This is - hands down - my favorite episode of Series 5. Not only is it the best episode compared to the rest of this series, I think I'd put list it as one of my top ten favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. Karen Gillan is solid, Matt Smith is solid, and Tony Curran knocks it out of the park. The Krafayis isn't even really necessary to the episode. See, I don't just blindly hate the new series!
I was a little worried that I wouldn't like it as much the second time around, but I think I love it even more. Every second had me in thrall, and I found that I not only tolerated both Amy and the Doctor, I loved them. I'm not sure what it was about this episode that made them feel so different to me - maybe it was that they felt like real people, not caricatures. Matt Smith wasn't over-the-top, and Amy wasn't googly-eyed and drooling over the Doctor, nor was she obnoxiously disrespectful towards him. The script was brilliant, the directing was inspired, and the acting was phenomenal. The fact that I'm putting the "likes" first speaks volumes.
I should note that this episode was directed by Jonny Campbell, who also directed the other episode I like, Vampires of Venice.
Likes:
1) The sequence where the Doctor gets his doohickey out of the TARDIS was brilliant. While I feel like they're hitting us over the head with all the photos of the past Doctors, minus that, the entire sequence was fantastic. I loved how he was running down the alley with that contraption on, snatching glances in the mirror.
2) When Vincent is painting, the Doctor rambles on about Michelangelo and Picasso. The writing was brilliant, and Smith pulled it off without a hitch. I love how he says, "Is this how time normally passes? Really slowly, and in the right order?" It reminded me very much of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes.
3) I really liked how Vincent was in love with Amy, and she dealt with it very well, too.
4) Speaking of Amy, I love her in this episode. Why can't she always be like this?
5) Vincent. Tony Curran's performance was amazing. He makes me want to like Van Gogh.
6) At the end, when Amy sees the painting of the sunflowers and walks towards it. I don't know what it is - the shot, the composition, the music, the lighting - it just brings me to tears (again - I cry a lot during this episode).
7) When they are looking at the night sky, it turns into The Starry Night. It could have so easily been ridiculous and cheesy, but it totally works.
Dislikes:
1) The Doctor putting his head against Amy's AGAIN. Really, he needs to stop. It's super annoying.
2) Did the Krafayis really have to die? Why can't this Doctor seem to get rid of anything without killing it (even though he didn't kill it, Vincent did - accidentally).
And here's a little something to leave you with:
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
S5 Episodes 8 & 9: Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
I decided to put these two episodes together, not only because together, they are a two-parter, but because my comments are the same for both.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory land somewhere in Wales in the near future, where a team of scientists is drilling as far into the Earth as possible. They've already set one record, and want to see how far they can go. After exiting the TARDIS, Amy and Rory are astonished to see themselves standing on a far-off hillside; the Doctor muses that they must have gone back to relive their adventures with him. When the ground starts to swallow people (including Amy), the Doctor investigates. Shortly after this, a boy named Elliot gets kidnapped, and the Doctor manages to capture one of the kidnappers. He and Nasreen take the TARDIS deep into the Earth to negotiate a hostage exchange, leaving Rory, Tony and Ambrose to watch over the creature Alaya.
He discovers that the scientists have awoken a race of creatures, Silurians, that has been in stasis for thousands of years. The drill had penetrated their defense system, causing warriors to awaken. Amy escapes and helps Mo, Elliot's father, to escape as well. They meet back up with the Doctor. The warriors of the group want to kill the Doctor and the other humans, but the leader of the tribe, Eldane, puts a halt to the execution. The Doctor instructs Tony, Ambrose and Rory to keep Alaya safe, but after discovering that Tony has been injected with venom, Ambrose kills Alaya.
Meanwhile, Amy and Nasreen are in negotiations with Eldane so the Silurians and humans can share the Earth. They don't reach any conclusion, but the Doctor says that the humans will spend the next thousands years working towards making the world fit for co-habitation with the Silurians. The next time the Silurians wake, the human race will be ready to live in harmony with them. Agreeing with this idea, Eldane initiates a hostage exchange.
The discovery of Alaya's death causes the warriors to redouble their efforts. The surface-dwellers barricade themselves in the lab. Eldane says that he can destroy the drill, but it will cause their escape route to be blocked, so they must leave immediately. Tony, however, must remain behind. The venom is causing him to mutate into a Silurian, and he must receive treatment. He decides to stay behind, and Nasreen stays with him. They will hibernate for 1000 years with the Silurians.
Everyone else runs to the TARDIS, but the Doctor, Amy and Rory stop when they see a crack in the rock. The Doctor sticks his arm through and pulls something out of the crack. Suddenly, one of the warriors appears and shoots Rory. He dies. Again. Light then begins to pour out of the crack, the Doctor pulls a screaming Amy into the TARDIS, and Rory is consumed by the light. The Doctor tells Amy that she needs to remember Rory, but there is a jolt in the TARDIS and she looks up at him blankly - she clearly has forgotten him. Rory has been erased from time. They escape the Silurian complex.
After arriving at the surface, the Doctor tells Ambrose to start preparing humans for the eventual return of the Silurians. Amy sees herself standing alone on the opposite hill, as Rory has never existed. The Doctor discovers that the object he'd pulled from the Crack is part of the TARDIS.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Oh no! Amy might be dead - AGAIN!
2) Rory dies - again.
Dislikes:
1) In this episode, the sonic screwdriver apparently has unlimited uses, including: hacking into computers, analyzing energy fields, disabling the Silurian weapons, analyzing Rory after he's shot. And yet, it doesn't open the church door when they try to get to Elliot as he is kidnapped.
2) Amy and Rory seeing their future selves on the hill - the Doctor would never permit them to do that! The only reason it is in there is to demonstrate that Rory is gone for good.
3) When Tony falls through the floor, the Doctor tells Amy to get out of there. She, of course, demonstrates her normal disrespect for him and, in the true style of Dumbass Donna, ignores him.
4) When they first arrive, Rory is mistaken for a police officer by Ambrose. She asks him to come look at her aunt's grave - the body is gone. Rory climbs around in the grave and jumps on the bottom of it. The insinuation later is that the body got swallowed up in the same way that Amy got swallowed up. However, if that was the case, then Rory wouldn't have been able to climb into the grave without being swallowed himself, as the ground, after opening up, is not solid.
5) Slutty McSlutterson is dressed like a slut, although, as she maintains, she was dressing for Rio!
6) When the Doctor pulls out the piece of the TARDIS, why doesn't he get erased out of time? And if Amy can forget Rory so quickly, why didn't she forget all those guys in Flesh and Stone, when their friends forgot them?
7) Rory's death is so anti-climatic.
8) The Doctor kisses Amy's forehead again. I don't like him being so familiar with her! Or anyone, for that matter.
9) Okay, this is a major one, so I saved it for last: Cold Blood is sporadically narrated by Eldane. WTF? I'm not sure why the story suddenly pivoted to his POV. It was unnecessary, not to mention poorly executed. Had he also narrated Hungry Earth, it would make more sense. However, he only had about three voice-overs, all were in the second part, and they added nothing to the story.
Likes:
1) Throughout, the humans (including Amy) arm themselves with various weapons, to the Doctor's displeasure.
2) These episodes came very close to having the right feel, but didn't quite get there. I do attribute the fact that I liked the feel of these episodes due to the fact that they were written by Chris Chibnall, who was the head writer for Torchwood.
I thought this was low-quality, but appropriate:
The Doctor, Amy and Rory land somewhere in Wales in the near future, where a team of scientists is drilling as far into the Earth as possible. They've already set one record, and want to see how far they can go. After exiting the TARDIS, Amy and Rory are astonished to see themselves standing on a far-off hillside; the Doctor muses that they must have gone back to relive their adventures with him. When the ground starts to swallow people (including Amy), the Doctor investigates. Shortly after this, a boy named Elliot gets kidnapped, and the Doctor manages to capture one of the kidnappers. He and Nasreen take the TARDIS deep into the Earth to negotiate a hostage exchange, leaving Rory, Tony and Ambrose to watch over the creature Alaya.
He discovers that the scientists have awoken a race of creatures, Silurians, that has been in stasis for thousands of years. The drill had penetrated their defense system, causing warriors to awaken. Amy escapes and helps Mo, Elliot's father, to escape as well. They meet back up with the Doctor. The warriors of the group want to kill the Doctor and the other humans, but the leader of the tribe, Eldane, puts a halt to the execution. The Doctor instructs Tony, Ambrose and Rory to keep Alaya safe, but after discovering that Tony has been injected with venom, Ambrose kills Alaya.
