Reading/Watching Log: #122

To kickstart this year, I decided to revisit some of the seminal classics of children’s literature: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Peter Pan, along with some of their assorted television/filmic adaptations.

It intrigues me greatly that three touchstones of early children’s literature involve little girls navigating dangerous fantasy lands, and there’s something about the characters of Alice, Dorothy and Wendy that just goes together somehow.

(I’ve always felt there should be a second-tier trio to this very specific type of heroine, but all I can come with is Clara from The Nutcracker and Gerda from The Snow Queen – there must be a third girl out there somewhere to complete the set, but who? Pippi Longstocking? Ronja the Robber’s Daughter? No, they don’t quite fit into the same dreamlike space as the others. I’ll think of her one day…)

Also interesting is that two famous adaptations of these stories take on a “it was all a dream” framing device that was only ever present in one of the original books: that is, MGM’s The Wizard of Oz and Disney’s Peter Pan, in which the Darling parents arrive home to find Wendy sleeping by the open window. Neither book used this conceit, but it would seem the precedent set by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland loomed large in the imaginations that followed it. Likewise, a preoccupation with themes of insanity as it pertains to young women specifically has emerged around these stories, almost without anyone realizing. In Return to Oz, Dorothy is taken to a clinic where she faces electric shock treatment to help her with her “delusions” of Oz, while Once Upon a Time in Wonderland begins with Alice locked up in an asylum after she refuses to renounce the adventures she’s had.

A lot of this might just be the natural conclusion of retelling stories that are so inherently wild and random, but I do wonder if this theme would be quite as pronounced if the main characters of these books had been boys.

That little girls are so often traversing fantasy lands on vague journeys of empowerment and self-actualization also makes me wonder if there’s a line that can be drawn between these early nineteenth century texts and the recent proliferation of romantasy, but that might have to be a longer post for another day…

(And don’t worry, among my exploration in various adaptations, I’ve spared myself Spielberg’s Hook and James Franco’s Oz the Great and Powerful. Never again!)

Recommendations: The Best of 2025

Well, the year 2025 is over and not a moment too soon (though who am I kidding, 2026 is looking equally grim). This post may be a bit late, but I always get there in the end, so here are my top recommendations for the year that’s just passed: everything I read, watched or played that struck a particular chord and which may help you escape the hideous burden of day-to-day reality.

I actually found it rather difficult to narrow things down into a reasonable list (especially given my OTT gorge of pop-culture franchise material in July), which speaks to the surprising quality of my reading/watching year.

2025 was divided into several themes, and though that sounds like it might impinge on just enjoying myself, it actually gave me the structure I needed to focus on specific interests while also finding new material in each subject, whether it be Arthurian legend, Greek myth, Tudor drama, pirates, unicorns, folk horror, or Magical Girls.

There was also a surplus of television shows that were cancelled after one season, though many of them I was watching for the second time: Crossbones, Nautilus, Around the World in Eighty Days, NBC’s Dracula, Sinbad, Atlantis (okay, that one had two seasons), The Winter King, Camelot, Cursed, Onyx Equinox – and I’ve just this month finished Emerald City. So yeah, I broke my own rule about not starting new shows until I was sure they’d be finished, but there’s still something a little fascinating about projects that get greenlit but are unable to gain enough traction for a continuation.

As it happened, my New Year’s Resolution was to avoid American-made or US-based material, which saw me in good stead for most of the year (sans July, and a few films in December) and made for a nice change of pace. The decrease in violence – specifically gun violence – on the screen was extremely noticeable, and so my viewing intake was considerably more restful as a result. Of course, this meant I missed out on a few shows I’ve been meaning to catch up on (Elementary, 1923, Welcome to Derry) but hey – they’re not going anywhere.

Blog-wise, I managed more reviews and commentary than most years (I see on the sidebar that even though my activity gradually decreases with each year that passes, I managed three more posts than in 2024). Personal highlights include a Contrast/Compare between Black Sails and Andor, an in-depth look at the treatment of Rebecca and Rowena in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, meta about the Evolution of the Vampire in projects like Dracula, Nosferatu and Carmilla, Ranking the 39 Episodes of the BBC’s Robin Hood, and reviewing every episode of MGM’s Robin Hood (still no word of a renewal on that front, so I can probably add it to the above list of single-season shows).

