feet.

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“Labyrinth” Kat Richardson

“Labyrinth” is book 5 of Kat Richardson’s Greywalker series, and I read it a couple of months ago now. I nearly decided not to write a blog post about it as it had been so long since I read it – this summer has been pretty hectic & I’ve been generating posts to write quicker than I can write them! (Which is a nice problem to have 🙂 ). But I do want to make a few remarks for my own benefit even if I’m not sure how interesting or coherent they’ll be for anyone else. And it’s incredibly hard to say anything without spoilers for the previous books.

I thought when I started the series that these would be a never ending series of PI thrillers. That book 1 would be the origin story where Harper Blaine gets her ability to see and interact with the supernatural and then there’d be a bad-guy-of-the-book or mystery-of-the-book for each succeeding instalment. Instead it’s become clear that there’s an overarching story here, and I found out (after I read this book but before I wrote about it) that the ninth and final book has been published this summer. So that’s reshaped how I think about the series a bit, and I think probably gives them more re-read value (and I’m annoyed now that I missed out on book 3 as it’s more like missing a chapter of a novel rather than just an episode). I think I’ll stick to using the library for now – but I should put them on the list to be bought & revisited later.

Plot wise, Harper is back on home ground here and we revisit some of the people and plot threads from book 1 but now Harper knows so much more than she did. It’s become clear that what happened to Harper wasn’t an accident, and that a lot of the people that seemed coincidentally linked to her in the first story actually had agendas of their own. Harper is also being changed by her increasingly deep connection to the Grey, and not in good ways. Over the last 4 books she’s gradually opened up and made more friends & connections* and now the Grey is starting to take some of that away. I don’t think this is going to turn out to be a tragedy overall, the tone so far hasn’t felt like the sort of story where Harper could become evil and take over the world muahahahaha. But with 4 books left there’s definitely time for these disturbing seeds to grow and it to get darker before pulling back at the end.

*Amusing that her lack of connection to the world around her was something I was concerned was a bad sign for the series in book 1. Nope, it was a plot point.

On a different note, after I read book 4 I wondered if the Egyptian vampires were a real legend – the author’s note in this book says that they are not. I’m impressed that Richardson has made her creation feel so truthy – there wasn’t anything that jumped out and made me think that couldn’t be an Egyptian legend.

Hopefully the library has book 6! 🙂

Egypt’s Lost Queens; Talk to the Animals; John Bishop’s Australia

Egypt’s Lost Queens was a one off programme presented by Joann Fletcher about four influential women in Ancient Egyptian history. Of the women she picked to focus on there were two who wielded power in their own right, and two who were mothers and/or wives of Pharaohs. Fletcher didn’t just go the easy route of picking all the “obvious” ones – i.e. no Nefertiti, no Cleopatra – instead she covered Hetepheres, Hatshepsut (who does count as an obvious choice), Nefertari (ditto) and Arsinoe.

Hetepheres was the mother of the Pharaoh Khufu – the man for whom the Great Pyramid at Giza was built. Fletcher said that Hetepheres was the first burial at the Giza plateau and so she positioned her as the founder of this burial site – I suspect it’s more likely that Khufu picked the site for his own pyramid, then buried dear old Mum there when she died rather than Hetepheres having much say in the matter. As there’s not much known about Hetepheres other than her family relations this segment of the programme mostly looked at those of her grave goods which have survived – which includes a bed frame, and a carrying chair. They’re in Cairo Museum and I remember we saw them when we were there a few years ago – pretty impressive to see a bed that’s 4,500 years old.

Hatshepsut is an 18th Dynasty Pharaoh who first ruled as her step-son Tutmosis IV’s regent when he was under age, and subsequently ruled in her own name as Pharaoh (with him as co-ruler but in the junior role). Fletcher mostly talked about how Hatshepsut used the propaganda machinery of Ancient Egypt to legitimise herself – her temple walls were covered with herself as Pharaoh (with all the accessories including the false beard). And also with references to her divine parentage and birth. Fletcher also talked about Hatshepsut as a military commander and suggested there’s evidence she may’ve seen battle.

Nefertari was Rameses II’s most important wife – she is the woman to whom the secondary temple at Abu Simbel is dedicated. She seems to’ve been involved in the diplomacy of the time – Fletcher showed us a letter from Nefertari to a Queen in Mesopotamia. And of course you can’t have a programme about Nefertari without visiting her tomb which is one of the most spectacularly decorated tombs that’s been found. (And we’re going to see it later this year!)

