Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 6 Review.

Well that was a really weird one wasn’t it? An ending to confuse and excite everyone, preceded by an episode designed to challenge our views on humanity, life and personality. To bad it was shit.

I’m gonna try and keep this brief, this episode falls into two categories, depending on which way you view it. It could have been something that needed to be handled better or it’s a catch-22. Those viewing it as the latter, will agree that the episode was bad, but that it needed to exist in order to introduce the key factor in explaining Amy’s weird pregnancy. Those viewing it from the former will look on it as the black spot on the mid-season break that could have been so much better.

To look at some good stuff in the episode, aside from the ending, the chemistry between Smith and himself is really good and double screen effect used to put both versions of him in the same frame is quite well done. The conversations between the two Doctors are genuinely funny and it’s nice to see that they didn’t try and do that get-the-lead-to-contradict-what-he-said-in-the-last-episode thing by having the Doctor react hostility towards his other self. This isn’t like the Tenth Doctor, where is another version of himself does something useful like kill all the Daleks, he ends up marooned in a parallel universe, given the Doctor’s obvious narcissism and need for there to be only one of him.

Also, at the point at which the supposed Ganger Doctor suggests that he should be referred to as “Smith” I couldn’t figure out if it was meant to be a reference to the Doctor using that alias for over twenty years of continuity, or an in joke directed at Matt Smith. Either way, it made me laugh.

Some questions are at least answered; for example how the Doctor knew he was going to his death at the beginning of the series, was answered in this episode, by Amy accidently telling him, while she thought he was the ganger-Doctor.

Now onto the bad bits; this episode is loaded with missed opportunity. For example the idea of placing the evil on the humans is painfully unexplored (jn fact a better exploration of human nature was done in the episode called “Midnight” by T Davies, in series 4).

Rory remains completely out of character, at one point locking, amongst everyone else, Amy into a room where a large vat of acid is about blow up. Now I know that he was tricked into it, but why the hell didn’t that over-protective, clingy switch he seems to have, flip over when twenty-minutes ago girl suggested locking everyone in ACID room. May I just I just take a moment to reiterate, who the fuck is this guy?

This episode also seems to be home to some massive leaps in story, with a distinct lack of a connection between scenes. The writer (Matthew something) seems to rely mainly on the novelty of there being two Doctors to make up for the gaps in the story and the common sense of the episode. Also the switch that occurs between the two Doctors was a little bit obvious and as Amy was the central figure of it, it didn’t really work. I got the impression that it could have worked had it been the tenth Doctor and Rose, or Martha, or Donna, but since this is Amy Pond we’re talking about here, we have to take into account her massive annoyingness, which paints the switch not as he struggling with the concept of two Doctors, but her being knowitall, obnoxious, and slightly racist.

There’s also a catfight in this episode that’s just laughable and that bit at the end with the now crazy Jen turning into a giant spider thing just didn’t really make any sense, in terms of both her character and the fact that none of the other gangers can do it. Both  the half arsed explanation for this ability and the ganger-Doctor’s way of killing her are torn straight from the Russell T Davies book of crap solutions.

This wasn’t a good episode at all, in fact, I’d recommend reading about what the flesh is on Wikipedia, then just watching the end of this one.

Hopefully next week will be good, River’s back and one-eyed lady may finally turn out to be the Rani, or something even more awesome.

Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 5 Review - spoiler warning

This feature is an exploration of the idea people living out their lives through mechanically based doubles. While it has a relatively slow opening, it really lets lead Bruce Willis demonstrate his awesome acting skills, and perhaps finally shake off that just an action guy and  - wait a second  - shit, you know what I’ve done; I’ve got this episode of Doctor Who mixed up with the movie “Surrogates” where the whole idea was lifted from.

Oh well no major issue, this episode revolves around the flesh doubles of people coming to life independent of their controller. But you already knew that, because literally all of it was in the trailer last week.  That’s the first criticism I’ve got for this one, there’s nothing in this story that couldn’t fit into thirty seconds, it feels kind of like it hates its own run time and so makes the viewer suffer through slow explanations of what the flesh is, by using (you guessed it) Amy as the one who doesn’t understand the concept and could probably benefit from some picture cards to help her.