There was also an uptick in fandom drama this year, or so it seemed, whether it’s the tedium of the culture war, the astounding lack of media literary in your average viewer, histrionics surrounding thwarted shipping endgames, or stories once again being held hostage by the whims of the loudest online voices. I may have more to say about it in a later post, as bloody hell was it a headache.

Finally, we lost a lot of talent this year, from Robert Redford to Diane Keating, and though I always feel a little uncomfortable about noting such things on a blogpost (it feels so superficial somehow) I was especially saddened to hear of the early death of Michelle Trachtenberg at just thirty-nine years old, who I’ll always remember as Harriet the Spy and Dawn Summers. Likewise, Val Kilmer was probably more of a Han Solo to me than Han Solo himself as Willow’s Madmartigan (sorry, I came to Star Wars later in life!) and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as the very sinister, but equally very compelling Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat (conversely, it would appear I went through my villain phase very early in life, at age ten or so).

And of course Rob Reiner, whose death was a terrible shock and part of an ongoing investigation. I’ve no idea what I could possibly say that could be in any way meaningful, only that The Princess Bride was a staple of my childhood, as it was for so many others.

Robin Hood: One Enemy Falls, Another Rises

My thoughts on this grand finale are super late, but that’s because a dozen other things (including Christmas and New Year) got in the way. Ah well, it’s an excuse to watch the episode for a second time, just to refresh my memory.

We start with Robin waking up in the forest next to Marian, having had a dream/nightmare about Adric and his father’s voice, encouraging him to fight to the bitter end. Mkay? Robin has spent this entire season prevaricating over what he’s going to do, how he’s doing to do it, and whether or not it’s the right thing to do, and it seems he still needs guidance from beyond the grave.

Woman of the Month: Huntrix

Rumi, Mira and Zoey from K-Pop Demon Hunters

The Year of the Villainess is over and it’s with some relief that I return to the good guys. We need them now more than ever, and the natural choice of heroines to headline January is a no-brainer. K-Pop Demon Hunters took over Netflix last year, and did so entirely on its own merits. With little in the way of promotion, it was down to word of mouth that these girls got the attention they deserved, and well – I give fandom a lot of flak, but sometimes it gets things right every now and then.

Rumi, Mira and Zoey are famous K-Pop stars: they write their own songs, choreograph their own dances, and look out for each other in the glitzy world of superstardom. But they’re also secret superheroes, lending their voices and talent to the upkeep of a magical barrier that keeps demons securely locked away.

Though Rumi is technically the lead, all the girls get their own little mini-arc. Mira finds it difficult to emote, Zoey feels torn between her Korean and American heritage, and demons are exceptionally good at playing on their insecurities. Rumi has it the worst though, for as the offspring of a demon and human, she has to hide her true self from the world.

Of course, it all gets resolved with the power of song, friendship and positive thinking. Okay, that sounded a little glib, but this is the first time that three female characters have featured in a Woman of the Month post, as I found that I couldn’t really separate them. That aforementioned blend of song, friendship and positivity is so intrinsically linked to all these girls and their relationship with each other that it forms the emotional centre of the story itself – and I honestly think that’s the secret ingredient that made this film a hit.

(Along with all the little things; details as simple as scenes of the girls being incredibly silly or stuffing their mouths with food. How often do you get to see THAT in a movie about women?)

At the start of the film, there’s a tantalizing glimpse of the women that preceded Huntrix in the line of demon hunters throughout history (I’d definitely turn up for a prequel about them) and hopefully any potential sequel will delve into how these girls were recruited and trained in the first place. Until then, we have this impossible movie to enjoy: three female protagonists, a largely women-led production, absolutely no support or promotion from Netflix, themes of mental health and the connective power of music… and it was a smash hit.