The last of Fletcher’s powerful women was Arsinoe, who was the daughter of the first Ptolemy to be Pharaoh of Egypt and later ruled herself – as co-ruler with her brother Ptolemy (who was also her second husband, her first was king of Macedon). At the end of this section of the programme Fletcher talked about how Arsinoe’s iconography references that of the earlier queens – with a crown formed from the crowns that these previous women wore in their own iconography. She was positioning that as a deliberate reference on Arsinoe’s part but I would’ve thought it more likely that Arsinoe and her predecessors were referencing the same gods and the same iconography as each other rather than a more direct link.

I’m torn about what I think about this programme. On the one hand it’s very well filmed and talks about a lot of interesting stuff, some of which I hadn’t seen before. On the other hand I did spend a fair amount of time thinking “well, yeah, but …”. In simplifying things to emphasise her point I sometimes feel Fletcher goes too far towards misrepresenting things.

We also finished off a couple of series this week. One of these was Talk to the Animals – a two part series about animal communication presented by Lucy Cooke. These programmes were an overview of the many ways that animals communicate both within their own species and between species. So there were segments on things like how can hippos communicate both underwater and above water simulataneously, or how does a particular species of bird lie to meerkats, or how banded mongoose calls are a bit like a twitter feed. One of the things Cooke was emphasising was how animal communication is a lot more complex than one might expect and certainly more complex than early researchers had assumed. She also met a lot of just slightly oddball scientists (of which there are plenty – I know I’ve met many that fit that categorisation – but that did seem to be a theme).

A fun series with a good blend of “isn’t that cute!” and science (with actual experiments, too).

The other series we finished was John Bishop’s Australia. John Bishop is a British comedian, and in his 20s he did a cycle ride up the east coast of Australia. Now, 22 years on, he was repeating that ride but visiting more of the places along the way and with TV cameras in tow. I don’t really have much to say about the series – but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it, it was actually rather good. On his travels he covered a fairly wide cross-section of Australian society and places. He’s a funny guy (as one would expect from a comedian) but was also serious when the subject required it.

Also watched this week:

Episode 3 of Britain’s Great War – Jeremy Paxman looking at what happened in Britain during WWI.

Episode 1 of Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls – Lucy Worsley talking about late 17th Century British women.

Episode 1 of The Boats that Built Britain – Tom Cunliffe sails six boats that were important in British history.

Episode 1 of Wild China – series about Chinese wildlife & people.

Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood

I confess, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this episode of Doctor Who – the trailer set it up to be cheesy and silly in a way that doesn’t appeal to me. And for the first 5 minutes or so I was rolling my eyes. But after that I got more into it and ended up rather liking it, silliness & all.

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As the writers intended, I was expecting at first that it would turn out to be a future theme park version of Robin Hood or something of that sort. And really the idea that the “real” Robin Hood behind the legend would be such caricature of the legend was ridiculous. Perfect teeth, laughs too much, repeats slogans reminiscent of later political entities and so on & so forth. It’s just that by the end I was willing to forgive that because the rest of the episode was fun.

Even tho fun, it was a bit clunky at times – it turns out this was a Mark Gatiss written episode and he does tend towards the clunky. The Doctor-as-legend stuff was a bit heavy handed, particularly at the end with the final conversation with Robin Hood about being the man behind the myth. As was the message that working together is how you win – the Doctor/Robin bickering needs to be put aside, the oppressed villagers need to band together to kill off the robots, they can shoot the final arrow if all three work together.

I did like what they were doing with Clara here – the genre (Robin Hood tales) sets us up for damsel-in-distress and the dress made her look the part, and then she very much did not need rescuing, she took care of that herself when necessary. I particularly liked how she turned the tables on the Sheriff and got him to explain his masterplan by playing on the star struck girl stereotype. I also liked the show-don’t-tell scene of Clara-the-schoolteacher when she first gets the bickering men to shut up and then admit that neither actually has a plan.

