Malcolm
- Thread starter Quincy72
- Start date
Oh are you going to the con in Birmingham? Lucky you. If only I live nearer to all these events!
One of the interesting thing I caught in the interview was when Dominic said that the only description he got about Reed's character at the beginning was only 3 things - stiff upper lip, buttoned up and shy around women, and that Malcolm was made to be the typical Brit in American tv shows.
Yes we can really feel/hear that closeness from the jokes and comments they say about each other
Yeah, made me want to buy the audio book just to hear his voice!
Me too! What I also found interesting is that Dominic said he had never read the book before. It surprise me because I know he has a degree in History. Id have thought he'd have read it as part of his liberal arts curriculum. But 'm sure that the curriculum is very different in UK and US schools,,and their ideas on "the classics" probably differ.
As for me, I trudged through both The Illiad and The Odyssey. Ironically, I read them in high school, even though I went on to Major in English in college, and those books were NOT among the many I read.
However, I was required to read James Joyce, which Malcolm read in Shuttlepod One!
*Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth*...I practically learned to read with a copy of The Iliad. But Caroline Alexander's audio book is not available through Amazon.UK, and Amazon.Com won't sell to a buyer in the UK. Same with iTunes. So I'd buy it with pleasure ... but I can't! 
Me too! What I also found interesting is that Dominic said he had never read the book before. It surprise me because I know he has a degree in History. Id have thought he'd have read it as part of his liberal arts curriculum. But 'm sure that the curriculum is very different in UK and US schools,,and their ideas on "the classics" probably differ.
As for me, I trudged through both The Illiad and The Odyssey. Ironically, I read them in high school, even though I went on to Major in English in college, and those books were NOT among the many I read.
However, I was required to read James Joyce, which Malcolm read in Shuttlepod One!
*Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth*...I practically learned to read with a copy of The Iliad. But Caroline Alexander's audio book is not available through Amazon.UK, and Amazon.Com won't sell to a buyer in the UK. Same with iTunes. So I'd buy it with pleasure ... but I can't!
Being from an Asian country I was not required to read either Illiad or Ulysses!
but I was interested in western classics when I was in uni and tried to read Illiad on my own (not my subject, I'm a geologist). It was hard!!! So it would be interesting to hear it read to me by Dominic LoyaulteMeLie, same here. Being neither in the US or the UK, I cannot buy the audiobook
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Interesting that Malcolm gets derided for being posh, but Bashir from DS9, who has basically the same voice, doesn't. Probably has something to do with that actor's non-Anglo background (his full name is *deep breath* Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi).
I like his accent actually - and I don't think it's Malcolm's accent that bothers people, I think it's more of his behaviour with regards to women. He was being portrayed as someone from an all boys school and uptight family, which resulted in his being a bit immature or shy about females.
I liked the accent too. And his behavior was relatable to me. I'm female, and was always shy about males- but only in the romantic sense. I had not problem relating to them professionally.
That scene with Malcolm and the Vissian..yea..that would've been me....
I don't have a problem with Malcolm's presentation, outside of the poorly done section 31 retconning. I don't really see him as posh and standoffish due to arrogance. I see his standoffishniss as social anxiety and a general lack of social skills, which is why he embraces the structure of rank and always wanted a more disciplined ship - easier for him if everybody has to follow the set laid out rules for interaction. I liked his character.
Oh yes, I do like his character very much. It's nice to have a somewhat nerdy hero; something I can certainly identify with.
I wished his Section 31 involvement is revealed earlier and made more prominent in the story, and I wished he was not made to look ineffective too often just to make Archer look more heroic. But on the whole he is my favourite character.
I mentioned his awkwardness around women above because I remember people were discussing about the way Reed was portrayed as a typical Brit in american tv, a bit repressed sexually.
It would have been nice if this is the case!
I don't like that he's sort of a non entity. He has no friends, well except maybe for Trip but I think it's more by default than anything else. Hoshi couldn't even know his favorite dish from anyone. She wouldn't have known that he preferred pineapple if not for his allergy to it!
Ha! Maybe he is so secretive because he is part of Section 31. Or he was recruited by Section 31 exactly because he is good material for a spy, because of his non entity-ness
The best spies are people that are forgettable. I mean, James Bond is very entertaining but as a spy, he sucks.
Very well put. I agree absolutely (although personally I loved the Section 31 angle and wish we could have seen more of it earlier, as Willow said.
Maybe we would have seen more of it if the ratings hadn't dropped constantly.
If they'd planned it earlier and worked it into the character then it could have been great. Instead they just up and decided "ok, Malcolm is a spy for Section 31 and instead of laying any ground work for it we're just going to outright say it and pretend he's always been in section 31 all alongbut wasn't activated because nothing the Enterprise did was important enough" . IMO, that doesn't work. If you're going to make a major change to a character like that you need to change, you need to earn it. They didn't do it with Malcolm.
Sure, and maybe it would have eventually worked for the character, like it did for Bashir, but they didn't have the ratings go or the time so we judge based on what was, not what might have been.
Yes, unfortunately.
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