Meanwhile, Amy and Nasreen are in negotiations with Eldane so the Silurians and humans can share the Earth. They don't reach any conclusion, but the Doctor says that the humans will spend the next thousands years working towards making the world fit for co-habitation with the Silurians. The next time the Silurians wake, the human race will be ready to live in harmony with them. Agreeing with this idea, Eldane initiates a hostage exchange.
The discovery of Alaya's death causes the warriors to redouble their efforts. The surface-dwellers barricade themselves in the lab. Eldane says that he can destroy the drill, but it will cause their escape route to be blocked, so they must leave immediately. Tony, however, must remain behind. The venom is causing him to mutate into a Silurian, and he must receive treatment. He decides to stay behind, and Nasreen stays with him. They will hibernate for 1000 years with the Silurians.
Everyone else runs to the TARDIS, but the Doctor, Amy and Rory stop when they see a crack in the rock. The Doctor sticks his arm through and pulls something out of the crack. Suddenly, one of the warriors appears and shoots Rory. He dies. Again. Light then begins to pour out of the crack, the Doctor pulls a screaming Amy into the TARDIS, and Rory is consumed by the light. The Doctor tells Amy that she needs to remember Rory, but there is a jolt in the TARDIS and she looks up at him blankly - she clearly has forgotten him. Rory has been erased from time. They escape the Silurian complex.
After arriving at the surface, the Doctor tells Ambrose to start preparing humans for the eventual return of the Silurians. Amy sees herself standing alone on the opposite hill, as Rory has never existed. The Doctor discovers that the object he'd pulled from the Crack is part of the TARDIS.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Oh no! Amy might be dead - AGAIN!
2) Rory dies - again.
Dislikes:
1) In this episode, the sonic screwdriver apparently has unlimited uses, including: hacking into computers, analyzing energy fields, disabling the Silurian weapons, analyzing Rory after he's shot. And yet, it doesn't open the church door when they try to get to Elliot as he is kidnapped.
2) Amy and Rory seeing their future selves on the hill - the Doctor would never permit them to do that! The only reason it is in there is to demonstrate that Rory is gone for good.
3) When Tony falls through the floor, the Doctor tells Amy to get out of there. She, of course, demonstrates her normal disrespect for him and, in the true style of Dumbass Donna, ignores him.
4) When they first arrive, Rory is mistaken for a police officer by Ambrose. She asks him to come look at her aunt's grave - the body is gone. Rory climbs around in the grave and jumps on the bottom of it. The insinuation later is that the body got swallowed up in the same way that Amy got swallowed up. However, if that was the case, then Rory wouldn't have been able to climb into the grave without being swallowed himself, as the ground, after opening up, is not solid.
5) Slutty McSlutterson is dressed like a slut, although, as she maintains, she was dressing for Rio!
6) When the Doctor pulls out the piece of the TARDIS, why doesn't he get erased out of time? And if Amy can forget Rory so quickly, why didn't she forget all those guys in Flesh and Stone, when their friends forgot them?
7) Rory's death is so anti-climatic.
8) The Doctor kisses Amy's forehead again. I don't like him being so familiar with her! Or anyone, for that matter.
9) Okay, this is a major one, so I saved it for last: Cold Blood is sporadically narrated by Eldane. WTF? I'm not sure why the story suddenly pivoted to his POV. It was unnecessary, not to mention poorly executed. Had he also narrated Hungry Earth, it would make more sense. However, he only had about three voice-overs, all were in the second part, and they added nothing to the story.
Likes:
1) Throughout, the humans (including Amy) arm themselves with various weapons, to the Doctor's displeasure.
2) These episodes came very close to having the right feel, but didn't quite get there. I do attribute the fact that I liked the feel of these episodes due to the fact that they were written by Chris Chibnall, who was the head writer for Torchwood.
I thought this was low-quality, but appropriate:
Friday, May 27, 2011
S5 Episode 7: Amy's Choice
The first time I saw this episode, I really liked it. And remember, this was when I REALLY didn't like the new Who, (not that I really like it any better now, but, like a bad toothache, you learn to live with it). This time around, I just felt like ... meh ... I couldn't remember what happened in it, so it's not that I knew what was coming up and wasn't impressed. Just ... meh ...
The Doctor meets Amy and Rory in their future; Amy is pregnant, Rory has a fantastically horrible pony tail, and they are living in their little village. The three of them fall asleep, and wake up on the TARDIS. They keep going back and forth between the TARDIS reality and the village reality, not sure which one is real. Eventually, the Dream Lord shows up and tells them that one is reality, one is a dream world, and in each, they will have a major threat. The only way to figure out which is reality and which is the dream is to die in the dream.
They can't decide which is reality and which is the dream world. Rory of course thinks that the village life is real - he just wants to settle down and have lots of fat ginger children with Amy; the Doctor thinks that the TARDIS dream is real; and Amy thinks that they both feel real. Finally, the Dream Lord intervenes, causing the boys to fall asleep and forcing Amy to choose in which world to die.
The threat in the village reality is that all the old people have become infested with aliens that come out of their mouths and spray their victims with a poison. The unfortunate people then are turned to dust. In the TARDIS reality, they are dead in the water (space?) and drifting towards a cold star, and they will freeze to death.
Amy rejoins Rory and the Doctor in the village reality. They are in the forthcoming baby's nursery, and the old folks are attacking the house. One of them gets in through the window and sprays Rory with the poison - he consequently dies for the first time. Amy realizes she can't live without Rory - she would rather die than live in that world without him. She and the Doctor crash a car into her house and they all wake up in the TARDIS.
The Dream Lord congratulates them on figuring out which was the dream world and leaves. The Doctor realizes that they're still in a dream, so he lets the TARDIS continue on to the cold star. They all wake up in the "real" reality. It turns out some kind of psychic pollen got into the TARDIS and caused the whole thing. Also, the Dream Lord is the Doctor's dark side.
Well, it's funny - after writing out that synopsis, I've gone from ... meh ... to ... yeah, I don't really like this episode.
Repeat Ideas:
1) This hasn't been repeated yet, but this is the first time that Rory dies.
Dislikes:
1) As the TARDIS grows colder the closer it gets to the cold star, Amy asks, "do you have any warm clothes?" First of all, she knows there's an entire freaking wardrobe in the TARDIS, as she's used it before. Second, she goes and gets blankets, which she makes into ponchos, from some little cupboard in the console room. She then snubs Rory and takes a blanket to the Doctor. The whole "do you have any warm clothes?" was a total set-up just for that one shot.
2) Amy goes from being so happy with Rory in the last episode to treating him like garbage again.
3) The Dream Lord is the Doctor? Pur-lease. I think it's a very interesting idea, that the Doctor has suppressed fears and insecurities, but Matt Smith was so blase about it.
Likes:
1) The old people. They were brilliant, trying to get into Rory and Amy's house with a "battering ram", lawnmower, garden tools, etc. I was laughing so hard!
2) Yay! The love triangle is over, and we'll never hear about it again! ::snerk::
And here's a little River Tam to make you chuckle:
The Doctor meets Amy and Rory in their future; Amy is pregnant, Rory has a fantastically horrible pony tail, and they are living in their little village. The three of them fall asleep, and wake up on the TARDIS. They keep going back and forth between the TARDIS reality and the village reality, not sure which one is real. Eventually, the Dream Lord shows up and tells them that one is reality, one is a dream world, and in each, they will have a major threat. The only way to figure out which is reality and which is the dream is to die in the dream.
They can't decide which is reality and which is the dream world. Rory of course thinks that the village life is real - he just wants to settle down and have lots of fat ginger children with Amy; the Doctor thinks that the TARDIS dream is real; and Amy thinks that they both feel real. Finally, the Dream Lord intervenes, causing the boys to fall asleep and forcing Amy to choose in which world to die.
The threat in the village reality is that all the old people have become infested with aliens that come out of their mouths and spray their victims with a poison. The unfortunate people then are turned to dust. In the TARDIS reality, they are dead in the water (space?) and drifting towards a cold star, and they will freeze to death.
Amy rejoins Rory and the Doctor in the village reality. They are in the forthcoming baby's nursery, and the old folks are attacking the house. One of them gets in through the window and sprays Rory with the poison - he consequently dies for the first time. Amy realizes she can't live without Rory - she would rather die than live in that world without him. She and the Doctor crash a car into her house and they all wake up in the TARDIS.
The Dream Lord congratulates them on figuring out which was the dream world and leaves. The Doctor realizes that they're still in a dream, so he lets the TARDIS continue on to the cold star. They all wake up in the "real" reality. It turns out some kind of psychic pollen got into the TARDIS and caused the whole thing. Also, the Dream Lord is the Doctor's dark side.