That’s potentially one of the recurring motifs we’ve had across this season so far, too – Clara the schoolteacher. I’m not sure if that’s characterisation tho, or if it’s a genuine part of the season arc. Other motifs that came up this episode: we had another colour name (Will Scarlet, who is obviously a part of the Robin Hood mythos but even so), robots searching for the Promised Land, robots and/or cyborgs in need of repairs (I’m thinking we can count last week’s Dalek in that category too). We didn’t get Missy showing up to welcome someone to Paradise/Heaven tho. But I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see those robots turn up again whenever we get to the pay-off for Missy’s collection – i.e. collected off-screen. And the Doctor is beginning to pick up on some of the repetitions, too – well “the Promised Land” one anyway.

I don’t think I really have much more to say – but it feels a bit more like the new Doctor is hitting his stride here. There was a bit of harshness and some more brutal pragmatism (you notice the gold arrow was only a solution to make the exploding ship not explode too close, it still exploded). But he didn’t feel like quite such an arrogant bastard as in the last episode.

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“Plantagenet England 1225-1360” Michael Prestwich (Part 11)

I’m about 3 chapters behind in writing up what I’ve read of this book – this summer has been rather busy! After the great lords Prestwich moves a step down the social scale to consider the lesser aristocracy.

The Knights and the Gentry

In contrast to the great lords (or the gentry) knights are easy to define – a knight has been through a formal process of being knighted. He gets to be addressed as “dominus” (lord), and was expected to be capable of bearing arms. Knighthood isn’t hereditary per se but the sons of knights were generally expected to become knights themselves. Generally a knight got paid more in war than a squire would (double the rate normally), he was also expected to undertake various legal and administrative duties in the country he lived in.

Despite the clear definition Prestwich says that “knights are not as easy to count as sheep”, which I found an amusing turn of phrase 🙂 Some knights are mentioned in some sources and not others, and there is no central record of who was a knight (nor even local records – when counties were asked to provide lists of knights these could vary substantially between years in ways that don’t make sense as actual changes).

The number of knights in England dropped over the first half of the 13th Century for reasons that are not entirely clear particularly as this is an era of rising population and economic prosperity (relatively speaking). There may’ve been some effect of the rising cost of military equipment, but Prestwich thinks this is not particularly significant – it correlates with rising wages for knights, but probably doesn’t cause the falling numbers of knights. As the number of knights fell the status and the duties of those left rose, as one might expect. The expectations of chivalric behaviour increased along with their role in local administration. Prestwich says there isn’t evidence of families who used to be knights resenting their loss of status – rather that there is a reluctance to take on the expense and hard work.

Later in the 13th Century life got easier for the knightly families. Prestwich associates this with the reduction in easy credit – with the Jews first less able to lend money and subsequently expelled in 1290. As well as this changes in the law meant it was harder for the Church to buy up land from knights. And other changes in the legal system meant that the duties of a knight in his county’s administration were shared with other people and so became less onerous. Prestwich also notes that a man who was knighted on the eve of battle didn’t have to pay for as elaborate a ceremony and there were several convenient battles during the later part of this period. The crown was generally concerned to ensure sufficient knights to perform the duties required of them, and at various points incentives and rewards were given to knights as part of the patronage system. There were also sometimes mass knighting ceremonies (which again would reduce costs for each individual knight).

Prestwich next moves on to the “gentry” or esquires. In the period covered by the book this social class was gradually becoming delineated, and the terms gentle born (gentiz) or gentlemen (gentis hommes) might be used. From the mid-14th Century esquire became more common as a term, too. These people can be roughly categorised as men who could be knights but weren’t – in terms of wealth and social standing it’s difficult to distinguish the groups, it’s the ceremony of knighthood that’s key. As numbers of knights dropped, and as numbers of knights who succeeded in getting exemptions from the legal & social duties rose, the numbers of esquires performing those duties increased. These include offices such as that of sheriff, coroner, forester and so on. And as well as this they served on assizes, in juries etc. At various points laws were issued to try and make sure that actual knights fulfilled the roles, but in practice it was the county elite regardless of whether or not they’d been knighted.

The county “communitas” or community can be seen as providing the essential horizontal links between the gentry & knights in society. The idea is that while ties to one’s lord or tenants provide the vertical links unifying the whole population of the country, the elite in a particular county have a sense of identity as the community of that county. Prestwich seems a bit sceptical about how important that actually was. He agrees that in terms of administration the county was very important. It was the building block for the taxation system and for the legal system. However he suggests that the way that the great lordships didn’t match up with the counties meant that the ties within the county communities were weaker than you might expect. Lists of knights for particular counties sometimes vary significantly from year to year as to whether a particular individual is part of this county or that. Knights might attend parliament as representatives of different counties in different years, rather than identifying themselves with one place & community.

