Review: Doctor Who - The Name Of The Doctor

Let’s talk about the DOCTOR WHO Series 7 finale shall we?

No, I’ve not been reviewing anything from the strangely titled Series 7b (THE BELLS OF ST. JOHN to NIGHTMARE IN SILVER), and that’s really (sadly) come down to an enjoyment level. When I used to watch RTD’s DW I was EXCITED to post about it, to talk about it with friends, and gush over what I liked. When Moffat took over in Series 5, I was excited-ish throughout (nothing reaching the levels of my RTD-era love, but excited enough)…My feelings on the entirety of Series 6 are pretty well known (Read: I loathed it more than any whole series since DW came back in 2005). Series 7 has been “meh”. The only truly standout eps for me were Neil Cross’ HIDE, and the Xmas special THE SNOWMEN…everything else could be easily swept under my WHO-rug and forgotten about. It should, therefore, speak volumes that the ONLY thing that’s been able to rouse me out of my review-malaise concerning this show is to pontificate on what I felt was a relatively disjointed and ultimately pointless Finale for Series 7.

THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR, written by showrunner Steven Moffat (a man whom Chris and I used to look upon with wonder for his TV writing), is not a mess persay (at least not like 2011’s A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR), but it’s a straightforward thought essay on the Doctor.

Again.

For the 3rd Series finale in a row.

History Check: Series 5 – The Doctor must solve the mystery of the Pandorica (a box designed by his enemies to keep him from his future), and stop the TARDIS from exploding in the future.

Series 6: The Doctor has gotten to big for his britches, and his very “name” has caused an entire religion to be crafted around capturing him, and killing him…to keep him from his future. This time we get the mention of that future in Trenzalore, where the question cannot be asked “Doctor Who?”

Series 7: We go to Trenzalore, and proceed to go through 45-odd minutes of that journey and what happens there.

The issue? That for the third series running the show isn’t about the Doctor saving a planet, or people, or the universe…it’s instead all about the Doctor. Hell, it’s not even really about his companions.

This inward looking Doctor Who is about as far from the original series and mythos as it gets…but it’s also about as far from the storytelling that RTD gave us that you could get.

So we go to Trezalore. Does the “name” of the Doctor get said? Yep. But like all Moffat’s “This will happen, and it will change the Doctor forever!” proclamations…it’s all bullshit, a fake out. The name gets said, by River Song, off-screen. And there is no clever story (as was eluded by David Tennant in the Library when he said to River “there was only one time he COULD tell someone his name”) associated with her knowing of it. She literally found out “Because she badgered him about it”.

You get that? She badgered him about it. A Time Lord…scratch that, the Runaway Time Lord who for over a thousand years has kept the secret of what his name really is…gave in because his (briefly) wife badgered him about it.

Wow. Just wow.

And that’s just for starters.

So, “name” thing aside what happens on Trenzalore? Well, it’s a battlefield. “Sweet!” you say “Tell me more!” Err…well nope. It’s an old battlefield, and is “supposedly” where the Doctor died. His tomb is his TARDIS which is “leaking” it’s bigger onto the outside. So his tomb is a giant TARDIS. Cool. What’s inside? Well this kind of Swirly Light Tree thingie…and it’s basically the remnants of the Time Lord…a map of his life through time leftover as some kind of echo (I guess?).

Enter our villain. The Great Intelligence (a creature from another universe trying to get into ours VIA proxies) in the form of THE SNOWMEN’s Doctor Simeon and his Whispermen (beings that ominously whisper, and who’s powers are the ability to become incorporeal enough to squeeze your heart so you die) has shown up at the Doctor’s Tomb, and wish entrance, and after threatening the Doctor by saying he’ll kill his friends if he doesn’t speak his name and open the door to his tomb. River helps him avoid this, and everyone trundles inside where they find the light tree thingie. Then the villain does the DW Villain equivalent of a filibuster and tells everyone there his plan is to go into the Doctor’s Light Tree and screw up his every success throughout his timeline and thus undo all he has done. This would be really interesting if he had:

A) Not SPELLED OUT his plan to his enemies in the room, like a hackneyed Bond villain.

B) Found some way to close the Doctor’s Light Tree timeline map thingie after he goes into it so no one follows him…because…

C) …seconds after he goes into it, Clara decides to sacrifice herself and follow him in to “correct” all that he screws up. Negating his entire (stupid) plan in seconds.

I’m serious. The Great Intelligence, a villain whom the Second Doctor fought, and who has been tipped as the “big bad” since the Christmas episode and has been pretty much behind all the stuff that’s occurred since then…the creature that you want to see a showdown with…spells out his plan and has it foiled in less time than it would take a Dalek to say “exterminate”. The Whispermen (his lackeys on this plane) had more teeth than he did.

Okay, now let’s leave aside the silly and toothless villain. Let’s deal with Clara’s reveal. It turns out that because she chases The G.I. into the Light Tree she essentially “dies” and “scatters herself” across the Doctor’s Timeline, which is why he keeps meeting her and why she keeps dying and seemingly is resurrected in different times and places. Cool. I can totally buy that, and it’s MUCH less messy than any other Moffat-ism “timey-wimey” thing he’s chucked at us in recent seasons. If it weren’t for the idiocy of the villains it would be a very elegant solution to the “impossible girl” that actually echoes Rose and Bad Wolf.

“So what’s the problem then?” you ask.

Well, it’s in the emotional resonance of her sacrifice. She literally says she will die to save the Doctor from this fate. River actually tells her that she will cease to exist and what is left will be scattered pieces across time saving the Doctor…that the person she is, will no longer be.

Okay great. Gotcha. Poignant, and even though I’m not as emotionally invested in her as I was Rose and Donna, I’m quite fine with that. But the Doctor almost immediately goes into his own timeline (paradox much? But nevermind) to rescue her. He actually breaks the rules of the show…rules which (for example) disallowed two Amy’s, one younger and one older, into the TARDIS at the same time…an arguably WAY lesser paradox than crossing your OWN timeline…to save the girl who just had an emotional scene “rescuing” him. So we decide to steal ANY emotion I had for the scene by reversing it almost right away. That such things are happening on DOCTOR WHO is baffling.

I mean how do you even associate this Moffat-written moment with stuff like “Everybody Lives” from THE DOCTOR DANCES, or Sally Sparrow saying goodbye to a dying old man who moments before was young and hitting on her at the end of BLINK, or even the tear-jerking letter that Madame De Pompador left for Ten in THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE? How? The answer is that you can’t. They don’t even exist in the same universe.

Refer to my old post: Steven Moffat CAN be a brilliant writer…when someone else is in control…but when he’s in control of the show as a whole his writing becomes something unrecognizable.

Lastly we have to talk about John Hurt.

So at the tail end of the ep, when The Doctor goes into his own timeline to rescue Clara from her rescue (don’t get me started on why this doesn’t UN-DO her rescue…) and there are various incarnation of the Doctor walking by her…we see the back of an unrecognizable man staring out into the rain…and he is revealed (quite brashly in text on screen…cause apparently we are all dumb and need it spelled out?) as “The Doctor”…and Eleven says that he’s not really allowed to have that name cause of “what he did.” And Hurt’s version says “I only did what I had to do” Speculate as you will. I’m cool with Hurt playing some lost or evil version of the Doctor’s past (even if it renumbers the Doctors) if only because I’m sure whatever it is, won’t stick. Whatever happens with the character in the 50th Anniversary will be timey-wimey’d out of existence, and things will settle back to the status quo. As far as the reveal is concerned, I like that he was in it, to link the finale up with the 50th…but I REALLY could have done without the big, bolded text on screen. It’s almost like Moffat and Co. were like “See, look what we did! Ain’t we tricksy? What’s going on?! You must watch to find out!”…when in my mind, just having Hurt turn around and deliver his line ominously with no reveal about “what/who” exactly he is and running the credits would have been MUCH better as a cliffhanger-y moment. It’s typical of Moffat’s “tell don’t show” approach to WHO…which is the opposite of good storytelling.