Oh and interestingly, Rory’s not in this episode. I mean there’s a guy who looks just like him, but does almost the exact opposite of what Roy would do in any situation. Seriously, he waited around for 2000 years, on the off chance that during those 2000 years something that could destroy and indestructible cube would come along, just because Amy was inside said cube. Yet, when he’s presented with a choice between protecting her and protecting some random woman he met like twenty minutes ago, he goes for the twenty-minutes-ago-girl. Who the fuck is this guy?

Let’s take a look at the supporting characters for this episode. I’d name them, but they’re all so generic, that I can’t actually remember their names. Seriously, not even crazy one. On that point, why, when crazy-one kills one of the doubles and then declares that it’s war, why does everyone else agree?

I mean, the rest of them seem fairly level-headed. Also, looking at crazy-one a bit more draws out another massive hole in this episode. No adult human being reasons the way this woman does. One word described the way she acts and that word is “contrived”. She isn’t this way because she’s stupid, ignorant or shaped by some bad experience. She’s this way because the plot requires it. She makes the decisions she makes, not because she would, but because the writers need her to. Writing characters like this is obnoxious. There should be some sort of rule against it.

Ok, one-eyed lady’s back (anyone else thinking Rani). She puts in a brief appearance for like the third time. God, if only Amy had a friend who was an alien genius and could explain what this is. Why the fuck hasn’t she told the Doctor about this weird lady yet? It’s just getting ridiculous.

Let’s move onto my biggest criticism and this is a weird one. Something was niggling at my mind as I watched this episode, something about the pace, the costumes, the set…then it hit me. David Tennant could have made this episode passable.

Think about it. This episode looks like it comes from the tenth Doctor’s years. I’m not saying that Smith is bad in the episode, just that he doesn’t fit with the mise en scene. It’s like it wasn’t written for him; he’s not as out of character as Rory, but he’s certainly not the Eleventh Doctor.

And it’s a two-parter…what?

We’re now one episode away from the end of this half of the season and the one of the last two episodes is going to be wasted wrapping up this…

This does not make for a happy me.

Oh, spoiler warning; this episode ends with the flesh making a version of the Doctor. So, a perfect duplicate of the Doctor, complete with two hearts and all his memories. An exact copy of him. Wonder how he’s gonna survive that inevitable death that’s coming…

Doctor Who’s that little girl?

Since I have slightly more revision and work to be getting on with this week, I thought it’d be fun to speculate on who the little girl in the present series of Doctor Who is, because that’s the sort of thing that helps a law student get their head around mortgages.

Anyhow, let’s take a look at the first and no doubt most popular theory.

The Girl is Amy and the Doctor’s Daughter.

There is some evidence or this; the pictures in the girl’s room, the fact that Amy’s womb is acting funny and to expand on something related to this theory; in episode 2, the Doctor and Rory have a conversation about whether or not Rory remembered the 2000 years he spent waiting around for Amy and the Doctor. He says that he can SOMETIMES. Was this just a filler conversation or is this an indication that a version of reality where Rory never came back (and Amy and the Doctor were left to actually indulge all their sexual tension) still exists?

That would explain why Amy’s pregnancy seems to be in flux, given that it would be a collision of completely different outcomes of series 5 and therefore would be both happening and not happening at the same time.

However, this could equally mean that the child growing inside her is Rory’s, given that Rory’s ability to impregnate her (people who don’t exist can’t procreate) depends on which reality ends up being solidified. Therefore Rory could also knock up and not knock up Amy at the same time.

It is also consistent with Moffat’s writing style for the whole issue of the weird pregnancy to be misdirection from the actual issue. Remember series 5 where the issue consistently pushed on the audience throughout was the Pandorica,  when the actual issue was the silence and the exploding TARDIS.

The issue of Amy’s pregnancy may be a consequence of the main issue of this series, but it is not necessarily a defining part of it.

Theory two: the girl is The Rani or Romana

Not a lot of evidence for either of these to be honest, it’s just be pretty cool is she was one of there Time Ladies.

The possibility of Romana comes simply from what the little girl said before she regenerated in episode two. She described the act of regeneration as “easy”. Back in the old Tom Baker days, when he travelled with Romana, she was shown to be so good at regenerating that she could choose her new appearance or even revert to an old one if she wanted to.