Prestwich finishes the chapter by talking about how the knights and the gentry distinguished themselves as a social elite. He calls this section “Symbols of Knighthood” which seems a bit of misnomer as it covers rather more than that. But he does open with heraldic insignia – the coat of arms was increasingly a vital signal of one’s status. The earliest surviving heraldic rolls date from the mid-13th Century and they don’t list all that many coats of arms each (e.g. 211 in Glover’s Roll, 677 in St George’s Roll from the 1280s) but across them all there are 2100 people mentioned as having coats of arms during Edward I’s reign (1272-1307) which is likely to include most or all of the knightly families. People below the rank of knight were generally not listed on the rolls, but Prestwich notes that a law in 1292 requiring esquires to use their lord’s arms suggests that some esquires were using their own. Otherwise why make a law against it. And by the 1320s there is evidence of many esquires having seals with a personal coat of arms, so they probably used them in the various other ways on clothing and so on. This again indicates the way that esquires and knights had very similar standing in society, despite the clear line between the two.

As well as coats of arms Prestwich looks at other ways that knights and esquires indicated their status. Their houses were, obviously, much less impressive than those of the earls and barons. But even tho not many have survived records indicate they often had moats or impressive looking towers – but ones that seem more for show than for defensive use. Culturally speaking the knights and esquires weren’t all that much different from their aristocratic superiors – and again it’s difficult to say much about the group as a whole, because there were many differences between individuals. Generally they were literate, educated and at least as pious as any other level of society.

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Lost Land of the Tiger; Out of Egypt

We’ve watched much less TV at home over the last couple of weeks as we’ve been away a fair amount. One of the series we finished relatively recently was Lost Land of the Tiger which I found rather disappointing. The basic premise was that the best way to save tigers in the wild is to establish a conservation zone along the Himalayas which should allow the remaining small pockets of tigers in that region to link up and become a sustainable population. The snag was that no-one knew if there were any tigers right in the middle of this region, in Bhutan. So a team of scientists and BBC wildlife documentary makers (photographers & so on) went to Bhutan to see if they could find signs of tigers. And to do a survey of the general ecological health of the Bhutanese countryside for the Bhutanese government.

What I would’ve liked to see was lots of footage of wildlife (and hopefully tigers). What we got was lots of footage of people looking for/at wildlife (and hopefully tigers). And a really really obvious and somewhat clunky narrative structure – I felt it was far too obvious that there were bits being hammed up for the cameras to “make a good story”. All that aside what we did get to see of the actual wildlife was pretty cool. They did find tigers, as well as other big cats. And there was also the surprise discovery that tigers can live at much higher altitudes than previously thought, which means that the potential conservation zone can include more territory (and territory that’s less interesting to humans, too). Because of the clunky narrative structure it was clear from the beginning of episode 1 that this was going to be the case, and we had to wait till the end of episode 3 for the evidence (clumsy foreshadowing, they had it). But it was still pretty cool to see.

I wouldn’t recommend it particularly, but J liked it more than I did I think.

One of the things that J’s parents had recorded for him from the Discovery Channel (which we don’t have at home) for us to watch while we visited was a series called Out of Egypt (link to a press release for it as I couldn’t find a programme homepage). This series was presented by Kara Cooney, an Egyptologist, and it was a comparison of various widespread human cultural characteristics across a wide sweep of ancient cultures. She started each episode with something in ancient Egyptian culture and then looked at how other civilisations did this same thing. We managed to watch the last third of episode 3, then episodes 4-6, then 1-2 (due to how the Sky box had filed them in its recordings) – which wasn’t ideal but they did work well as standalone episodes too.

She covered quite a wide range of subjects. For instance one episode (the first I think) looked at urban living and how it arose in different places from the truly ancient cities of the Middle East to more recent but still ancient cities in South America. She looked the various ways society changes with urban living, both good and bad. Other episodes looked at things like how sacred violence shows up in many different cultures & societies – she went from the Egyptian imagery of the Pharaoh smiting his enemies to the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition, via the Aztecs, and looked at how similar or dissimilar the forces shaping this ritual or religious use of violence were.