Think David Tennant in years past finale epilogues.

Bride in TARDIS: “What? Whot?! WHAT?!”

The hull of the TITANIC: “What? Whot?! WHAT?!”

…it was always some visual cue, and that’s it. Imagine if RTD had put text on the screen saying “There is a BRIDE in the TARDIS?! What the?!” or “The Hull of the TITANIC? What has the Doctor gotten himself into?!”

But no, instead we get the equivalent of Moffat telling us that our attention spans are SO short that he feels the need to type out on the screen what we are seeing.

Did I like the episode in the end? Yeah, the opening nods to past Doctor’s and the like was fun, if short. The Clara reveal appeased me…if making me realize that for whatever reason Moffat needs to make his companions always be a “mystery” for the Doctor to solve…instead of just letting them be…you know, people. How can Clara grow organically as a character if all we (and the Doctor) are doing is trying to “figure her out” from ep to ep. Sad really. I miss Donna…the temp from Chiswick, and Wilf, her dreamer, stargazing grandpa. Seriously.

I liked it, and it’s SCADS better than last years ridiculous finale…but it’s not remotely close to Series 5 THE PANDORICA OPENS / THE BIG BANG, and isn’t even in the same ballpark as RTD-era finale’s like DOOMSDAY or THE LAST OF THE TIMELORDS.

Lacking doesn’t cover it, and I’m more inclined to talk about what didn’t work for me, if only because what DID work for me in the episode is very little.

And that all makes me sad.

Doctor Who Crackpot Theories: 50th Anniversary story theory and which Doctor's could come back!

I honestly don’t know how Steven Moffat (and RTD before him) and Co. and the BBC keep ANYTHING secret before it airs. Seriously. With fans as ravenous for information as us, I’m quite surprised they keep the scripts under wraps for as long as they do. I think the best they’ve done so far in Moffat’s time was keep Jenna-Louise Coleman’s pre-Christmas special debut in ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS under wraps and that probably only succeeded because the whole thing was shot on a soundstage and people probably assumed she was shooting the Christmas Special. In his book about S4 and the Specials, A WRITER’S TALE, RTD’s emails continuously point out how insanely surprised he is that both Martha and Donna’s casting were outed as companions by the ravenous DW-rumor grapevine even before their predecessors were done their series. In the world of a show with this hardcore a fanbase (and one that is constantly growing), I imagine keeping things secret is a full time job that never really works. It must be daunting.

That said, this week it became even harder to keep things under wraps. I know what you are thinking, and yes this IS a Crackpot Theories post, and yes I WILL get to the theory in a moment, but first I’d like to round up some of the Speculations, interweb buzzing and general comments about the forthcoming 50th Anniversary of our show.

First up, David Tennant. I think it goes without saying that the majority of DW fandom WANTS, no NEEDS to see Tennant return (whether that is as Ten himself, or even the human/time lord Ten Clone that lives with Rose on Pete’s World) to the role. It’s kind of a no-brainer. Well Tennant himself has been asked multiple times and up till a few weeks ago he gave the equivalent of non-committal hand waves “If they asked me…” ect.. And this was on top of the rumour that Steven Moffat had lunch with Tennant in the late summer and dinner with Peter Davison (5th Doctor) as well. Well Tennant is now making the media rounds for his part in NATIVITY 2 and he’s been asked two more times about the 50th, but his answers have gotten a lot more interesting:

First one, when asked if he’d be part of the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary he coyly replies “I don’t think there is going to be any celebrations are there?” and smiles. This is classic evasion and I love it.



The second one (starts at 49 seconds) is more telling. When asked he briefly says “Welll…” as if to answer the question and then catches himself and says “Oh, I nearly said something I shouldn’t have.” And then goes on to give similar stock answers he has been giving up to this point.




Last on the Ten front is that late yesterday Bleeding Cool reported that they had a very “solid” source telling them that:

Yes. David Tennant will be back in time for the Doctor Who anniversary. Be prepared to be surprised…


Is it wrong that I focus on the words “in time” implying that he might even be back BEFORE the 50th. This would fit with other reports that the Anniversary will be marked by not just one episode but two or more. It would actually make decent sense to me for the 50th to be celebrated as a set of 4 or 5 eps in the fall of 2013, and that would fit with Moffat’s schedule change for the shows 7th series. On top of that the dinner with Davison is telling, making me think that he’s looking to include 5 in the specials as well. I think it was a few months back when Paul McGann (8th Doctor) was asked and gave the stock non-commital “If they asked me…” answer, but that has changed more recently to a more explained answer about not yet being asked and that speaks more of evasion to me. Lastly, Matt Smith actually told someone in an interview that “it would be great to see Tennant and Eccelstone back for the 50th” and something tells me that’s not just Matt Smith giving fanboy’s hope, it seems like he’d be in the know.


Now, prepare thyselves:

CRACKPOT THEORY time!

So. Let’s assume they want multiple Doctor’s for the 50th. Let’s take that as a given. Well, they’d need villain wouldn’t they? It can’t be the Daleks, or the Cybermen, or the Silence….too easy and overdone right? So what?

Omega

For those who don’t know about Omega, click the link and edumacate yourself.

Now, we have known since the S5 episode THE BIG BANG that the TARDIS explodes at some point in the future. It created the cracks and the Silence at least had SOMETHING to do with that. We know that this was avoided with the help of River Song. What we don’t know is who or what caused it to explode and why. Okay, so stay with me here. In THE END OF TIME, Ten stopped Rassilon and the other Time Lords from using The Master as a link to reality and coming back, essentially unlocking the Time War and all that came with it. Basically unleashing hell. Well, there was once a person who was even more powerful than Rassilon and was (for a time) considered a hero amongst their lore. Omega was the man who set Rassilon on the path to harnessing a dying star to create the power source for the TARDIS and essentially allowing Time Travel. Omega disappeared in the attempt and Rassilon went on to found the Time Lords. When Omega returned (from a parallel anti-matter universe) he was upset and thought he’d been abandoned, and tried twice to destroy the universe (in THE THREE DOCTORS, and ARC OF INFINITY). What if Omega survived the events that the Time Lords thought were his final demise. Remember that the "omega symbol" seems to be the avatar of the Clerics and Headless Monks (there were Greek omega symbols all over Demon's Run) in Series 6. What if he tried to unlock the Time War using his not inconsiderable powers and the resulting reality clash causes time and space to splinter. This splintering could cause the only Time Lord to have escaped unscathed to break into his previous incarnations as pieces. So 11 incarnations of the Doctor could exist at once, but the 11 TARDISES existing together was too much for the universe to handle and THIS is what causes the explosion. The power of 11 supernova stars but all are still the same star….paradox of universe destroying proportions. So 11 versions of the doctor have to work separately to restore time and space to it’s unsplintered existence while fighting Omega and trying to stop him. This would allow for the older actors who are still alive to account for their aging and the like (AKA in these timelines they never died or regenerated just kept on living their lives), and would account for the Doctor crossing his own timeline not causing a paradox.

In my head I can see the 50th being a really BIG event, and I just think that Omega fits the bill. You could also allow The Master to come back, and you could show bits of the Time War. You could have Smith, Tennant, Eccelstone and maybe even McGann on screen together quipping with one another…which I don’t need to explain would be GOLD!

