David Tennant - DI Alec Hardy / The Doctor
Olivia Colman - Ellie Miller / Prisoner Zero
Eve Myles - Claire Ashworth / Gwen Cooper (Torchwood)
Arthur Darvill - Paul Coates / Rory Williams
Jonathan Bailey - Oliver Stevens / Psy
In s2 of Broadchurch when Sharonville Bishop was trying to paint the picture that Alec and Ellie deliberately framed Joe to get him out of the way, couldn't the prosecution have fired back with the footage of Alec telling Ellie it was Joe? Of course Alec had turned off the voice recorder but there ARE surveillance cameras in that room, right?!?! Body language is more telling than words anyway so wouldn't Ellie's distress clue them into the fact that she genuinely didn't know?
Radiation and its severity was still so wildly underestimated in 1986, but all I am currently doing watching this series is screaming at the screen at the firefighters and crew to just get out of there, literally run for their lives in the opposite direction. Holy crap, this series going to be hard to watch.
Question about writing here: in my senior year of school my English teacher told my class that the word ‘get’ should never be used when writing. He said it’s a lazy word that never adds anything to the story, and that you should find a better way of explaining what you mean. I typically tend to avoid using ‘get’ as a result of what he said, but is it really that bad of a word to use?
Just listened to a much-garbled but still understandable recording of Queen Victoria speaking. As someone historically interested, the thing that saddens me most is the fact that we'll never know what these people sounded like. Did Abraham Lincoln really sound as high-pitched as contemporary accounts said he did? What was it like to hear Harriet Tubman speak? There's a few seconds of silent video of Anne Frank, but what did she sound like? Every so often I find myself looking up videos of people like Eva Peron and I listen to her speak and she's alive to me in a way a lot of these people aren't and it's all because I can listen to her voice.
You’ve got your faith. You’ve got your songs and your hymns. And I’ve got the Doctor.
No matter how many times I’ve rewatched it, I still feel a thrill whenever I hear Thirteen referred to as Doctor. The gender doesn’t matter at all-- Jodie was fantastic!
Mark calling Chloe the way he did at the end of episode 6 season 3 made me really angry as much as it broke my heart. Because if he had really succeeded in ending his own life the way he wanted, then his daughter would have had to live with that final conversation for the rest of her life. Chloe would have undoubtedly blamed herself if he really had died, wishing she’d gone to find him like she had wanted during their phone conversation.
u ever hear a drum beat that changes ur life
She'd never really noticed how often Daisy spoke to her father with her hands. It simply wasn't any of Ellie's concern and she had other things to worry about, like her job and her boys, and whether or not she would eventually snap and murder Hardy when he was being a knob. And today she was absolutely furious as she walked through her front door.
The absolute nerve of him! Brushing off that boy's concern like it didnt matter at all, practically ignoring him and handing it to Ellie to handle. Where did he get off acting like that? Her mood was not improved when she realized she didn't have anything for dinner, and that meant going to the store to buy something. With a curse, she grabbed her coat and headed back outside without even having had the chance to take her shoes off.
The store was on the other side of town, and of course she was caught in traffic on the way. Cursing to herself at this blatant ill luck granted to her by the cosmos, she happened to spy two familiar figures walking down the sidewalk: Hardy and Daisy, out buying fish and chips together. Daisy was in full conversational mode, engaged with her story-- but then Ellie noticed her mouth wasn't moving.
Her hands were. Quickly, precisely, and so casually that it was clearly habit, and what was even more amazing was that Hardy was doing it right back.
Ellie sat with her mouth open until a car behind her beeped for not moving forward.
She finally understood what it was Daisy did with her hands, and it wasn't simply gesturing.
*****
"So why do you need to use sign language with your dad, Daisy?"
She said it easily, without judgment, the next time she stopped by the Hardy residence. By chance, he wasn't home yet but Daisy was, which made it the perfect time to ask her questions.
Daisy wide-eyed her, sizing her up. "I don't know," she said smoothly, "why does someone need to know sign language?"
"Don't be so sarcastic," Ellie said, " that's your dad's job. My guess would be that you use it to talk to him because he's deaf, but he wouldnt be a detective if that were the case--"
"Partially deaf. It was an accident years ago, I guess on a previous call out. He suffered an ear injury, and he's almost eighty percent deaf in his right ear, a little below forty in his left. He's gotten really good at reading lips and studying body language, but it's easiest to talk to him using sign language. He doesn't have to work so hard to understand that way."
"Why didnt he say anything, the knob?"
"He didnt want you to think less of him, this ability to do his job because he's so hard of hearing. Are you going to be?"
"I--" Ellie paused before she tried to use some excuse. Of course she would have judged him; she was a little judgmental now, but she was also hurt. They'd known each other a long time now-- did he still not think he could trust her? "Do you have any books on how to learn sign language, Daisy?"
The sunny smile she got for that question told her she'd asked exactly the right thing. "I'll give you lessons."
*****
Of course she didn't tell Hardy she knew about his deafness, but the day she approached him and signed, How are you today, sir?, the way his whole countenance lit up was well worth the surprise.
so idk why but I headcanon Alec Hardy as deaf/hard of hearing but I cannot, for the life of me, find a fanfic about it! So if anyone comes across one or even writes one, please send it my way. I just love the idea of him using sign language with Daisy and Miller seeing and finding out he's deaf/hard of hearing and learning sign language to communicate with him. I'd write it myself but I don't think i'd do it justice!