I really liked this series. You don’t often see series that cover such a wide subject – this did a good job of looking at a variety of different cultures and asking both how we are all the same despite our different cultures, and how our cultures have shaped us into different people. And astonishingly for a Discovery channel series it didn’t set out to “solve the mystery” or to provide a definitive answer to some question, instead it was a thoughtful overview of a complicated subject.

Other TV we’ve watched recently:

Episode 2 of Britain’s Great War – Jeremy Paxman looking at what happened in Britain during WWI.

Episodes 1 and 2 of John Bishop’s Australia – comedian cycles along the east coast of Australia 22 years after he first made the trip.

Episode 1 of Talk to the Animals – Lucy Cooke does a survey of animal communication.

Bolsover Castle – an episode of the Secret Knowledge series, this one presented by Lucy Worsley. She talked about the castle’s first owners & builders, and the meanings of the decor & architecture. Only Worsley would match her gloves to the details on the castle 😉 A tad amateur in feel (I think this series often is), but rather good.

Also watched a couple of Egypt documentaries we’d seen before – Egypt’s Mystery Chamber (I have a mini-review of it here), and episode 1 of Egypt’s Golden Empire which I didn’t write a proper review of before either.

Doctor Who: Into the Dalek

I wasn’t as keen on this Doctor Who episode, although some of that opinion might change once I know where the season arc is going I guess. The Doctor still felt not quite Doctorish, and despite liking the mirroring in the first episode I found it rather heavy handed in this one.

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As an example of the clunky mirroring – the soldiers, Journey Blue and Danny Pink, who appear to both have colour surnames just to let Clara mention Danny when talking to Blue. I’d first thought that it meant that Danny was going to turn out to be part of the adventure plot for the episode but it didn’t seem to work out that way – seems he and his tragic backstory are going to be character development arc fodder for Clara (and possibly the Doctor?). And if Clara doesn’t have a problem with soldiers why’s she so harsh about his previous career in their first conversation?

Thinking of harsh comments – what’s with the Doctor being so rude about Clara’s appearance, in such a specifically gendered fashion? Unless it’s supposed to flag up that he does still notice her as a woman despite the “I’m not your boyfriend” conversation, and this is his heavy handed way of covering that up? I hope not. But I don’t see much reason to be so vicious about her looks. Or maybe it’s getting back at her for her shock over his age? Which would be petty. Hopefully it either stops or moves to something closer to banter rather than insult.

But I didn’t hate the episode by any means, it just didn’t really work quite well enough for me to ignore the stuff I didn’t like. The plot was fun in a don’t think about it too much sort of way. I did like all the callbacks to the Nine-meets-a-Dalek episode, which I thought felt deliberately designed to call our attention to how much he’s changed since that episode. Nine was terrified to have a Dalek sprung on him, Twelve was surprised. Nine panicked and wanted to kill it dead dead dead, but Twelve was at least trying to first fix it physically and then to make it a more moral Dalek. Although it wasn’t much surprise that he failed in the latter – his callousness over the deaths of the cannon fodder of the episode didn’t make him seem like a man to inspire a sense of joy in all the little details of the world … That’s the bit that might change in my opinion depending on where the season arc goes. I’d sort of assumed the Doctor would’ve moved on from being so bitter – he’s discovered he didn’t commit genocide (or rather helped himself not commit genocide) and he’s taken the time to take the slow road on behalf of the little people on Trenzalor. So I was a bit surprised at the undercurrent of negativity to this Doctor so far – the banter that goes a bit too far, the lack of care over the deaths of innocents, the dismissal of Journey coz she’s a soldier.

That’s gotta be part of the season arc tho. Missy appears to be collecting people that the Doctor has manipulated into death in some sense (I’m betting he didn’t push the clockwork automaton last episode). This has a certain amount of resonance with Davros “pointing out” to Ten that he turned his companions into weapons – is Missy collecting some examples of “why you’re a bad bad man” to hurt the Doctor with? I read a suggestion elsenet that perhaps Missy is a regeneration of the Master (Missy -> Mistress -> Master, and she might seem to be broken in ways that the Master was broken). Anyway, perhaps we’re building to season climax where the Doctor is forced to confront how his behaviour is often not wholly good even if aimed at good ends? Interesting too that this is the first season arc for a while where the Doctor isn’t (apparently) already aware of it, just the audience that is.

So a bit of a mixed bag this episode, hopefully the next one will be better. (Don’t spoil the trailer in comments please, J doesn’t watch the trailers).

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