Whatever happens, I cannot wait!

Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 5, The Angels Take Manhattan

After watching the mid-series finale of DOCTOR WHO (THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN) I find myself wanting to be congratulatory and kind to Steven Moffat’s written swan song for the Ponds, but I’m just too conflicted. So I’m going to lay out what I liked and what I didn’t like and why, and hopefully you can make up your own minds.

The story on the outside is pretty simple. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory visit New York City, and while sitting in Central Park and Rory goes off to get some drinks, the Doctor discovers that Amy is reading a pulpy detective novel that all of the sudden features Rory in the 1930’s and River Song. The novel ends up being a kind of future history of the events that will follow and the Doctor quickly scolds Amy for reading ahead as she’s technically creating “fixed” points in time by doing so. He tells her not to read ahead...but chapter titles might be okay. It’s not long before they sort out that Rory has been touched by the nefarious Weeping Angels and sent back in time. After sorting that out and establishing that going back to save him is too tough because New York of 1938 is so time-addled that they can’t get back there. Luckily River Song is there to establish a homing beacon to follow back to 1938 with the TARDIS. What follows is a progression of events that lead to the heroes finding out that a tenement building called “Winters Quay” is being used as a sort of battery farm for the Weeping Angels to send people back in time from to drink their energy, including the metal (not stone) Statue Of Liberty.

It all SEEMS very cool from the outside but if you dig at all into the narrative the thing falls apart like a house of cards. My immediate issue is what exactly is River Song doing there? It’s never explained, and it seems totally out of nowhere...and worse none of the characters questions her presence! Aside from the Doctor’s teasing “Shouldn’t you be in prison?” no one says boo about why River is there. One might argue that she knew of her parents’ need of her in that time and place, but I’d wonder where she got the info. (NOTE: I've been duly informed by a friend that it's set out that River is studying the Angels and that's why she's summoned there by the collector. I find that beyond convenient, but whatever, I'm willing to concede that point.) Anyways, lets gloss over that her presence makes no sense and move on. So Rory sees older Rory (who was sent back in time) there in a room showing that in this timeline he gets caught and stays in Winters Quay till his eventual death. His way of escape? Jumping from the roof, killing younger Rory, therefore depriving the Angels of their battery source and breaking their hold on the building. How, you ask? Don’t ask. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. I fail to see how Rory’s escape (one amongst however many folk have been imprisoned there to be sent back in time to create the energy) breaks their hold. But nevermind. Oh and The Statue of Liberty is there, fangs out as an Angel on top of the building. While menacing, two things immediately jump into your head. One: no one in New York in the vicinity sees that Lady Liberty is missing, nor Two: the huge statue standing in the street and menacing the roof of a tenement building? Okay, I’m going to dismiss this as having Liberty as an Angel is endlessly cool. How about the fact that she’s made of metal and not stone (as the Angels are described)? Ssshhhh. Nevermind. There is some offhanded remark about the Angel’s possessing statues...thus kind of changing them from being villains who turn to rock, into some sort of spiritual form that actually possesses statues instead. What? Did Steven Moffat just screw with his own invented creature’s origin? Ugh. Nevermind? So Amy and Rory create their paradox by jumping from the building and this wipes out that whole timeline, freeing Winter’s Quay from the hold of the Angels and they end up back in the graveyard they were in when this started. Again, I’m not sure how Rory’s specific sacrifice removes this whole bit of timeline, but I’m willing to hand wave it because here we go...here is the ending of the Ponds. Here is the (aforementioned) last day of the Doctor and the Ponds. Break out the Kleenex! Even though I have been very vocal about not caring much for the Ponds, I’m still sad to see the Doctor so distraught. So what happens? Ready for spoilers? One Angel is still in the graveyard (convenient that location!) and touches Rory sending him back to an indeterminate moment in time. So Amy freaks out and tells the Doctor to go back and help him, and the Doctor refuses saying that it would rip New York apart to try to do so. Hmmm. So Amy makes a sacrifice and decides to go back as well. The Doctor gets upset and tells her he will never see her again! It’s poignant and sad and I’ll freely admit made me emotional. It’s not emotional because of the Ponds, it’s emotional because of the Doctor. In essence Amy is 11’s Rose. In that vein he wants to do everything to save her, to stay with her and to keep traveling with her. His best friend. On that front it’s absolutely heart-jarringly sad. At least it was, until I thought about it for more than a moment. Wait. So the Doctor can’t go back to her time because it would rip New York apart. Okay, so if the episode is to be believed, it’s the constant time flux in NY causing this fact that he can’t take the TARDIS back there. Add that River says she can freely go back with her stolen (from Jack Harkness) vortex manipulator and it doesn’t cause the same issues that the TARDIS does, thus allowing her to give the book to Amy to publish in the past and create her epilogue for the Doctor to read and you have the makings of a plot hole. Then if you really break it down, then Amy and Rory can simply go outside the city to a different place (Buffalo maybe?) where the Doctor CAN travel to....hell they even have a vortex-manipulated Daughter to bring the message to do so. This is not just a plot hole; it’s a giant, fabulously over sighted writing mistake (paraphrased from another viewer). Let’s not just say that though, let’s look at it logically with historical evidence. Rose Tyler got stuck in an alternate universe. The walls closed and the universe was sealed off from ours otherwise it would rip ours to pieces. Doctor can’t go to her. In fact it’s only a need to create further rips in the universe that he DOES see her again, afterwards re-sealing those gaps to make sure things go tickety boo. Donna Noble, part of a Human /Time Lord metacrisis, she took the Doctor’s mind into her head and became the Doctor Donna, had to have her mind wiped and she would never remember any of the great things she did otherwise her mind would burn and she would die. The Doctor could never visit her otherwise he risks her remembering and subsequently dying. Fast forward, the Doctor can’t visit or save Amy and Rory from the 1930’s New York...and instead of finding a way to visit them or save them VIA another place they could travel to or another time a year or so later....he GIVES UP? Wow. That sucked almost all the emotion out of that scene in the graveyard. It smacks of a weak, weak plot device. Moffat seemingly didn’t know how to write them off the show. It’s the only thing I can come up with. Say what you will about RTD and melodrama, but I can’t believe that Moffat wrote a great and emotional end to the Ponds and totally robs it and the thing falls totally apart under the slightest scrutiny. I’m sad because I’m the guy who dismisses that kind of thing when it comes to DOCTOR WHO. The Sontaran Eps in S4 are pretty rough on common sense and plot holes, but they are scads better than this stuff. I WANT to handwavium the bullshit science and plot holes for story. I want to do that, but in this episode it was just so damn blatant.

Was it a good episode? Yes, indeed. Does it require Kleenex as promised? Yes it does. But afterwards when you begin to actually think about the ending you will most likely get annoyed. Especially in comparison with heartbreakers like Rose’s goodbye in DOOMSDAY and Donna’s goodbye in JOURNEY’S END, Amy and Rory’s goodbye is treated almost like a “we have to do this, so here you go. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s sad enough.” And that felt flat to me. It’s got a number of decent ideas and scenes and has some kickass DOCTOR WHO moments, but it never adds up to a solid whole. Again falling victim to Moffat’s trademark cobbling of a narrative AROUND his own clever plot devices instead of writing a half decent story first and then adding in his plot devices after. I’m actually a little pissed off by how this happened.

Nick Hurran’s direction and Murray Gold’s score ought to be lauded as both were spot on in this ep. Hurran’s direction really does hearken to 1930’s noir in a perfect way and Gold’s score as usual these days, was lovingly rendered and presented throughout. The acting was also quite well done throughout with Matt Smith (the Doctor’s) performance standing out most. Karen Gillan (Amy) brings home a solid performance, while Alex Kingston (River) does a decent enough job, but for me she’s never reached the heights she did in her first appearance in the library eps.