Well, it's funny - after writing out that synopsis, I've gone from ... meh ... to ... yeah, I don't really like this episode.
Repeat Ideas:
1) This hasn't been repeated yet, but this is the first time that Rory dies.
Dislikes:
1) As the TARDIS grows colder the closer it gets to the cold star, Amy asks, "do you have any warm clothes?" First of all, she knows there's an entire freaking wardrobe in the TARDIS, as she's used it before. Second, she goes and gets blankets, which she makes into ponchos, from some little cupboard in the console room. She then snubs Rory and takes a blanket to the Doctor. The whole "do you have any warm clothes?" was a total set-up just for that one shot.
2) Amy goes from being so happy with Rory in the last episode to treating him like garbage again.
3) The Dream Lord is the Doctor? Pur-lease. I think it's a very interesting idea, that the Doctor has suppressed fears and insecurities, but Matt Smith was so blase about it.
Likes:
1) The old people. They were brilliant, trying to get into Rory and Amy's house with a "battering ram", lawnmower, garden tools, etc. I was laughing so hard!
2) Yay! The love triangle is over, and we'll never hear about it again! ::snerk::
And here's a little River Tam to make you chuckle:
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
S5 Episode 6: Vampires of Venice
I know you're going to be shocked, but I really liked this episode. It was the first one that felt like a real Doctor Who episode and not a Steven Moffat wank-fest.
Of course, I'm not thrilled how it starts out with the Doctor popping out of a cake at Rory's stag party, but only because it's a reminder that Amy kissed him. Blech. The Doctor takes Rory back to the TARDIS and, when Rory doesn't say, "it's bigger on the inside", learns that Rory has been reading up on crazy stuff like time travel. I think that he's impressed.
The three of them head off to Venice, and the Doctor expresses relief that Casanova hasn't been born yet, because he owes him a chicken. I did get a giggle out of this, because David Tennant played Casanova on the BBC.
They discover a man, Guido, trying to find his daughter among a group of school girls, and the Doctor immediately investigates. (We'd previously seen Guido sending his daughter off to school with Signora Rosanna Calvierri there.) He gets into the school and discovers a group of vampire-like creatures is living there. He flashes the psychic paper, and I had another squee moment; I hadn't noticed the first time around, but there is a picture of the First Doctor on the psychic paper, and he mutters something about a library card.
The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Guido come up with a plan - they are going to get into the school via a trap door and save Guido's daughter, Isabella.
Amy goes undercover and enters the school using the Doctor's psychic paper. She unlocks the trap door, but then is abducted by Rosanna's henchmen. They knew she was different because they recognized the psychic paper. They explain to her that they drain her of blood and then replace it with their own, thus transforming her into a creature like them. And what kind of creature is this? Amy kicks Rosanna and she kind of ... flickers ... between Rosanna and ... some kind of alien fish thing.
Isabella gets Amy out of her restraints and they find the Doctor and Rory. They get out of the building, but the sun is too much for Isabella, and she is caught by Francesco. Rosanna has Isabella thrown in the canal, and she thrashes about and yells, "something touched me! It bites!" She gets eaten.
It turns out that Calvierri is from a planet called Saturnyne, and there is nothing left to the planet anymore. She tells the Doctor that they ran from the silence - there was a crack, and they could see other worlds, but they also saw silence. They managed to slip through the crack, which closed behind them, and Saturnyne was gone forever. She wants to colonize Venice. We later learn that she is going to sink Venice (how is that going to work?) so that she and her children can live there. She is converting the girls of Venice into fish creatures as well so that her son will have wives.
We also learn that she is masking her true form using a perception filter. She hasn't changed form, but the filter tricks the brain into thinking that it sees something else. When reflected in a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to think, thus removes the image completely.
As always, the day is saved. Rory battles Francesco and Amy kills him by flashing light onto him with her compact. The Doctor turns off the weather machine that is going to drown Venice. Of course, he has to make some noises like he has a mental deficiency or something, but he manages it. Rosanna throws herself into the river and is eaten by her own children. Amy asks Rory to stay with them, and the Doctor agrees.
Let's get on with it then, shall we?
Repeat Ideas:
1) The whole aliens taking human form idea. No, this isn't a Moffat thing, but the writer of this episode, Toby Whithouse, also wrote School Ties, where giant bat-things took human form.
2) Rory = Mickey. I'm not necessarily complaining, because I loved Mickey. But let's face it, Rory is essentially the same character. Amy treats Rory like dirt, just like Rose did to Mickey. Now, I loved Rose, but she was very unfair to Mickey, and he could have done a lot better. Rory also could do better than Amy, who really just seems to care about him when it suits her. It's like he's just there for her amusement. They're both slightly off, both are awkward, both are the tin dog, until they blossom and become their own character. Both have to deal with their girlfriend falling in love with time/space travel and leaving them behind. Although, in a new twist, Amy actually asks Rory to stay, whereas Rose didn't want Mickey along. So that's why I like Rory so much, because he is like the white Mickey.
3) Wikipedia has a whole list of repeats from one critic. I won't list them all here, but he's spot on. I'd love for someone to point out something like this all the time, because as you've seen, there are a ton of these instances throughout the entire Moffat series.
Dislikes:
1) After Amy gets bitten by Rosanna, she has bite marks on her neck. The Doctor heals those bites with his sonic screwdriver. His sonic screwdriver. That's a first.
2) The whole thing about silence is very important. However, I've already watched the first few episodes of Series 6, and the way that the silence is talked about in this episode annoys me in those future episodes.
3) Rosanna is wearing a perception filter. Her body hasn't actually changed form. So why, when she throws herself into the river, does she take off her outer garments first? That should be impossible, since she's not actually wearing any clothes.
4) Guido wears Rory's "Rory's Stag" shirt at one point. I love that clothes are never remarked upon in Doctor Who, but that shirt sticks out like a sore thumb - plus, Guido is about five sizes bigger than Rory, and the shirt he was wearing was tight, but certainly not four sizes too small.
5) When Isabella gets thrown into the river, why doesn't she just immediately get eaten? She keeps popping to the surface to shout out things like, "they bite!" It was so unnecessary.
Likes:
Really, I mostly liked this whole episode, so I picked my top three favorite things.
1) When the Doctor is trying to think, Amy interrupts him, so he puts his hand over her mouth. Then he does the same to Rory. Then, when Guido talks, he motions for Rory to put his hand over Guido's mouth. I got a huge kick out of that.
2) The Doctor yells at Amy to do as he says, and she runs away, clearly very upset. This was very reminiscent of the Ninth Doctor, so I liked it a lot.
3) Rory's speech when he's introducing Amy to the Calvierris is brilliant. I loved every second.
Enjoy!
Of course, I'm not thrilled how it starts out with the Doctor popping out of a cake at Rory's stag party, but only because it's a reminder that Amy kissed him. Blech. The Doctor takes Rory back to the TARDIS and, when Rory doesn't say, "it's bigger on the inside", learns that Rory has been reading up on crazy stuff like time travel. I think that he's impressed.
The three of them head off to Venice, and the Doctor expresses relief that Casanova hasn't been born yet, because he owes him a chicken. I did get a giggle out of this, because David Tennant played Casanova on the BBC.
They discover a man, Guido, trying to find his daughter among a group of school girls, and the Doctor immediately investigates. (We'd previously seen Guido sending his daughter off to school with Signora Rosanna Calvierri there.) He gets into the school and discovers a group of vampire-like creatures is living there. He flashes the psychic paper, and I had another squee moment; I hadn't noticed the first time around, but there is a picture of the First Doctor on the psychic paper, and he mutters something about a library card.
The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Guido come up with a plan - they are going to get into the school via a trap door and save Guido's daughter, Isabella.
Amy goes undercover and enters the school using the Doctor's psychic paper. She unlocks the trap door, but then is abducted by Rosanna's henchmen. They knew she was different because they recognized the psychic paper. They explain to her that they drain her of blood and then replace it with their own, thus transforming her into a creature like them. And what kind of creature is this? Amy kicks Rosanna and she kind of ... flickers ... between Rosanna and ... some kind of alien fish thing.
Isabella gets Amy out of her restraints and they find the Doctor and Rory. They get out of the building, but the sun is too much for Isabella, and she is caught by Francesco. Rosanna has Isabella thrown in the canal, and she thrashes about and yells, "something touched me! It bites!" She gets eaten.