The possibility of the Rani holds even less evidence; it’s almost all speculation. In order to end the Time War, the Doctor sealed the whole thing, including every Time a Lord and Lady in a Time Lock. This, in as yet unexplained ways, pulled in every Time Lord accept the Doctor, as he was the one who had done it, and the Master, as he was disguised as a human at the time. So how could the Rani escape the Time Lock? Well, she simply wouldn’t. She would simply invent a race that could go unnoticed (the silence) – after all her experiments were well known for being really weird and unethical, but b above all about messing with races to make them serve her in slave like ways.

So while the Time Lock would affect one Rani, the Silence could ensure that a new one was born into the Universe. She would need an incubator that was compatible with Time Lord DNA and physiology (AKA a human female). And who better to serve as that incubator than someone under the protection of the last remaining Timelord in the universe? She would be safe within a TARDIS and if the Doctor realised that it was the Rani growing inside Amy, he would likely care far too much about Amy to risk her. Thus the Rani’s rebirth would be assured, through the Doctor not being willing to stop it, for fear of hurting Amy.

Admittedly, this kind of storyline is a bit to complicated, not to mention dark, even for Moffat, so I don’t think it’ll happen, but it would be pretty cool if the Rani came back.

Theory Three: the girl is the Doctor.

It was recently confirmed in “The Doctor’s Wife” that Timelords can become Timeladies. This would be a really weird turn of events, but hey, maybe the world’s ready for a female Doctor. There was point made in series 4 that River Song (who I think we can now be sure is boning the Doctor) is from the 51^st Century and is therefore bisexual, so she’d be fine with this at least.

This theory would be similar to the Rani theory, only it’d be the Doctor using Amy as an incubator (which would be just as weird) and the Silence would no doubt be some force seeking to control the young Doctor rather than serve her.

Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 4 review

It’s always nice when a filler episode is followed by something of absolute quality. This was a really good episode, well put together, with more than enough darkness to remedy its immediate predecessor.

Spoiler Alert: this episode is about the TARDIS (the Doctor’s Wife) so anyone expecting to see any other Time Lords is gonna be disappointed. But this is more than enough. To spoil a major part of the plot, this episode involves the consciousness of the TARDIS being transferred into a person and being able to communicate with the Doctor.

This episode could have gone very wrong, given that the extent of the TARDIS’s sentience has always been a pretty big question. This is the episode that confirms that the TARDIS actually cares about the Doctor. In the course of the series, this has only ever really been hinted at in such episodes as The Satan Pit and arguably The Parting of the Ways from the 2005 series. Another nice little reveal we get is that the TARDIS admits to taking the Doctor where he needs to go, rather than where he wants to go. This finally gives some form of sense to the fact that he seems to always end up in precisely the right time and place to save the Universe every Saturday.

Something that was kinda irritating was the TARDIS’s belief that she stole the Doctor rather than the other way around. I didn’t dislike this aspect, but I think it would have been slightly more interesting to see a slightly more hostile reaction from the TARDIS, towards the person who stole her.

That said Suranne Jones puts in a really good performance and the chemistry between her and Matt Smith is quite good.

Amy Pond remains quite annoying for the first half of the episode, but actually balances out by the end of it.

There isn’t really much left to say, the old control room puts in an appearance which kills all hope of seeing David Tennant in this series (which is a good thing – bringing back old Doctors goes horribly wrong and is arguably insulting to the actor playing the present one, especially when it’s done just to boost viewig figures) and the Doctor has an experience with some old TARDIS parts, so there enough nostalgia in this episode to keep fans of the Tennant years and the classic series happy. To add to that the continuity is strict and well researched and clearly reasserts a clear bond between the classic years and the revived years. Strangely enough this is most evident in a scene that ended up being cut, in which the Doctor figures out that all the items in the junk yard, even that washing machine that Amy was looking at the beginning of the episode,  are pieces of destroyed TARDISes, with active chameleon circuits disguising them.

No appearance from one-eyed lady this week, but I’m sure she’ll be back next week to continue that Amy s crazy/pregnant/whatever.

Anyhow, really good episode, everyone should watch it.

Oh and “the only water in the forest is the river”…that sounds like some sort of song doesn’t it…   

Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 3 review

Pirates of the Caribbean in space  - lets just get that joke out of the way early.

This episode centres around a pirate ship that’s trapped in still waters, with no wind to move it and a siren (yes, a siren) kidnapping and seemingly killing everyone who gets the slightest injury aboard the ship.