Is it a solid mid-series finale? Yeah, if you can handwavium the absolute MYRIAD of things wrong with the notions in it and add the fact that the Angels don’t come across remotely as frightening as they did in S5 (let alone BLINK)...at least the Cherubs were creepy and did a lot with sound only. You will likely enjoy it. I did. It was only after I thought about it that everything really began to leap out at me. Is it a solid ending for Amy and Rory? No. Not remotely. In fact it’s probably one of the weakest “companion(s) leave” episode in relaunched DW. I’ll add the fact that we spent two eps with Rory’s dad Brian and he gets no info on what happened to them? How about Amy’s parents? Their many friends? There is liiterally NO EPILOGUE explaining anything to anyone. This robs the episode of a further set of emotional beats that I think the audience deserved, especially Brian. Why spend two eps with him if he was only going to be left in the dark? Travesty.

So yeah. That’s where I am with it. I enjoyed it on some level, but more of me is upset at how nonsensical it was, how scatterbrained and how I feel that even the emotional moments end up not really being earned. When Rose left I cried. When Donna left I sobbed like an un-consoled kid. Now when Amy and Rory leave I shed a tear or two when during the graveyard scene and the epilogue scene, but felt utterly robbed afterwards.

This just further illustrates to me how much RTD’s era affected me. He knew characters and interaction. He paid attention to story first and plot after. Moffat’s continued failure in that department leaves us with stuff like this. Serviceable DOCTOR WHO, but it’s a far cry from what it was and what it COULD be.

Doctor Who: Series 7 Ep. 2: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship & Ep 3. A Town Called Mercy Reviews

Since I was attending TIFF and doing a multitude of reviews for that I didn’t get a chance to properly do my weekly review for DOCTOR WHO (namely episodes 2 and 3 which aired during TIFF), both of which I watched.

So, consider this a two-fer review for both DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP and A TOWN CALLED MERCY.

Without further ado…

DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP

This episode is a little more bombastic and less introspective (at least initially) than the Series opener ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS was. I mean let’s run down the list of things in the ep:

- Huge planet sized spaceship? Check.

- Dinosaurs running around on said spaceship? Check.

- Evil megalomaniacal pirate bent on collecting everything? Check.

- Two giant henchman robots with silly dialogue? Check.

- Nefertiti? Check.

- Big Game Hunter reminiscent of someone from a Wilbur Smith novel? Check.

- Amy and Rory post-marital strife? Check.

- Rory’s Dad? Check.

- Angry Doctor? Check.

- Indian Space Agency defense force threatening to destroy the ship and dino’s to save earth from collision? Check.

So yeah, a bit of a dogs breakfast with all the bits in. What makes it actually succeed is the clever writing and the acting across the board. This is not to say that it doesn’t contain things that are odd (Rory’s dad seems to take about 15 seconds to drink in the fact that not only is he in space but also that his son and daughter-in-law have been traveling with a man in time and space saving worlds…which kind of bothered me a bit), but that it contains enough good old fashioned adventurous DW to make it well worth your time.

First up, the side character the Doctor calls on for help, Nefertiti and Riddel are worthy of the temporary companion roles, and a big notion here that will jump out at the informed (AKA those who know that Amy and Rory’s time in the TARDIS is ending with Ep 5) is that the Doctor (who has been without regular companionship for roughly 300 years by the time that last Series CLOSING TIME aired) is starting to show the wear and tear of travelling on his own (which always seems to produce an angrier, and more unrepentant Doctor…like the 9th in DALEK or the 10th in THE RUNAWAY BRIDE) and seems to be at least attempting to supplement the frequent absence of Amy and Rory in his life. That’s a good thing, and it is the reason that both Nef and Riddel are present, but it’s not really working that well. The Doctor shows his unrepentant side on the pirate Solomon and allows him to basically die. It’s a telling moment, but for those speculating that this has never happened before and think the Doctor is not acting like himself… you are quite wrong. Throughout his history (in relaunched Who if not older Classic Who) the Doctor has showcased unrepentant anger, and vicious retribution on people when he’s not travelling with companions. Heck, 11 showed it early on with Amy (THE BEAST BELOW). It’s part of what makes him who he is. The companions temper him, and without them he can become cold and distant. This is what has happened, and I’m happy to see this particular personality trait return. It shows that Moffat and Co. haven’t forgotten it. It also seems to show us how unwilling The Doctor is to let the Ponds go, whereas when other companions have gone on to other lives (willingly or unwillingly) in the past he usually accepts it and moves on. With the Ponds it’s like he clinging to them, and that’s interesting considering how aloof he can be.

DINOSAURS ends on a bleakish note with the Doctor’s anger on display, but it was a fun, and adventurous episode all told and a great way to spend an hour. It’s certainly showing that Series 7 is already kicking Series 6’s ass in the entertainment dept. The standalone nature of the eps (with teeny tiny arc threads) is truly brining us back to a more solidly grounded, uncomplicated DW. And that’s a good thing.

A TOWN CALLED MERCY

This one I liked. I liked it a lot. But my reasons for liking it aren’t the old west town with the anachronistic tech, or the cowboys, or the gunslinger cyborg, or even Ben Browder.

No, my reasons for liking it stem from the alien doctor named Kahler Jex. And more over what he did.

You see Kahler Jex is essentially a war criminal, though he is not thought of like that by his own people. He stopped a war on his planet that was killing millions by experimenting on a number of the inhabitants (under false pretenses) and creating killing machine cyborgs, who eventually stopped the war by virtue of being unstoppable. Though the war was stopped, Jex was ashamed of what he had done and he fled to earth and took residence in the town called (you guessed it) Mercy. There he gave them electricity and running water, and cured Cholera and basically tried to forget what he had done while at the same time pay his own penance for his crimes against those experiments. Well, of course one of them comes look for him and wants to kill him, but doesn’t want to harm the other inhabitants of Mercy.

It’s compelling because once the Doctor learns what Jex did, out comes the angry Doctor again…no less angry than he was on the last episode, but no further. That is until Jex talks about how similar they are to one another. And that hits home for the Doctor who has been told (most recently by Davros in S4) that he crafts weapons out of his companions to do his killing for him. The Doctor tells him that he doesn’t get to choose his own form of punishment, that’s not how this works. He needs to answer for his crimes, even though they stopped a war.

But what really rocks the Doctor back and sets his anger to overload is when he realizes that he really IS NO different from Jex in that facet. The Doctor locked the Time War out of reality, resigning two entire races (the Daleks and the Time Lords) to an eternal state of hell. He essentially (to stop the aggression that threatened to destroy the universe) made the decision to do this on his own, and that falls on him. It’s almost a worse act of war crime, and what’s worse is he KNOWS it. So he snaps and manhandles Jex out to the edge of town past the barrier that the Gunslinger won’t cross and points a gun at him to await his death at the hands of his creation.

WHAT?! You say…The Doctor and a gun? Yes.

Probably my favorite thing about the episode is this moment. And Amy even comments on it (“You see? This is what happens when you travel alone for too long!”). The Doctor, (the man who never would) hasn’t held a gun up to someone since he was at his wits end in THE END OF TIME PART II and Rasillon was threatening to bring the Time War out of the lock and bring about the end of time. So couple that with this moment where Jex has reminded him of his own digressions against not just one but two races of people. It’s poignant and is the likes of which we’ve not seen since RTD gave us the PTSD Doctor (9th Doctor). Being brought so entirely low it is only Amy firing off a gun that brings him back. But not after he tries to defend his actions by mentioning his “mercy” of the Daleks, the Master ect. It’s a key point for him to do so. It shows that the Time War was exactly what he was thinking about (since both the Daleks and the Master were heavily involved in that era of his life) when he was railing at Jex.