It turns out that Calvierri is from a planet called Saturnyne, and there is nothing left to the planet anymore. She tells the Doctor that they ran from the silence - there was a crack, and they could see other worlds, but they also saw silence. They managed to slip through the crack, which closed behind them, and Saturnyne was gone forever. She wants to colonize Venice. We later learn that she is going to sink Venice (how is that going to work?) so that she and her children can live there. She is converting the girls of Venice into fish creatures as well so that her son will have wives.
We also learn that she is masking her true form using a perception filter. She hasn't changed form, but the filter tricks the brain into thinking that it sees something else. When reflected in a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to think, thus removes the image completely.
As always, the day is saved. Rory battles Francesco and Amy kills him by flashing light onto him with her compact. The Doctor turns off the weather machine that is going to drown Venice. Of course, he has to make some noises like he has a mental deficiency or something, but he manages it. Rosanna throws herself into the river and is eaten by her own children. Amy asks Rory to stay with them, and the Doctor agrees.
Let's get on with it then, shall we?
Repeat Ideas:
1) The whole aliens taking human form idea. No, this isn't a Moffat thing, but the writer of this episode, Toby Whithouse, also wrote School Ties, where giant bat-things took human form.
2) Rory = Mickey. I'm not necessarily complaining, because I loved Mickey. But let's face it, Rory is essentially the same character. Amy treats Rory like dirt, just like Rose did to Mickey. Now, I loved Rose, but she was very unfair to Mickey, and he could have done a lot better. Rory also could do better than Amy, who really just seems to care about him when it suits her. It's like he's just there for her amusement. They're both slightly off, both are awkward, both are the tin dog, until they blossom and become their own character. Both have to deal with their girlfriend falling in love with time/space travel and leaving them behind. Although, in a new twist, Amy actually asks Rory to stay, whereas Rose didn't want Mickey along. So that's why I like Rory so much, because he is like the white Mickey.
3) Wikipedia has a whole list of repeats from one critic. I won't list them all here, but he's spot on. I'd love for someone to point out something like this all the time, because as you've seen, there are a ton of these instances throughout the entire Moffat series.
Dislikes:
1) After Amy gets bitten by Rosanna, she has bite marks on her neck. The Doctor heals those bites with his sonic screwdriver. His sonic screwdriver. That's a first.
2) The whole thing about silence is very important. However, I've already watched the first few episodes of Series 6, and the way that the silence is talked about in this episode annoys me in those future episodes.
3) Rosanna is wearing a perception filter. Her body hasn't actually changed form. So why, when she throws herself into the river, does she take off her outer garments first? That should be impossible, since she's not actually wearing any clothes.
4) Guido wears Rory's "Rory's Stag" shirt at one point. I love that clothes are never remarked upon in Doctor Who, but that shirt sticks out like a sore thumb - plus, Guido is about five sizes bigger than Rory, and the shirt he was wearing was tight, but certainly not four sizes too small.
5) When Isabella gets thrown into the river, why doesn't she just immediately get eaten? She keeps popping to the surface to shout out things like, "they bite!" It was so unnecessary.
Likes:
Really, I mostly liked this whole episode, so I picked my top three favorite things.
1) When the Doctor is trying to think, Amy interrupts him, so he puts his hand over her mouth. Then he does the same to Rory. Then, when Guido talks, he motions for Rory to put his hand over Guido's mouth. I got a huge kick out of that.
2) The Doctor yells at Amy to do as he says, and she runs away, clearly very upset. This was very reminiscent of the Ninth Doctor, so I liked it a lot.
3) Rory's speech when he's introducing Amy to the Calvierris is brilliant. I loved every second.
Enjoy!
S5 Episode 5: Flesh and Stone
Well, this one doesn't start out too poorly. There's a nice bit of gravity manipulation to get the team on the ship, the Angels get in, they find an oxygen forest, and Amy is doing a bit of psychotic giggling counting down.
The Crack plays a large role in this episode, and we learn that it is undoing history. Anyone who gets too near The Crack gets erased from time.
So Amy spends most of the episode with her eyes closed, and that's pretty great, because she's also keeping her mouth shut most of the time, too. There's apparently an Angel trying to get out of her brain - which is a very strange idea, but there you have it.
Of course, the Doctor saves the day, but not before the entire squad of clerics dies. The angels get sucked into The Crack and so cease to have ever existed.
Repeat Ideas:
1) This is the first instance of the threat of a character dying. Amy will die if the Angel inside of her gets out.
2) The Doctor tells Amy that "It's all about you!" This is a little too close to what happened with Donna - everything pointed to Donna, too, remember? She was soooo important. Well, again, all the signs point towards Amy.
Dislikes:
1) For the second time in two episodes, the Doctor puts his head against Amy's. What's up with all this touchy-feely crap? He also kisses her forehead. It's just creepy.
2) The Doctor loses his temper with River Song, but I don't know how much I can blame him. She is really freaking annoying. Which brings me to -
3) River just keeps getting more superior by the minute, doesn't she? The way she's going around smirking all the time, I just want to slap her.
4) When Amy cannot see, but the forest is filling up with Angels, the Doctor tells her that she needs to "walk like [she] can see". See, they'll think that she can see them and react out of instinct. In the words of Grace Adler, "Whoa!" So you're telling me that they freeze just when they think someone is watching? I thought they had no control over this aspect of their being? Okay, so let's pretend that the Angels "think" that Amy can see, and so become stone. Why, then, do they not move once she's passed them? She walks through a whole mess of Angels, and none of them move, even after she's not "looking" at them.
5) Amy trying to rape the Doctor is really horrible. Suddenly she's throwing herself at him, kissing him, groping, very extremely aggressive. It's so clownish. There's been almost no lead-up to this. Martha was classy enough to show some kind of restraint, why can't Amy?
Likes:
1) Amy in the forest is the first time in these two episodes that I've found the Angels scary. The way that they slowly turn their heads after Amy drops the walkie talkie and thrashes about looking for it for for five minutes is so scary.
After watching this, I feel better.
The Crack plays a large role in this episode, and we learn that it is undoing history. Anyone who gets too near The Crack gets erased from time.
So Amy spends most of the episode with her eyes closed, and that's pretty great, because she's also keeping her mouth shut most of the time, too. There's apparently an Angel trying to get out of her brain - which is a very strange idea, but there you have it.
Of course, the Doctor saves the day, but not before the entire squad of clerics dies. The angels get sucked into The Crack and so cease to have ever existed.
Repeat Ideas:
1) This is the first instance of the threat of a character dying. Amy will die if the Angel inside of her gets out.
2) The Doctor tells Amy that "It's all about you!" This is a little too close to what happened with Donna - everything pointed to Donna, too, remember? She was soooo important. Well, again, all the signs point towards Amy.
Dislikes:
1) For the second time in two episodes, the Doctor puts his head against Amy's. What's up with all this touchy-feely crap? He also kisses her forehead. It's just creepy.
2) The Doctor loses his temper with River Song, but I don't know how much I can blame him. She is really freaking annoying. Which brings me to -
3) River just keeps getting more superior by the minute, doesn't she? The way she's going around smirking all the time, I just want to slap her.
4) When Amy cannot see, but the forest is filling up with Angels, the Doctor tells her that she needs to "walk like [she] can see". See, they'll think that she can see them and react out of instinct. In the words of Grace Adler, "Whoa!" So you're telling me that they freeze just when they think someone is watching? I thought they had no control over this aspect of their being? Okay, so let's pretend that the Angels "think" that Amy can see, and so become stone. Why, then, do they not move once she's passed them? She walks through a whole mess of Angels, and none of them move, even after she's not "looking" at them.
5) Amy trying to rape the Doctor is really horrible. Suddenly she's throwing herself at him, kissing him, groping, very extremely aggressive. It's so clownish. There's been almost no lead-up to this. Martha was classy enough to show some kind of restraint, why can't Amy?
Likes:
1) Amy in the forest is the first time in these two episodes that I've found the Angels scary. The way that they slowly turn their heads after Amy drops the walkie talkie and thrashes about looking for it for for five minutes is so scary.
After watching this, I feel better.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
S5 Episode 4: The Time of Angels
The Time of Angels begins with River Song getting sucked into space and being rescued by the Doctor, who received a message from her 12,000 years in the future. This is important, as it is the first of our "epic entrances".
Honestly, I don't have it in me today to write a synopsis of this episode. Though, if you're reading this blog and you haven't seen this series, then you must be really confused.