This episode sits distinctly in the “ok” category. It’s good, but not exactly something I’d be eager to sit through again. The main problem stems from the episodes very obvious wrestling bout with its own budget and obligatory run time. Rather than replicating the excitement and tension of the previous episode, this one is comfortable to stagger along on the fumes of a certain pirate related franchise that it’s shamelessly ripping off. To be honest, it makes me uneasy to see episodes like this cropping up in the post-Davies era, as it gives the impression of the kind of pattern that Davies used to use. That of writing a good series (that’s series one in 2005 by the way) and then following it up with a series that has its good moments, but ultimately gives the impression that they let the guy who delivered their pizzas write one of the scripts.

It’s not that this episode is bad, it’s just that it’s below the standard that the series 5 set. To give a brief comparison, the episode called “Amy’s Choice” in series 5 made a lot more of a seemingly lower budget and smaller idea.

The relationships between the auxiliary characters are shallow, even that of the ship’s captain and his son, which goes almost completely unexplored and by the time that the “mystery” (if you’re familiar with any kind of science-fiction, it won’t ever be a mystery to you) is unraveled, the audience is so bored and tired of the distinct “filler” feeling of the episode, that it doesn’t have nearly the kind of impression that it needs to.

Can I now please take a moment on the shear ridiculousness of Amy thinking that dressing as a pirate is a good way to save the Doctor and Rory from death. I mean come on; since she’s obviously supposed to be a carbon copy of Keira Knightley’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean and call me strange, but I thought that this TV show as above the Smallville level of rip off whatever seemed popular a few years ago.

What I most dislike about this episode, is that the it came from the same writers who gave us series 5, the first series for which I enjoyed (and would be perfectly happy to sit through again) start to finish, without missing any steps along the way.

This episode contradicts the implicit mandate set by its immediate predecessor, to use every single episode as 1) an exploration of the characters and 2) a progression of the overarching story that builds up the whole series.

One explanation I can think of for this attack on its own quality standard, is that (as a family show) Doctor Who is obliged to have a fun run on a pirate ship to offset some of the distinctly mature and dark issues that were raised in the two preceding episodes.

That said, I can’t say that I’m happy with this episode; the story is weak, the characters are shallow and above all it reminds me of two of my least favourite things; The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy and the series management skills of Russell T Davies.

Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 2 Review

Well…that was pretty good…erm, don’t really know what else to say about that.

Nice beginning to the episode, opening 3 months after the first one, so we, as the audience are allowed a nice comfort period before we have to deal with that whole Amy-just-shot-a-child-non-watershed-friendly thing.

Oh, and d’you know what else I picked up on; the Doctor is only really interested in Amy when she’s got something weird going on. In series five he picked her up because his scanner told him that there was something weird about her bedroom wall, now it’s telling him there’s something weird about her womb, so he’s all up for taking her off around the universe, when one episode ago he was telling her to bugger off and make some babies.

But I suppose that’s a nice thing about a Moffat produced series; there’s a purpose behind everything that the characters do.

Oh, I really liked that the whole Moon landing was just a way for the Silence to get hold of a space suit; it’s a really good use of an historical event. In the Davies years, the whole story would have been about the moon landing and the whole budget would have been spent on green-screen effects of the all the characters on the Moon and some twist whereby it was actually the Doctor who planted the flag on the Moon, shortly before celebrating and adding NASA to the list of organisations that worship him.

Another good point about this episode is the all-to-brief use of the Silence as an unseen enemy. They do seem to be far more effective a villain, when viewed in this retrospective way.

One thing I can note about the episode though, is that won’t please the fast pace lovers. After the ambiguous opening, it does drag its feet a bit, but ends up balancing the ending excitement quite well.

Plus, the twist about the little girl at the end is especially good and the way that the Doctor seemed to use River, Amy and Rory as a militaristic unit at the beginning looks like something that could become a good series theme.

I really can’t think of anything else to say…erm the cinematography’s good  - oh, I saw on someone’s Facebook status the other day(can’t remember who and “other day” can mean any given time in the last two years) that said they prefer to view film and television in the micro, which is to say that they look at features based only on their technical aspects (cinematography, lighting etc.). Don’t want to tell people how to watch things, but just wanted to say that that’s a really stupid way to look at a film or television program. I mean seriously, if you’re going to evaluate a film based exclusively on the micro elements, I could make you a film of me sitting in my room and occasionally scratching my balls and you’d have to give at least two stars provided I illuminated my room sufficiently and set the camera shot up right.