So in the end A TOWN CALLED MERCY ends up being a great standalone, with a darker yet still entertaining story…but the core of it is this interaction between the two doctors and their crimes…and then you have Amy telling him he’s traveled too long alone…and finally the parting shot of Amy (when asked to keep traveling) turning him down and talks about their friends might start to see them age faster. The Doctor’s face is priceless in that shot. He knows the trips are getting less frequent with the Ponds and that a time will come soon when he is utterly alone.

And that’s what makes A TOWN CALLED MERCY so compelling as an hour of TV, but especially as an hour of DOCTOR WHO.

As a final note: Hopefully everyone has noticed that the titles sequences (aside from being slightly different with the logo being tailored to fit the theme of the episode)  started slightly murkier than past years and have been getting slowly darker and murkier with each episode. The running theory is that this will continue to happen until Ep 5 (THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN, and the Ponds exit) where it will pretty much be just a murky black screen with the music playing and white titles. Or it could be leading to something more ominous down the line. Either way, I think it's a nice little mystery.

Doctor Who: The Asylum Of The Daleks (review)

Saturday’s episode of DOCTOR WHO, the Series 7 premiere titled THE ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS, could have been called Return To Form. After a rocky, not all together loved Series 6, Steven Moffat’s DOCTOR WHO had some work to do to bring all the fans back into the fold.

Well, what a difference an hour makes.

THE ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS (written by Moffat) is one of his very best penned episodes in his tenure as showrunner (if not THE best), and pulled off one of the Series biggest spectacle episodes, and they were even able to keep a HUGE surprise under wraps (Note: I will be talking of that surprise in the next paragraph so if you’ve not yet watched, don’t read further).

After the 5 web minisode’s called POND LIFE which basically accounted for the goings on with both The Doctor and The Ponds during the interim since May, it appeared that the Ponds were on the rocks (though no one knew why) marriage-wise, and the Doctor had been on a fair few adventures in their absence. So as we start ASYLUM, they aren’t even living together. The Doctor receives a summons to the ruins of the planet Skaro (the Dalek homeworld, and one that had long ago been ravaged by biological and nuclear weapon war; See: Classic Who arc THE GENESIS OF THE DALEKS) and learns that a woman’s daughter is supposedly taken captive on the Asylum world of the Daleks (basically where they put all the crazy-ass Daleks), and of course the Doctor sees through the ruse with the woman’s lie, but not before he is captured. The Ponds are summarily captured as well, and the 3 end up on Skaro and in the center of the Dalek Parliament. But instead of killing them, the Daleks, led by the non-pepper-potted prime minister, tell them that they will allow them to live if they will go to the surface of their asylum world, where a ship has crashed causing a rift that could allow the escape of thousands of Mad Daleks, a risk the Skaro Daleks refuse to let happen. They wish to nuke the planet, but the forcefield defending it is active and must be deactivated on the surface first, and they won’t go down there. Thus, enter trapping the Doctor and having him go down and do it.

The first big surprise was the appearance of new companion Jenna Louise-Coleman (whose debut was said to not be coming until Christmas); named Oswin Oswald she’s a plucky, fast-talking, flirty genius. Moffat and Co. ought to be applauded for their ability in a very spoilerific show to have been able to keep Oswin’s debut a total secret. I was impressed as when she showed up I was grinning from ear to ear and stunned. It was a lovely introduction and she reminded me of a cross between Rose and Donna, so that makes me very happy. Coleman took to her dialogue like a fish to water. Her few back and forth convo’s with the Doctor proved easily why she was chosen as his new companion. She’s got the chops and she’s really unique.

The rest of the show unfolded exactly as had been foretold, and was every bit a standalone blockbuster hour of Television. It had great action, wonderful sets and writing, the music was amazing and it really felt a lot longer than it was. It felt like a treat, as if we were getting something extra long. Moffat should also be applauded for toning down his script trickery and clever bits as instead of trying to riddle the script with them he had about two or three and allowed the rest of the tale to stand out more. Something I always felt was missing from his scripts was the heart of the narrative, as he always seemed to get mired in being clever for clever’s sake…and in ASYLUM he really shows that he was listening to us when we commented on that in Series 6, and paid a lot of attention to story and much less to cleverness. I wanted to clap with the simplicity of the tale this time. We are a far cry from the kitchen sink that was A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, and I came away very happy with that result.

The movie-format has a few giggle-worthy moments, like Rory doing a slo-mo hail may slide underneath a doorway like a Michael Bay flick…but you know what? Even that didn’t bother me and made me smile. Sure it’s over the top, but when has DOCTOR WHO ever shied away from being over the top? Nah, this is DW the way we want to see it. This is the reason we tune in. We want to see stuff like this, we lap it up!

I don’t want to go to far into the rest of the narrative as you really should see it, and the rest of the script speaks for itself. I wil say that though I am not an Amy / Rory fan, their “on the rocks” stuff in here felt much more real than any of their previous “love” elements did in the Series, so when the dénouement of the “why” of their upset comes to the fore and then the resolution to that plotline, I really FELT it this time, and that’s not something the Ponds often have done for me.

Again, this is easily one of Moffat’s BEST scripts to date since he took over the show reigns. ASYLUM has everything in it that one expects when watching DW, and it manages to open the season with a HUGE bang as well. I loved every last moment.

Now, we are left to speculate how exactly Oswin will show back up, whether her Dalek-self will have somehow escaped the Asylum world before it was blown up, or the Daleks saved her somehow, or the Doctor will meet her earlier in her timeline…we have to wait to find out, but I really love that we got to see her so early on! It felt like Donna’s first ep finishing on that shot of Rose…it totally set up the Season for me, and this feels similar. We know the Ponds are on the way out and this was the perfect way to give us our quick intro to what’s/who’s coming down the pipe this Christmas.

"Run, you clever boy, and remember." ~ Oswin

SIDENOTE: In his Hugo Acceptance speech for Best Short Form Presentation (THE DOCTOR’S WIFE), Neil Gaiman announced he was on the 3rd draft of another episode of DOCTOR WHO! I cannot wait for that, as his Series 6 ep is easily my fave.

Doctor Who News: New Companion for Series 7 Named!

It’s big news day folks. The news DOCTOR WHO fans have waited to hear since learning that Amy and Rory would be leaving the show and a new companion would be accompanying the Doctor on his adventures has finally dropped.

Announced today, Jenna-Louise Coleman (EMMERDALE) will be the new companion joining Matt Smith’s Doctor after the departure of Amy and Rory, which will happen (according to showrunner Steven Moffat) in Episode 5.

I applaud the choice simply because I am a big fan of EMMERDALE and Jenna’s role on it. I think she’ll provide a great foil to Smith’s manic Doctor.

What does everyone think about this choice? Aside from blowing my crackpot theory about it being The Master out of the water, I am curious to find out where she’ll be from and what her backstory will be.

UPDATE: I've added a video below of Jenna's first interview about the part. Enjoy!

Crackpot Doctor Who Theory: 50th Anniversary Speculation

Interesting Iceberg Ink Fact:

The most consistently visited post in our blog’s yearlong history is my original DOCTOR WHO Crackpot Theories: River Song Is The TARDIS post. Without fail, most months, it tops the list in hits and holds the record for most views ever by a country mile. What’s funny about that is the theory has long ago been blown out of the water by the revelations of who River Song actually is, but the post still gets hit numerous times every month.