Repeat ideas:
1) Moffat's Series 3 episode was Blink. The Weeping Angels are one of the most terrifying creations ever. They were fantastic the first time around, but I don't think we need to see them again. They're not exactly a super villain like the Cybermen or the Daleks (although I think we've seen way too much of them). We especially didn't need to see them in the fourth episode; their appearance just tells me that either Moffat has run out of ideas, or he is only pulling out the Angels because they were such a hit the first time around.
2) Moffat also repeats the same gimmick that he used - brilliantly - in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead; the deceased person communicating through some kind of device. In Silence in the Library, it was the astronauts' communication devices. While the communication was mostly just repeating the same thought over and over, they were able to kind of communicate while the person was "ghosting". In The Time of Angels, the angel communicated using the deceased cleric Bob's voice through the walkie talkie. It just seems tired to repeat another very similar idea. It really makes me doubt how many original storylines and plot devices Moffat is capable of coming up with.
Dislikes
1) Amy is too familiar with the Doctor and doesn't seem to take him seriously. There are shades of Donna Noble in her, and my biggest problem with Donna was how flippant she could be. It must be a ginger trait.
2) Amy pouts when she's not the center of attention. At one point she says something like, "doesn't anyone need me? For anything?"
3) I really hate how River knows soooo much more than the Doctor. It was cute the first time, we don't need to be hit over the head with it over and over and over. She is just so smarmy.
4) The Angels weren't as scary now as they were before. I don't know if it's the editing or what, but I didn't feel terrified at all during this episode. The original story, Blink, still gives me the heebie jeebies, but The Time of Angels? Yawn. It's very reminiscent of the Daleks and Cybermen. The first time you see them, they're petrifying. But after a while, you become desensitized.
5) The entire idea of the Doctor "keeping score" in the museum seems like such a stretch. I wonder if it's some kind of reference to an earlier Doctor.
Likes
1) When Amy thinks her hand has turned to stone, the Doctor bites her. It was totally out of character, but I did love something about that.
2) When the Doctor tells Amy not to blink, she closes only one eye at a time. Brilliant!
3) Amy freezes the tape on static, thus getting rid of the Angel. I'm still a little confused as to why that worked, but I did think it was very smart of her.
Today's wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey palette-cleanser. Enjoy!
Honestly, I don't have it in me today to write a synopsis of this episode. Though, if you're reading this blog and you haven't seen this series, then you must be really confused.
Repeat ideas:
1) Moffat's Series 3 episode was Blink. The Weeping Angels are one of the most terrifying creations ever. They were fantastic the first time around, but I don't think we need to see them again. They're not exactly a super villain like the Cybermen or the Daleks (although I think we've seen way too much of them). We especially didn't need to see them in the fourth episode; their appearance just tells me that either Moffat has run out of ideas, or he is only pulling out the Angels because they were such a hit the first time around.
2) Moffat also repeats the same gimmick that he used - brilliantly - in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead; the deceased person communicating through some kind of device. In Silence in the Library, it was the astronauts' communication devices. While the communication was mostly just repeating the same thought over and over, they were able to kind of communicate while the person was "ghosting". In The Time of Angels, the angel communicated using the deceased cleric Bob's voice through the walkie talkie. It just seems tired to repeat another very similar idea. It really makes me doubt how many original storylines and plot devices Moffat is capable of coming up with.
Dislikes
1) Amy is too familiar with the Doctor and doesn't seem to take him seriously. There are shades of Donna Noble in her, and my biggest problem with Donna was how flippant she could be. It must be a ginger trait.
2) Amy pouts when she's not the center of attention. At one point she says something like, "doesn't anyone need me? For anything?"
3) I really hate how River knows soooo much more than the Doctor. It was cute the first time, we don't need to be hit over the head with it over and over and over. She is just so smarmy.
4) The Angels weren't as scary now as they were before. I don't know if it's the editing or what, but I didn't feel terrified at all during this episode. The original story, Blink, still gives me the heebie jeebies, but The Time of Angels? Yawn. It's very reminiscent of the Daleks and Cybermen. The first time you see them, they're petrifying. But after a while, you become desensitized.
5) The entire idea of the Doctor "keeping score" in the museum seems like such a stretch. I wonder if it's some kind of reference to an earlier Doctor.
Likes
1) When Amy thinks her hand has turned to stone, the Doctor bites her. It was totally out of character, but I did love something about that.
2) When the Doctor tells Amy not to blink, she closes only one eye at a time. Brilliant!
3) Amy freezes the tape on static, thus getting rid of the Angel. I'm still a little confused as to why that worked, but I did think it was very smart of her.
Today's wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey palette-cleanser. Enjoy!
Monday, May 23, 2011
S5 Episode 3: Victory of the Daleks
Wow. I don't even know where to start with this one.
At the end of Episode 2, the Doctor gets a call from Winston Churchill, who asks them to come to London.
The Doctor and Amy arrive in the middle of the London Blitz (a month after Churchill calls, surprise, surprise). It turns out that England has a secret weapon against the Nazis, and that secret weapon is DALEKS! Not only are they Daleks, they're painted in Army colors.
Well, it turns out that a scientist invented them and calls the "Ironsides". He has the schematics to prove it. Of course, the Doctor knows better, and he keeps asking the Daleks why they are there, and they just reply with, "I am your soldier!" Finally, the Doctor throws a temper tantrum and proceeds to kick and hit one of the Daleks (with a wrench) while shrieking, "I'm the Doctor! You're the Daleks! You're my worst enemies!" Wow. Of course, all he really needed to do was take the top off and show them the FREAKING DALEK LIVING INSIDE!!
The Daleks proclaim that the Doctor's testimony was accepted. It turns out that was exactly what they needed to hear. Yup, that's right. They came to Earth, built a robot scientist, and pretended to be "Ironsides" for the sole purpose of the Doctor finding them and saying that they're Daleks. It turns out that they're trying to reproduce, and the Progenator that pops out new Daleks didn't recognize them as Daleks because they were made from Davros' cells (thus, not "pure" Daleks).
With the Doctor's testimony, the Daleks are recognized for what they are, and the machine spits out new, pure Daleks - lovely, M&M-colored behemoths. They threaten to expose London during the Blitz using a huge beam of light, the robot scientist (at brilliant Amy's suggestion) makes the fighter jets space-worthy, they destroy the beam on the space ship, and London is saved.
The first time I watched this episode, I actually turned it off before the end. When the M&M Daleks rolled out of the Progenator, I'd had just about all I could take. I rewatched this the other day, and surprisingly, I didn't hate it as much. Of course, I still have some major issues.
Things that I thought were stupid:
1) The entire plot of why the Daleks put this immensely complicated plan into action. Really? All this to have the Doctor recognize them?
2) Again, if the Doctor wanted to expose them as aliens, why didn't he literally expose them? We know it's easy to take the top off a Dalek (and hide inside, and control it, a la Ian Chesteron in the First Doctor story The Daleks). Wouldn't that have been simpler?
3) As I mentioned before, I just started watching the Second Doctor episodes. We happened to watch The Power of the Daleks the other night (which is the first story of the Second Doctor. I should explain that in classic Who, each story was made up of five or six half-hour-long episodes). Well, in Episode 2, the Daleks say, "I am your serrrrrvant!" Sound familiar?
4) According to Wikipedia, there's almost the same exact plot in the classic Who episode The Evil of Daleks. Here is an excerpt: 'In Evil of the Daleks the Daleks lead the Doctor to believe that they are interested in humanising themselves when what they really want is for the Doctor to isolate "the Dalek Factor." Here, they bait the Doctor into thinking they have a sinister plan for Earth when the real plan is to restore the Daleks to what they call their "pure form".'
5) Fighter jets in space. Really? Fighter jets in space?
6) From the beginning of the episode, a pretty girl in the war room is upset because her boyfriend is fighting in the war. At the end, we find out that he was killed. WHAT was the point of this entire B-storyline? Amy looks at her strangely, but that's all there is. I don't understand why it was necessary.
7) The robot scientist kept the bomb built into him from going off simply by feeling human.
8) Amy's brilliant plan to make the fighter jets space-worthy. This is a pet peeve of mine, the girl who knows nothing about the subject making a suggestion, everyone agrees that yes, this is the perfect plan, and she ends up saving the day. Elizabeth Swann did that all the time in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it drove me nuts.
Things I liked:
1) Winston Churchill. Of course, I stood on stage next to him at ChicagoTARDIS when I won my award, and he seemed pretty cool.
2) The Army-colored Daleks. They were awesome.
3) When the new Daleks were created by the Progenator, they destroy the Army Daleks because they are inferior, due to the fact that they're not "pure" Daleks. Seeing as this episode takes place during World War II, there is a very eerie parallel here between the Daleks and the Third Reich (and Harry Potter).