But, getting back to this whole Doctor Who thing, I really have nothing more to say. It’s a really good episode; nice ending, good way to defeat the bad guys…apparently there’s mermaids next episode  - oh, for those who don’t know it, at the end of next week’s episode we’ll be half way through this section of Series 6…which is pretty weird. 

Well, if you haven’t watched this episode, do it already and um, hopefully next week’s episode will have something in it that I can whine about.

Doctor Who series 6 Episode 1 review

Let’s get stared.

As I sat down to write this review, I realised that it was the first time that I’ve ever reviewed anything by Steven Moffat. That’s not a major revelation, but it occurs to me that my previous words on Doctor Who were very heavily aimed at Russell T Davies and as such I feel something of an obligation to ball any short-comings I might find in this episode into a wad of anger and hurl them at the writer at some sense of fair play. But then I remembered that T Davies suffered from a disease called I-love-David-Tennant-slightly-to-much-to-be-writing-a-part-for-him…ism, the symptoms of which include writing auxiliary characters who seem to be there purely as a projection of a writers love. In fact I re-watched a Tennant episode from series 3 and got the impression that the 9 PM watershed was the only thing stopping his then companion Martha, from dropping down and giving the tenth Doctor a blow-job.

While Moffat clearly has a lot of affection for the character he’s created (the eleventh Doctor) he maintains an unambiguous trait of treating him as fallible and mortal alien, rather than the unquestionable god that existed throughout the Davies era.

This has never been clearer than in this episode, with the Doctor being executed by some mysterious alien in a space suit, within minutes of the title sequence ending.

This leads to my first positive point about the episode, what a great shock. Killing off your title character so early on and then making sure there was no way of it being a trick by giving his body a Viking send-off. One word describes that and that word is “Davies-eat-my-balls-you-hack” – okay, sorry about the Davies bashing, but seriously, give the final ‘End of Time” episode a watch, then try to forgive him and you’ll be in my position.

This nice little shock at the beginning does, however have its downside; given the seemingly inescapable element now added to the Doctor’s death, even when the younger version of the Doctor showed up to kick off the body of the story, I found myself not really caring. This is clearly something that is going to be drawn over the whole series, but now I know how the series is going to end. And if it doesn’t end that way I’ll feel cheated, given that, in whatever shape or form, Moffat would have to use the standard retcon writing technique to erase the Doctor’s death. Knowing how the whole series is going to end, kinda makes me want to skip to the end – like everything in the middle is a bit irrelevant. I hope to be proved wrong on this point, but I really don’t see how Moffat could get out of this hole.

Right, so, if we gloss over some story stuff (watch the episode if you wanna see that) we get to my second point for the review. The villains for this episode and presumably for the series. The big-headed guys (I think they’re the Silence). In his typical habit, Moffat has come up a really good one-episode villain (when I say one-episode, I’m including double episodes in that). Basically they’re a really good idea, but there’s limited mileage in them (for instance, you wouldn’t have the Empty Child from the Eccleston series come back as a recurring villain). By the end of this one episode, I was already beginning to get tired of the big-headed guys and their automatic amnesia power, which was just serving to annoy me, rather than up the tension.

Speaking of things that annoy me, lets talk about Amy Pond. She seems to be fine as long as you don’t introduce any kind of non-sassy, non-flirtatious thought process. This is most evident in the scene directly after the older Doctor’s death, in which the principle cast run into the younger version of the Doctor and Amy doesn’t understand how he can be alive. This caused the reaction in me of thinking (but being careful not to voice) the word “hey fuck-tard, he’s a time traveller, don’t you even remember that whole series 5 finale which was like all him time travelling around the place and that one bit when you witnessed him have a conversation with his ten-minute-older self.”

This aside, the episode was pretty solid, with good performance from the whole cast, albeit a slightly iffy Richard Nixon from Stuart Milligan. It’s well directed with an especially nice bit of camera work at the older Doctor’s death scene (a nice little shake of the frame, when the Doctor’s allies rush to assist him).

Overall it’s not as good as the series 5 opener, which might indicate the Moffat might not be able to beat himself, but that’s never been something a writer should worry about.

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