Why do I bring this up? Well as you can see by the post title, it’s that time again. Crackpot Theories time!

Up this time, I speculate on the nature and story that will be told in the upcoming 2013 50th Anniversary special(s). Recently Moffat stated the following in an interview about the 50th:

"Why talk in the singular? The plans are at an early stage, but we have some very clear ideas about some of the things we're doing, and I think Doctor Who fans and kids will think it's the best thing ever. We've got a load of very big plans – the mere fact that we're talking about this two years before the event should tell you how seriously we're taking it." ~Steven Moffat

The notion being that perhaps the 50^th anniversary will be spread over more than one episode. This prompted me to my theory. Now stick with me for a bit while I wax on the immediate future of DW (AKA Series 7) first.

Matt Smith’s 11^th Doctor, we now know is headed into the 7^th Series. As quoted by Dorium Maldovar in the final Series 6 episode THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG:

“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the 11th, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered. Doctor Who?”

So this leads me to the immediate belief, that the “fall of the 11^th” could very well be the 11^th Doctor’s death and regeneration into the 12^th Doctor (implied by the fact that Matt Smith may be leaving the role after Series 7). So to me that means that perhaps, just perhaps the 50^th Anniversary special(s) will be when we actually see the prophetic events at the fields of Trenzalore.

So here we come to my crackpot theory. If there might be multiple episodes for the 50^th, and so far people have speculated that previous Doctor’s (David Tennant chief among them, and hopefully Peter Davison or even Tom Baker) will be returning in some way (like the previous many Doctor’s eps like THE FIVE DOCTORS), why not dedicate an episode to each Doctor. That way you have 4 or 5 disparate stories, each with a different Doctor in the lead that all head in the direction of the 11^th Doctor’s fall at Trenzalore. Then cap it all off with one final episode where all the stories come together and all the Doctor’s star in it at once helping one another to whatever narrative common goal or resolution.

It’s seems to be only a bit of a stretch, since the commonly held notion that multiple Doctor’s would feature in the 50^th. So jumping to the conclusion that there might be multiple-Doctor arcs to the overall story doesn’t seem so much like fanboy crackery as it does common sense to honor the franchise. Created by Steven Moffat, the ultimate DW fanboy himself.

I’d like to see this happen. Sadly, I doubt we will know ANYTHING about it until later next year when they start shooting the special(s).

What do you all think? Fanboy madness or believable prophecy?

TV Review: Doctor Who - The Wedding Of River Song (Spoilerific)

And so closes one of the more turbulent (for me anyways) Series of DOCTOR WHO. 

Most of my reviews are non-spoilerirific, but all bets are off now at the end of the season. If you haven’t watched it (the last episode) yet I assume you aren’t going to be trawling the internet for reviews before watching, and if you have watched then you’ll not care about spoilers.

So be aware: SPOILERS WILL ABOUND below for the whole episode including the ending.

Last night’s episode THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG was the end of a season scattered with a few good episodes, and more than a few lacklustre ones. I’m going to start this review properly by mentioning a Series 1 episode called FATHER’S DAY. In that one, the 9^th Doctor and Rose Tyler travel back in time to 1987 so that Rose (who doesn’t really remember her father Pete) can be there on the day he is hit by a car and dies. After a few tries at just watching Rose interferes and saves Pete, and time goes completely wonky because of it. These flying gargoyle creatures appear and start killing people, trapping everyone in a church because time is not right and they intend to set it right. The poignancy of that episode was in the fact that Pete’s death was required for the timeline to continue as it was, and eventually, begrudgingly Rose has to just let her father die. It was emotional and it perfectly exemplified the fact that although the Doctor travels through space and time and saves people, certain things “must always be”. This was further illustrated in the end of the 10^th Doctor episode THE WATERS OF MARS when the Doctor took a fixed moment and tried to save the people involved who were supposed to die attempting to become a Time Lord Victorious. It only took a moment for a secondary character to show him how wrong he was there. These are just a few of the reasons that Russel T. Davies era of Doctor Who was so different from Steven Moffat’s (writer of last night’s episode and current showrunner) era. Those difference are even more obvious in the last episode of the 6th Series.

In THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG we are brought back to the notion that The Doctor must die in 2011, at 5:02 PM at Lake Silencio in Utah. We are already aware that it is River Song who kills him, and that The Silence and Madame Kovarian have raised River Song (a "child of the TARDIS" who has some time lord powers like regeneration) solely for this purpose. We know it’s a double shot and that mid regeneration the Doctor is irreversibly killed. So as the episode begins the Doctor is going about attempting to find out WHY he has to die and learns through various sources that it is because at some point in the future someone will ask a question that will have to be answered, the result of which shall be horrible enough for a religious order (The Silence) to have been formed to kill the Doctor to prevent it. 

So at the beginning of the episode “all of time is happening at once”. I don’t even want to think too hard about how if that were actually the case it would be far different from how it was shown. At BEST time is wonky with a few things overlapping...but no, time is not happening all at once. Time is also (supposedly) “frozen”. No, I am afraid not...people are moving about living their days and having conversations...the clocks have stopped...but “time” itself is actually fine. At any rate, we quickly discover that in this alt-time stream/bubble where Winston Churchill is Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, balloons fly cars about and there is a tram train that runs into places like a re-purposed pyramid at Giza as America’s Area 51 (I don’t even want to get into the myriad of things wrong with that), the 100 Years War is still happening and Dickens is writing this years go-to Christmas special, that River has in fact caused it all. On that Beach in Utah we find out that River can’t control the suit and it will kill the Doctor anyways without her help and he says he understands and it’s okay and he forgives her utterly. She then somehow DOES control the suit and shoots (I guess into the ground) and wastes all the ammo thus creating the “frozen time/alt-time/bubble/stream” where the Doctor doesn’t die like he is supposed to. So we have a whole time stream where Amy and Rory and company don’t really remember one another, but still kind of do as well, and are in cahoots with River attempting to signal the "outside-the-bubble-universe" to get help for the Doctor and prove he’s not as bad as he is good, and thus should live.

So this is why I mentioned FATHER’S DAY. In that episode the gargoyles attempting to kill Pete (and others) to set time right made perfect sense and having Rose have to let go (but still getting to say goodbye) was fitting and showed us that sometimes things HAVE to happen a certain way for time to exist properly. Here we have a similar idea where the Doctor must die, as we’ve been told all season so far time and again. In fact I don't think I can count how many episodes ended with him looking at a picture of himself and his death date. The problem is that when the Doctor figures out his loophole (using a Tessalector body to fake the death at Lake Silencio), my biggest question then becomes how is it that he is able to “fool time” with the robot body? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have had him using a Flesh TM body and controlling it from afar? Beyond that, how does letting the robot body die set things straight at all? Or is it that he was always meant to simply sacrifice a robot body there all along and that was the SET POINT that couldn’t be changed, and not his own death?

I think that gets us to the meat of what is wrong with this whole episode (and to a certain extent Series 6 as a whole). If you think even remotely hard about any of the "science" or "reality" or "truths" in the episode everything falls apart like a house of cards. Take for example River basically saying that she WOULD sacrifice the whole universe, the explosion of the TARDIS from Series 5, and the deaths of billions...for her love of the Doctor. This is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what he has always stood for. Though he sets things right by going off to “die”, should he still be okay with River being that way? Is that why she’s left to be mostly in the stormcage prison facility for the rest of her life by him (instead of him saying that he wasn’t really dead at her trial)? He still goes to take her on adventures though. I guess it kind of goes against the Doctor as a character for me that he allowed that sort of behavior to stand. While we are on the subject of the ending, why DID he have to marry her? We find out it wasn’t actually so he could tell her his name, so was it instead all part of the ruse to fool Amy and Rory (who River tells the truth to later anyways)? Then I would also add why was River needed in the suit at all if the suit could act on its own and shoot the Doctor? Oh, I can answer that one. So that River could be in the suit to stop it shooting him and essentially CREATE this episode. Seriously, think about that a second.