And now for a palette-cleanser: Ian Chesterton hides inside a Dalek. Notice how Ian positions the plunger so it's on his neck, and then when they open the Dalek, see if you can spot the operator hiding inside!
At the end of Episode 2, the Doctor gets a call from Winston Churchill, who asks them to come to London.
The Doctor and Amy arrive in the middle of the London Blitz (a month after Churchill calls, surprise, surprise). It turns out that England has a secret weapon against the Nazis, and that secret weapon is DALEKS! Not only are they Daleks, they're painted in Army colors.
Well, it turns out that a scientist invented them and calls the "Ironsides". He has the schematics to prove it. Of course, the Doctor knows better, and he keeps asking the Daleks why they are there, and they just reply with, "I am your soldier!" Finally, the Doctor throws a temper tantrum and proceeds to kick and hit one of the Daleks (with a wrench) while shrieking, "I'm the Doctor! You're the Daleks! You're my worst enemies!" Wow. Of course, all he really needed to do was take the top off and show them the FREAKING DALEK LIVING INSIDE!!
The Daleks proclaim that the Doctor's testimony was accepted. It turns out that was exactly what they needed to hear. Yup, that's right. They came to Earth, built a robot scientist, and pretended to be "Ironsides" for the sole purpose of the Doctor finding them and saying that they're Daleks. It turns out that they're trying to reproduce, and the Progenator that pops out new Daleks didn't recognize them as Daleks because they were made from Davros' cells (thus, not "pure" Daleks).
With the Doctor's testimony, the Daleks are recognized for what they are, and the machine spits out new, pure Daleks - lovely, M&M-colored behemoths. They threaten to expose London during the Blitz using a huge beam of light, the robot scientist (at brilliant Amy's suggestion) makes the fighter jets space-worthy, they destroy the beam on the space ship, and London is saved.
The first time I watched this episode, I actually turned it off before the end. When the M&M Daleks rolled out of the Progenator, I'd had just about all I could take. I rewatched this the other day, and surprisingly, I didn't hate it as much. Of course, I still have some major issues.
Things that I thought were stupid:
1) The entire plot of why the Daleks put this immensely complicated plan into action. Really? All this to have the Doctor recognize them?
2) Again, if the Doctor wanted to expose them as aliens, why didn't he literally expose them? We know it's easy to take the top off a Dalek (and hide inside, and control it, a la Ian Chesteron in the First Doctor story The Daleks). Wouldn't that have been simpler?
3) As I mentioned before, I just started watching the Second Doctor episodes. We happened to watch The Power of the Daleks the other night (which is the first story of the Second Doctor. I should explain that in classic Who, each story was made up of five or six half-hour-long episodes). Well, in Episode 2, the Daleks say, "I am your serrrrrvant!" Sound familiar?
4) According to Wikipedia, there's almost the same exact plot in the classic Who episode The Evil of Daleks. Here is an excerpt: 'In Evil of the Daleks the Daleks lead the Doctor to believe that they are interested in humanising themselves when what they really want is for the Doctor to isolate "the Dalek Factor." Here, they bait the Doctor into thinking they have a sinister plan for Earth when the real plan is to restore the Daleks to what they call their "pure form".'
5) Fighter jets in space. Really? Fighter jets in space?
6) From the beginning of the episode, a pretty girl in the war room is upset because her boyfriend is fighting in the war. At the end, we find out that he was killed. WHAT was the point of this entire B-storyline? Amy looks at her strangely, but that's all there is. I don't understand why it was necessary.
7) The robot scientist kept the bomb built into him from going off simply by feeling human.
8) Amy's brilliant plan to make the fighter jets space-worthy. This is a pet peeve of mine, the girl who knows nothing about the subject making a suggestion, everyone agrees that yes, this is the perfect plan, and she ends up saving the day. Elizabeth Swann did that all the time in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it drove me nuts.
Things I liked:
1) Winston Churchill. Of course, I stood on stage next to him at ChicagoTARDIS when I won my award, and he seemed pretty cool.
2) The Army-colored Daleks. They were awesome.
3) When the new Daleks were created by the Progenator, they destroy the Army Daleks because they are inferior, due to the fact that they're not "pure" Daleks. Seeing as this episode takes place during World War II, there is a very eerie parallel here between the Daleks and the Third Reich (and Harry Potter).
And now for a palette-cleanser: Ian Chesterton hides inside a Dalek. Notice how Ian positions the plunger so it's on his neck, and then when they open the Dalek, see if you can spot the operator hiding inside!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
S5 Episode 2: The Beast Below
The second episode of Matt Smith's Doctor is The Beast Below. Here's a sixth-grade synopsis of the plot:
The Doctor and Amy arrive on the Starship UK, whose residents have left the uninhabitable Earth to find a new planet. There are scary robot-clown "Smilers" who send children to the beast. Amy follows a little girl and finds a huge tentacle-thing sticking out of one of the streets. She is captured by some monk-looking thugs who take her to a voting booth. She learns "the truth", then is allowed to make a choice - FORGET or PROTEST. She chooses FORGET.
Meanwhile, the Doctor puts a glass of water on the floor and notices that there are no ripples in the water, which means that there are no engines running. He is then taken by monks to meet Liz 10. Her whole chamber is filled with glasses of water.
The Doctor then finds Amy, who had somehow managed to record a video saying to get the Doctor off the ship. The Doctor shows up and sees the video, and he chooses PROTEST. He and Amy land in the throat of a giant animal.
Liz 10 and the little girl rescue the Doctor and Amy. It turns out that Liz 10 is Queen Elizabeth the 10th.
So it turns out that the thing that everyone keeps choosing to forget is that the ship is on the back of a star whale, and they have hooked up electrodes to its brain to make it go faster. The creature is being tortured, but they are are afraid that if they release the whale, the ship will be torn apart and everyone will die.
The reason that Amy chose to forget about the whale was because she didn't want the Doctor to have to choose between the whale and the British people
The Doctor flies into a rage, and he decides to make the whale braindead, so that it will continue on through space but not feel the pain. Just then, Mandy's friend (who earlier in the episode we thought had been eaten by the monster) shows up unharmed, and Mandy affectionately pets one of the giant tentacles. See, it turns out that the star whale doesn't eat children, it only eats adults, and apparently the children are just enslaved or something.
Luckily, Amy brilliantly figures out that the star whale had volunteered because the children were crying (I think Liz 10 meant metaphorically, but whatever), because she sees a similarity between the star whale and the Doctor (both are the last of their kind). To me, this was a huge stretch, but the Doctor frees the whale and they actually speed up!
Things that are ridiculous:
1) Liz 10. Not only was she a boring, classless character, it turns out she was hundreds of years old. No one questioned how that happened? All I have to say is someone who acts as ghetto as Liz 10 acted has no business being Queen. Plus, the fact that she seems extremely stupid is disheartening.
2) About twenty seconds after explaining that the whale volunteered, Amy had to repeat the idea to drive home the fact that she was comparing the star whale to the Doctor. Yeah. We get it.
3) HOW did Amy record the video? How did she figure out how to use the equipment? Why is that feature even possible? (Also, the "forgetting" and "recording" thing is something to remember for Series 6.)
3a) Why did Amy make that decision? We as viewers know it would be a tough decision for him to make, but how would she know that? She knows nothing about him, why would she take matters into her own hands?
4) The Doctor choosing to make the star whale brain dead. I felt he acted so out of character. He didn't even try to find a different solution, he just thought about it for about five seconds, threw a temper tantrum, and then decided to fry the poor thing. What?
5) They never explained why the whale doesn't eat children. How it can tell the difference between child and adult when a hunk of meat is simply dropped into its esophagus is beyond me. And why are the children enslaved then? I assume that the monks are in charge of that, but what happens when they become adults? Do they just get chucked back into the mouth? It's not like they can show up back in the ship. People would ask questions.
6) The water in Liz 10's chamber: she says that it's there to remind her that there is a secret being kept from her. Really? That's ... that's why the water is there? Not because all those people figured out something was wrong and the monks brought those people to her, and now they're her spies/monks/etc? LAME.
Things I liked:
1) I did like Amy at the beginning of this episode, but when she suddenly figured it all out, she became annoying.
2) I loved Liz 10's costume, but she turned out to be so boring that I wouldn't want to cosplay her.
3) Because we've already seen in previous episodes that the Earth becomes inhabitable, it was nice to see humans on their way out to find other planets.
4) I'm going to assume that the star whale is related to the poor thing in Torchwood that had its meat harvested.
