Thirty Days of Borgias: Day Twenty Seven

Day 27 ~ Fightin’ words: Who would you like to see in a fight to the death?

If you mean literal fighting, despite the occasional duel, it's not that kind of a show. I mean, Micheletto/Anyone else pretty much dooms Anyone Else, and I'm fond of those characters. Trying to come up with something, I'm tentatively eyeing a Catarina Sforza and Micheletto duel, but while Catarina both historically and on the show was a feared warrior in the sense of commander, we haven't yet seen how her hand to hand combat skills are, and I want to keep her around for the rest of the show (I'd say history protects her, but as cousin Giovanni proved, not necessarily). And besides, I want to keep Micheletto, too.

Now Cesare historically actually dies in a fight to the death against multiple opponents, but I'm not sure whether or not I want to see that or want the show to end after Rodrigo's death before everything goes to hell (except for Lucrezia). (That's the question for the last day, and then I'll have decided.) Then again, it could be an epic scene. Aut Caesar, aut nihil indeed.

( The rest of the days )

....but Mark Gatiss?

My feelings, they're just a biiiiiiiiit mixed upon reading the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who will be honoured a drama about the beginnings of the show . On the one hand: great idea, and I hope for Verity Lambert (first producer, and as a young female producer in the BBC in the early 60s a pioneer in more than one way) as the central character. And Delia Derbyshire as another one. (For co-creating the DW theme tune.) On the other hand: I stand by my opinion, voiced more than once, that no matter how much he loves the show and his long term fanboy credentials, Mark Gatiss is a better actor than he is a writer. Especially with period drama. Which a story set in the early 60s would be.

Then again: the one Mark Gatiss written DW episode I really enjoyed was The Unquiet Dead, which was a period drama. But a RTD edited one, and more recently, he gave us the iDaleks and Jolly!Churchill in Victory of the Daleks, aka my least favourite episode of the Moff era so far. And his Sherlock episodes - Hounds of Baskerville and The Great Game - were decidedly mixed affairs. And his DW audio play, Invaders from Mars!, was mostly bubbles, nothing wrong with that, and "Don't let them cut Ambersons, Orson!" did crack me up, but it felt like a hasty slap dash thing, writing wise. So: mixed feelings. Can't you play Sydney Newman (= head of BBC drama at the time) instead, Mark Gatiss? Well, I suppose you can do that anyway.

Maybe I'm being unfair, and Mark Gatiss will create a wonderful script. *crosses fingers* Anyway, the idea itself I'm all for, and it's more creative and unexpected from the BBC than just throwing another Doctor-meets-Doctor-meets-Doctor party (not that I don't love those, of course) to honour the anniversary. It would be lovely if they found cameo opportunities for the surviving original team TARDIS actors. And if Jessica Hynes aka Jessica Stevenson gets to play Verity Lambert, it would be the loveliest meta ever. *

* Explanation: she played Joan Redfern in Human Nature/The Family of Blood (which itself contains a lovely homage to the people who created Doctor Who, because when John Smith, the amnesiac Doctor, is asked who his parents were, he replies "Verity and Sydney"), and then Joan Redfern's descendant Verity (!) Newman in The End of Time II.