So what did we get in this episode that was worth it? We got many answers, but most of them we had already guessed. Still it was nice to have finality to our guessed answers. The Doctor avoided his death by Tessalector copy, but my issue with that (other than my above mentioning of fooling “time”) is the fact that they showed it at all before they needed to. If you think about it they never needed to show the Tessalector early on at all. We all saw LET’S KILL HITLER. We know the capabilities of the ship/human copy robot. Why on earth would you give us that hint so early on. What a revelation it would have been had we found that out AS the Doctor asked River look in his eye! A slightly obvious escape would have been made better by surprise. Instead, the minute the Tessalector showed up I knew that was his avenue to not dying, and it showed up before the opening credits! Still, it was AN answer, so I'm not complaining too much. What I can only be somewhat sure was meant to be a cliffhanger is the "question" from the future that should never be answered was "Doctor Who?" Cute. If a total, blatant red herring. If I thought for one second that they were going to answer the "who?" question as they have teased then I'd be intrigued, but they won't, so I'm not. It's one of the enduring mysteries of the show that ought never to be answered, and they are aware of that so I'm sure it's simply another reason to throw a time point into the Doctor's future for Series 7 action to be based around, and quite honestly I found it a little cheap.

There was some great stuff in the episode though. The effects were amazing throughout and I’m convinced that this is why we had a number of budget eps this Series. They were saving it up for the effects in this one. The acting was good and Matt Smith especially delivers a nice performance, as does Rory. The tribute to the death of Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) was fitting, poignant and the Doctor was brought down to earth with an emotional thump by that. What a way to acknowledge Courtney’s work on the show. I actually wonder if after they screen all the Series 5 SARAH JANE episodes that were made prior to her death, if we will see a similar acknowledgement of Elizabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith). That would be wonderful as a tribute to see as well.

Overall this episode was decent, but not mind-blowing.  Last years’ finale was much better in my opinion, and this will forever go down as my least favourite Series of DOCTOR WHO, but I can’t say it was all bad. There were a number of decent episodes and THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG is definitely included in those...but you have to not think too hard about it as a story otherwise it  crumbles completely to pieces.

I'm gonna go re-watch Series 1 episode FATHER'S DAY now.

TV Review: Doctor Who - Let's Kill Hitler

On Saturday night I was happy like you would not believe. My favourite show, DOCTOR WHO, (that had been flagging a bit this series so far, and was capped off with a mid-season finale that was less than stellar to say the least) had returned after its hiatus.

Last week I spoke about how I felt that the decision to split Series 6 into two halves was a silly one, and on the weekend I was proven utterly, undeniably correct.

The 8^th episode of the series (and technically a mid-series premier as well) LET’S KILL HITLER was not only good, but it was in fact fantastic. It is no secret that I disliked the 7^th episode, A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, and to have been left hanging on that mid-series finale for so long was torturous as it gave me time to voice my grumbles aloud and generally be frustrated. That said, had LET’S KILL HITLER run the very next week instead of nearly 3 months later I would never have had a chance to be upset because episode 8 was so entirely splendid throughout. 

At any rate, had you been worried about the show this Series, rest assured that LET’S KILL HITLER is WHO back in fine form and taking names.

At length, Chris and I previously babbled about Moffat’s writing skill at the quieter episodes (and that he wasn’t great at the big spectacle episodes), referencing the lackluster A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR…but I am pleased to say that Moffat has upped his game and in this episode he has managed the spectacle of a big set-piece (also period piece) episode, while also creating an inherently quiet and dramatic one. The script had excellent energy in it and so much to enjoy. It had fan nods, timeline trickery and fun, big explosions, creepy killer jellyfish machines, Nazi’s, Hitler, the Doctor’s new long green coat, the Doctor’s tuxedo, robot spacecraft, great fun info dumps of stuff about River Song and The Doctor both, but you want to know what it had above all else? ANSWERS. Yes you find out who River Song killed, yes you find out more about who she is, and you actually find out an answer about something people have wondered about since the Series 4 ep THE FOREST OF THE DEAD, you get more info about Amy and Rory’s childhood and also answers to things from the premier two-parter. We get mention of the Silence and what exactly it is and how that ties into Melody Pond (River) being wanted for murder and having been trained since birth for that. Lastly, yes there is a nod to the old companions and while it was quick and simple, it was heartfelt and compelling to who the Doctor is now and his emotions. This episode had a number of absolutely brilliant one-liners, a lot of which are uttered by both Rory and the Doctor.  One of Moffat’s skills as a writer is making an episode as dramatic or emotional as he wants and yet still keeping a bit of the lightheartedness this show is known for. Characters sling one-liners around like nobody’s business and they are always great.

The acting in LET'S KILL HITLER, it should be noted, is top notch. I think Arthur Darvill’s Rory especially (who I’ve never really warmed to before) came to the fore in this episode and made me pay attention, for many reasons not the least of which was punching two different people in the jaw. He was genuine, funny and stalwart. Dare I say it…I think we may have finally put Rory into the soldier role that Mickey eventually inhabited after his stint on the Cybermen-infested Alt-Earth in Series 2. He became badass and I think we are seeing Rory take up that mantle not a moment too soon. Amy gets to play herself and also a version of herself as a robot and that second version really showcase’s Karen Gillan’s acting skills. Watching her as a robot with only really her mouth opening and closing over lines was impressive…she LOOKED like a robot and not Amy at all and it was one of the most believable bits in the whole episode. I was really knocked over by that. Alex Kingston’s River Song was River Song. She doesn’t change much as a character, though here we DO get to see one of the earliest incarnations of her and she is rather fun as usual. I think she’s best when she’s interacting with the Doctor as their conversations simply always shine. Matt Smith. Well after episodes like THE DOCTOR’S WIFE we KNOW that Smith can play the Doctor with a significant amount of emotions and I was hoping beyond hope that in the next few episodes we’d see more of him emoting like he did there. We know he is a revelation in the role of The Doctor. He’s funny, spindly, manic, sometimes even completely madcap, and in LET’S KILL HITLER you will get that in spades. However, you will also get to see more emotion from Smith and it’s actually SO well done that I think he gives Tennant a run for his money on the emotional scenes. It was lovely, heartfelt, and blindingly well-acted. I’d love to see more and I really like that it’s a balanced thing and it’s not all one or the other. He plays the whole range and it really shows us all why he was chosen for the role in the first place. There’s a number of side characters in the episode and while I don’t want to talk much about them so as not to spoil anything plot-wise they are all well acted and I never felt like anything was hackneyed, or that anyone overacted their parts. I should also mention, however, that Caitlin Blackwood is back as young Amelia Pond and once again she absolutely steals her scenes. She embodies grown-up Amy so well, and was absolutely splendid yet again.

So like I said above, in LET'S KILL HITLER you have a big, spectacle episode, with a layer of quiet tones over-top of it and Moffat makes me shut my gob and retract what I’d said previously.

I will definitely buy this series on BluRay now based on this episode alone. That’s a big thing as previously I’d wondered whether I would or not. I think this one coheres what they had been attempting before and I can see why the split caused so much of my ire.