5) The whales "tentacles" were SOOOO the wrong scale. Unless each of those was a hair.
And now, here's a non-Who palette-cleanser:
The Doctor and Amy arrive on the Starship UK, whose residents have left the uninhabitable Earth to find a new planet. There are scary robot-clown "Smilers" who send children to the beast. Amy follows a little girl and finds a huge tentacle-thing sticking out of one of the streets. She is captured by some monk-looking thugs who take her to a voting booth. She learns "the truth", then is allowed to make a choice - FORGET or PROTEST. She chooses FORGET.
Meanwhile, the Doctor puts a glass of water on the floor and notices that there are no ripples in the water, which means that there are no engines running. He is then taken by monks to meet Liz 10. Her whole chamber is filled with glasses of water.
The Doctor then finds Amy, who had somehow managed to record a video saying to get the Doctor off the ship. The Doctor shows up and sees the video, and he chooses PROTEST. He and Amy land in the throat of a giant animal.
Liz 10 and the little girl rescue the Doctor and Amy. It turns out that Liz 10 is Queen Elizabeth the 10th.
So it turns out that the thing that everyone keeps choosing to forget is that the ship is on the back of a star whale, and they have hooked up electrodes to its brain to make it go faster. The creature is being tortured, but they are are afraid that if they release the whale, the ship will be torn apart and everyone will die.
The reason that Amy chose to forget about the whale was because she didn't want the Doctor to have to choose between the whale and the British people
The Doctor flies into a rage, and he decides to make the whale braindead, so that it will continue on through space but not feel the pain. Just then, Mandy's friend (who earlier in the episode we thought had been eaten by the monster) shows up unharmed, and Mandy affectionately pets one of the giant tentacles. See, it turns out that the star whale doesn't eat children, it only eats adults, and apparently the children are just enslaved or something.
Luckily, Amy brilliantly figures out that the star whale had volunteered because the children were crying (I think Liz 10 meant metaphorically, but whatever), because she sees a similarity between the star whale and the Doctor (both are the last of their kind). To me, this was a huge stretch, but the Doctor frees the whale and they actually speed up!
Things that are ridiculous:
1) Liz 10. Not only was she a boring, classless character, it turns out she was hundreds of years old. No one questioned how that happened? All I have to say is someone who acts as ghetto as Liz 10 acted has no business being Queen. Plus, the fact that she seems extremely stupid is disheartening.
2) About twenty seconds after explaining that the whale volunteered, Amy had to repeat the idea to drive home the fact that she was comparing the star whale to the Doctor. Yeah. We get it.
3) HOW did Amy record the video? How did she figure out how to use the equipment? Why is that feature even possible? (Also, the "forgetting" and "recording" thing is something to remember for Series 6.)
3a) Why did Amy make that decision? We as viewers know it would be a tough decision for him to make, but how would she know that? She knows nothing about him, why would she take matters into her own hands?
4) The Doctor choosing to make the star whale brain dead. I felt he acted so out of character. He didn't even try to find a different solution, he just thought about it for about five seconds, threw a temper tantrum, and then decided to fry the poor thing. What?
5) They never explained why the whale doesn't eat children. How it can tell the difference between child and adult when a hunk of meat is simply dropped into its esophagus is beyond me. And why are the children enslaved then? I assume that the monks are in charge of that, but what happens when they become adults? Do they just get chucked back into the mouth? It's not like they can show up back in the ship. People would ask questions.
6) The water in Liz 10's chamber: she says that it's there to remind her that there is a secret being kept from her. Really? That's ... that's why the water is there? Not because all those people figured out something was wrong and the monks brought those people to her, and now they're her spies/monks/etc? LAME.
Things I liked:
1) I did like Amy at the beginning of this episode, but when she suddenly figured it all out, she became annoying.
2) I loved Liz 10's costume, but she turned out to be so boring that I wouldn't want to cosplay her.
3) Because we've already seen in previous episodes that the Earth becomes inhabitable, it was nice to see humans on their way out to find other planets.
4) I'm going to assume that the star whale is related to the poor thing in Torchwood that had its meat harvested.
5) The whales "tentacles" were SOOOO the wrong scale. Unless each of those was a hair.
And now, here's a non-Who palette-cleanser:
Friday, May 20, 2011
S5 Episode 1: The Eleventh Hour
From the minute that Matt Smith was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, I didn't like him. My husband says that I don't like him solely because he's not David Tennant, but that's not true: when the episode The Next Doctor aired, and everyone thought that David Morrissey might be #11, I was really excited. I thought he was fantastic, and though we knew from the beginning of the episode that he couldn't be the next Doctor, I would have been so pleased with him in that role.
When Ten regenerated into Eleven at the end of The End of Time, the first thought that popped into my head was that Matt Smith looked like Lurch. However, my favorite episodes have all been Steven Moffat episodes, so while I went in thinking/knowing I wouldn't like Smith, I thought I'd still enjoy the writing. So, with the assumption that you, dear readers, have watched all of these episodes, let's examine Series 5, Episode 1: The Eleventh Hour.
We start out with little Amelia Pond praying to Santa Claus, which I thought was brilliant. The TARDIS crash-lands in her backyard, and a newly-regenerated Doctor climbs out. So far, so good.
He then proceeds to demand food, but everything that Amelia gives him, he spits out, throws out, or does something equally ridiculous. At this point, I think my husband fell in love with him, but I thought the performance was way over the top. I felt like Smith was trying to emulate Tennant, (which would make sense, since he's still regenerating), but that he went too far.
I'll pause for a moment to say that I think Amelia is amazing in every way. Not only does Caitlin Blackwood do a fantastic job, the character is intriguing and extremely likable.
So then the Doctor rushes back to his TARDIS, promising to return in five minutes, yells "Geronimo!" (yes, you just heard the sound of my teeth grinding) and disappears. He does return - twelve years later - and meets a grown-up Amelia Pond, who now goes by the name of Amy. She's very headstrong, very independent, and she doesn't listen to him. That last trait is eerily similar to Donna, and that was what I disliked most about that character. But still, Amy seems to be a worthy companion. Of course, she's dressed inappropriately, but that's only because she's a "kiss-o-gram", right?
By the way, she dresses up as a sexy cop/sexy French maid, goes to parties and kisses guys. This is her job. The first time I saw the episode I thought the "kiss-o-gram" idea was funny, but now I'm a bit disturbed by it. I don't know how things are like in England, but to me that seems like a very short step away from being a prostitute.
Amy finds Prisoner Zero, which is pretty scary, as he can take different forms and has a hard time "getting the mouths right".
So we meet Prisoner Zero, go to the village, and come to the next really annoying thing: what the Doctor sees. We see the scene in the way that the Doctor sees it - fast motion, 360°, close-ups, etc. I should mention that I would find this a really fantastic device, except that Steven Moffat has already used it - in his Sherlock series! He often shows us in this same manner how Sherlock analyzes a crime scene. I think we can classify this POV device as Moffat's first "repeat" idea of the series, which itself becomes a dominant theme in the Eleventh Doctor episodes.
Actually, I take that back. The first repeat of Moffat's is the Amelia/Amy storyline. He meets Amelia as a young girl and says he'll return in five minutes, but when he returns, she's an adult. In The Girl in the Fireplace, he also first meets Reinette as a young girl, then disappears and returns when she's a young woman. When he tells Amelia he'll be back, she immediately packs so she can travel with him, even though he doesn't invite her along. However, he does invite Madam de Pompadour, says he'll be back in five minutes, then returns in time to see her funeral carriage leaving the palace. In addition, when the Doctor looks at the crack in Amy's wall, he says that she's "got some cowboys in here", which is what he says when he reads Reinette's mind. Oh, Steven.
By this time we've met Rory, and I immediately liked him; he has an air of innocence and, while he seems a bit daft, I think he's smarter than people give him credit for.
After saving the world from both Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi, the Doctor runs back to his repaired TARDIS, leaves, and then accidentally comes back two years later. He takes Amy off for an adventure, and we close on a shot of her wedding dress hanging in the wardrobe ... and here we go again, another girl in love with the Doctor.
When Rose was in love with the Doctor, it was okay. She didn't moon over him, and she never made a big deal about it. The only time she was obvious was in Doomsday, when she confessed her love. But, pouting about how the Doctor didn't return her affection was all that Desperate Martha ever did. It was a dominant theme, and extremely tiresome. I really cannot face another character pining after the Doctor.
At the end of The Eleventh Hour, I had mixed feelings. While I loved Amelia and liked Amy, I felt like the Doctor was over-the-top.