It was everything that WHO should be, scary, funny, light, dark, action-packed, informative and dramatic. It gave me plenty of answers to questions I had about characters and even about events earlier in this Series. It also throws part of the entire story-arc for Series 6 into a loop that I wasn’t expecting and makes for a new level of WTF-ery, but not one I am at all annoyed by. Moffat answered most of my major questions (ones I’d been bothered at having been teased about for so long) or at least gave me enough on them to move forward again. Now I have a whole fresh set of questions that are picking at my brain and it is wonderfully delicious feeling to have.

I feel totally sheepish. I should have had more faith. In Moff we trust right?

So there you have it folks, in one episode Moffat has restored my faith in DOCTOR WHO and made me be excited to watch next week (Mark Gatiss’ NIGHT TERRORS episode which looks significantly creepy). I haven’t felt like this since Series 5, and it’s such a great feeling!

Sidenote: The special effects in this episode were EXCEPTIONALLY well done. I think they are always pretty good, but I think they went above and beyond here and smaller aspects of the show’s effects are so patiently attended to that I was really blown away by it.

Stay Tuned for next week’s review.

Doctor Who Monday: A Good Man Goes To War (review)

Okay, I said I wasn’t going to do this but I think after some rumination, and more than one person asking me to do so, I will.

Last Saturday (in the UK) and just this past Saturday in North America, the mid-series finale of DOCTOR WHO aired. Titled A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, it was supposed to leave us all gasping from revelations, and change everything we thought we knew.

Does it?

Nope.

(spoilers below)

For a show that is an hour long, it was like writer-showrunner Steven Moffat, was pulling an RTD (Russell T. Davies, the showrunner for the first 4 seasons) and throwing EVERYTHING in plus the kitchen sink. The problem is he was doing it in HIS writing style and not RTD’s writing style. So what we ended up watching was like what would happen if Sofia Coppola directed a movie trying to emulate Michael Bay. We’d get an interesting, but ultimately frustrating movie with a number of cool things that don’t quite cohere into a proper narrative.

A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, which mainly concerns The Doctor and Rory gathering friends to them in an attempt to rescue the real Amy (the last episode revealed that Amy has been a fake Flesh version since sometime around the sixth season premiere) from the clutches of the Clerics and Madame Kovarian (eye-patch lady). It would seem they are holding her on an asteroid base called Demons Run. The plan is simple, go in guns a blazing with a number friends in tow, including (completely inexplicably) the space-modified Spitfires from last years VICTORY OF THE  DALEKS (don’t ask me how they came through time to help). So the Doctor has a lesbian couple of Silurian Madame Vastra and Victorian maid (Jenny), a disgraced Sontaran nurse named Strax, the (now) space pirates he helped earlier this season, the spitfire guys (Danny Boy et al), Big blue dude Dorium Maldovar, and Rory in Roman Centurion-mode with him as he destroys a Cyberfleet (easily?!) and then infiltrates the base after Amy has given birth to her daughter Melody Pond to rescue them.

So in and amongst there is some very cool stuff. Aside from making little sense, the Cyberfleet destruction with Rory not even turning around was cool before the opening credits. The various helper warriors (most especially Madame Vastra the Silurian with a Samurai Sword, and Strax the Sontaran) are super cool and a very good way to have an “army” at your disposal. Even the plot aspects that happen within the base, though at certain points ludicrous, happen in a manner that is at least entertaining.

The holes and problems though begin with the fact that all these various “cool” plot points and characters never get the chance to fully fuse together into a proper narrative. The whole thing felt very much like a dog’s breakfast. It was all over the place. The headless monks for example, while using the cool Moffat-ism of "looking or not looking" at your enemy can cause you harm, are entirely wasted as said enemy. The Cleric leader spends SO much time setting them up as these mythical, and forbidden creatures, only to have their actual reveal and use be completely hum-drum, up to and including the pseudo-Lightsabers (someone get Lucas on the phone! Haha!). Well it turns out that the entire thing is a trap for the Doctor to be swindled into believing that Melody and Amy are safe, but the old switcheroo happens and Madame Kovarian is able to whisk the real child away (to be raised as a “weapon”) and the baby Amy has explodes as a Flesh copy.  Then through a sequence of flashbacks to the child from the opener two-part episode (in the found torn spacesuit) we learn that this will be the child that appears asking for help in that episode (who subsequently regenerates in the 1960’s after being wounded). Then we go one further as after the child is taken away River Song finally appears and reveals to us that…dun dun dun…she’s actually Melody Pond grown up and is Amy and Rory’s child. We are lead to believe that since she was conceived in the TARDIS that she has some sort of Time Lordy powers and can at least heal herself or possibly fully regenerate.

Wow. That was. Boring.

Seriously, of all the possibilities of her identity, and the notes by cast and crew alike that we were all going to be so utterly blown away that we’d need the summer to recuperate and drink in the info…this was about as by-the-numbers as Moffat could have gotten. Other than adding a significant couple of wrenches into the interaction between River, The Doctor, Amy and Rory as character developments, this actually doesn’t affect previous River Song appearances at all. In fact you don’t have to rethink anything you thought about her previous appearances in the timeline. It doesn’t actually change much at all form the rest of HER life. It makes the Doctor's future have a few things that we might look forward to, but again we haven't the foggiest "what that may be". Game changer indeed, I don't think so. I’m not going to lie and say that I was pissed off or anything. I was merely frustrated at how ho-hum the idea is.

Now, I will have to wait for the whole season to air before I make final judgements, but it’s starting to look like this may be the first series of the re-launched DOCTOR WHO that I won’t buy on DVD/BluRay…and I’ve bought all of them so far. Hell, when I bought the first few they were over $100/set! That said, nothing has happened this season that made me think “Oh, I MUST own that!” This mid-series finale actually casts that idea into bas relief showing me just how much I am watching simply for the sake of watching right now.I'm saddened by that.

That said, there does appear to be some interesting stuff on the horizon that sound as if things may perk up. What needs to happen (IMHO) is Moffat REALLY needs to up his game and finish MUCH stronger this year (with the finale for the whole series in October), than he did last year with THE BIG BANG. The fans seem to be divided over this season’s stories, with a number actually saying that they wish for the days with RTD in charge and Moffat doing a couple of self-contained stories, as that’s what he’s best at.

One note: When asking us for a suspension of answers for MORE than one season (like who River killed and the exploding TARDIS), then pimp it out to us on a continuous basis on the front burner and not deliver, and  don’t do a mid-series finale like this that just opens up more questions and gives us one, petering little answer that comes across as lackluster.

Some of the other things that happened in this episode were the Doctor getting mad again. Something that he does to show us not only he’s fallible, but that without tempering, he can run amok. But we were beaten round the head with the notion of the Doctor “rising higher than he ever has, and falling so much further”, up to and including a ridiculous line when Madame Vastra actually tells him “You’ve never risen higher” (Really?!?!). He rose somewhat high, but I would say he HAS actually fallen further before. I’d say Tennant in THE WATERS OF MARS “Time Lord Victorious” was a further fall to me. Hell, his punishment of the Racknoss in THE RUNAWAY BRIDE was a further fall. To me anyways. They also spoke of his anger and how he would have never been this angry. But to be honest, as angry as he was, he seemed angrier in the end of THE BEAST BELOW. Not to mention that Tennant got angrier on a weekly basis than Smith is in this episode.  It’s just not clicking on all cylinders.

As I said in a previous post I am waiting for Moffat to blow my doors off, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s in the future of this season for that to happen. I dearly hope it is.

So, A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR, had some cool ideas and stuff, but overall it’s kind of a mess narrative-wise and I’m hoping the second part, this fall’s LET’S KILL HITLER, makes more sense of it all and makes a better whole. I’m also, as previously stated, hoping that the various plot mysteries get wrapped up this season as I think it’s time for some fresh ideas.