Here's a little palette-cleanser:
When Ten regenerated into Eleven at the end of The End of Time, the first thought that popped into my head was that Matt Smith looked like Lurch. However, my favorite episodes have all been Steven Moffat episodes, so while I went in thinking/knowing I wouldn't like Smith, I thought I'd still enjoy the writing. So, with the assumption that you, dear readers, have watched all of these episodes, let's examine Series 5, Episode 1: The Eleventh Hour.
We start out with little Amelia Pond praying to Santa Claus, which I thought was brilliant. The TARDIS crash-lands in her backyard, and a newly-regenerated Doctor climbs out. So far, so good.
He then proceeds to demand food, but everything that Amelia gives him, he spits out, throws out, or does something equally ridiculous. At this point, I think my husband fell in love with him, but I thought the performance was way over the top. I felt like Smith was trying to emulate Tennant, (which would make sense, since he's still regenerating), but that he went too far.
I'll pause for a moment to say that I think Amelia is amazing in every way. Not only does Caitlin Blackwood do a fantastic job, the character is intriguing and extremely likable.
So then the Doctor rushes back to his TARDIS, promising to return in five minutes, yells "Geronimo!" (yes, you just heard the sound of my teeth grinding) and disappears. He does return - twelve years later - and meets a grown-up Amelia Pond, who now goes by the name of Amy. She's very headstrong, very independent, and she doesn't listen to him. That last trait is eerily similar to Donna, and that was what I disliked most about that character. But still, Amy seems to be a worthy companion. Of course, she's dressed inappropriately, but that's only because she's a "kiss-o-gram", right?
By the way, she dresses up as a sexy cop/sexy French maid, goes to parties and kisses guys. This is her job. The first time I saw the episode I thought the "kiss-o-gram" idea was funny, but now I'm a bit disturbed by it. I don't know how things are like in England, but to me that seems like a very short step away from being a prostitute.
Amy finds Prisoner Zero, which is pretty scary, as he can take different forms and has a hard time "getting the mouths right".
So we meet Prisoner Zero, go to the village, and come to the next really annoying thing: what the Doctor sees. We see the scene in the way that the Doctor sees it - fast motion, 360°, close-ups, etc. I should mention that I would find this a really fantastic device, except that Steven Moffat has already used it - in his Sherlock series! He often shows us in this same manner how Sherlock analyzes a crime scene. I think we can classify this POV device as Moffat's first "repeat" idea of the series, which itself becomes a dominant theme in the Eleventh Doctor episodes.
Actually, I take that back. The first repeat of Moffat's is the Amelia/Amy storyline. He meets Amelia as a young girl and says he'll return in five minutes, but when he returns, she's an adult. In The Girl in the Fireplace, he also first meets Reinette as a young girl, then disappears and returns when she's a young woman. When he tells Amelia he'll be back, she immediately packs so she can travel with him, even though he doesn't invite her along. However, he does invite Madam de Pompadour, says he'll be back in five minutes, then returns in time to see her funeral carriage leaving the palace. In addition, when the Doctor looks at the crack in Amy's wall, he says that she's "got some cowboys in here", which is what he says when he reads Reinette's mind. Oh, Steven.
By this time we've met Rory, and I immediately liked him; he has an air of innocence and, while he seems a bit daft, I think he's smarter than people give him credit for.
After saving the world from both Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi, the Doctor runs back to his repaired TARDIS, leaves, and then accidentally comes back two years later. He takes Amy off for an adventure, and we close on a shot of her wedding dress hanging in the wardrobe ... and here we go again, another girl in love with the Doctor.
When Rose was in love with the Doctor, it was okay. She didn't moon over him, and she never made a big deal about it. The only time she was obvious was in Doomsday, when she confessed her love. But, pouting about how the Doctor didn't return her affection was all that Desperate Martha ever did. It was a dominant theme, and extremely tiresome. I really cannot face another character pining after the Doctor.
At the end of The Eleventh Hour, I had mixed feelings. While I loved Amelia and liked Amy, I felt like the Doctor was over-the-top.
Here's a little palette-cleanser:
Introduction
I've been a fan of the new Doctor Who since the first episode I watched, which was Tooth and Claw. I then went back and watched the new series from the beginning, loving both Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant, though the Tenth Doctor will always be my Doctor. I've also started watching the classic series from the beginning, and have just gotten to the second episode of the Second Doctor.
My favorite episodes are Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, and The Girl in the Fireplace. I even cosplay one of the Clockwork Droids (and won the Novice category at ChicagoTARDIS last year)! What do all of those episodes have in common? They were all written by Steven Moffat! That means that I should absolutely love the new series 5 and 6, right?
Wrong. So far, I just don't like the new Doctor. At all. Or Amy Pond. Rory's pretty cool, though.
I am going to try to be fair and balanced here, but I'm not sure anyone would ever describe any of my opinions as "fair and balanced". I am very passionate about the shows that I watch.
Of course these new episodes are not totally horrible, but the problem I have is that I get very excited about every episode, and then end up thinking, "WTF"? To me, it's like a totally different show. The feel of it has changed so much, and I can understand now why so many fans of the original series loathe the New Who. So, because my husband and all his friends worship Steven Moffat, I felt it was better to write all of my feelings and observations in a blog, rather than continually get into heated discussions. (For instance, my husband questions how I think it's a different show when I also think that Moffat reuses so many of his ideas, which I'll get into later.)
Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of things that I don't like about the previous series. I don't like how Dumbass Donna often treats the Doctor like he's an idiot, Desperate Martha's pining gets super annoying (but I love her when they bring her back as a part of UNIT, and also later in Torchwood), Rose can be a whiny brat, and many episodes have gaping plot holes. Also, Daleks and Cybermen! I also am a fan of Torchwood, and I have no problem admitting that while it's interesting and has Captain Jack and Ianto (sigh), it's pretty horrendous at times.
So I don't know why the Eleventh Doctor is such a different story, why I can't dislike certain things but still enjoy the show as a whole. I'll be going through the Eleventh Doctor episodes one by one and dissecting them for plot holes, actions that are uncharacteristic of the Doctor, and things that I just find ridiculous. However, I'll also point out things that I DO like, because there ARE a lot of things that I find interesting, intriguing, and fun.
And maybe along the way I'll finally decide that the new episodes are okay. Or maybe not. I am trying to keep an open mind and be willing to love Doctor Who again, but every time I feel like I'm reaching that point, something happens that disappoints me.
Here's a little palette cleanser before I start talking about Matt Smith.
My favorite episodes are Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, and The Girl in the Fireplace. I even cosplay one of the Clockwork Droids (and won the Novice category at ChicagoTARDIS last year)! What do all of those episodes have in common? They were all written by Steven Moffat! That means that I should absolutely love the new series 5 and 6, right?
Wrong. So far, I just don't like the new Doctor. At all. Or Amy Pond. Rory's pretty cool, though.
I am going to try to be fair and balanced here, but I'm not sure anyone would ever describe any of my opinions as "fair and balanced". I am very passionate about the shows that I watch.
Of course these new episodes are not totally horrible, but the problem I have is that I get very excited about every episode, and then end up thinking, "WTF"? To me, it's like a totally different show. The feel of it has changed so much, and I can understand now why so many fans of the original series loathe the New Who. So, because my husband and all his friends worship Steven Moffat, I felt it was better to write all of my feelings and observations in a blog, rather than continually get into heated discussions. (For instance, my husband questions how I think it's a different show when I also think that Moffat reuses so many of his ideas, which I'll get into later.)
Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of things that I don't like about the previous series. I don't like how Dumbass Donna often treats the Doctor like he's an idiot, Desperate Martha's pining gets super annoying (but I love her when they bring her back as a part of UNIT, and also later in Torchwood), Rose can be a whiny brat, and many episodes have gaping plot holes. Also, Daleks and Cybermen! I also am a fan of Torchwood, and I have no problem admitting that while it's interesting and has Captain Jack and Ianto (sigh), it's pretty horrendous at times.
So I don't know why the Eleventh Doctor is such a different story, why I can't dislike certain things but still enjoy the show as a whole. I'll be going through the Eleventh Doctor episodes one by one and dissecting them for plot holes, actions that are uncharacteristic of the Doctor, and things that I just find ridiculous. However, I'll also point out things that I DO like, because there ARE a lot of things that I find interesting, intriguing, and fun.
And maybe along the way I'll finally decide that the new episodes are okay. Or maybe not. I am trying to keep an open mind and be willing to love Doctor Who again, but every time I feel like I'm reaching that point, something happens that disappoints me.
Here's a little palette cleanser before I start talking about Matt Smith.
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