Well. I'm not really sure how I feel about this episode. I've been thinking about it for a week, and I still don't know if I like it or not.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at a hotel, every room of which contains a fear - clowns, mean girls, marionettes, etc. Each person has their own room, a room which houses their greatest fear. After seeing the thing which they fear, the person stops being afraid and utters the phrase, "Praise Him", which prompts a minotaur to hunt him or her down and eat their - what, their souls? Anyway, the people all end up dead. They get picked off one by one.
Of course, Amy opens a hotel room door and finds her fear, so the Doctor now has to race against time to save Amy. Must be Tuesday. He saves her, the Minotaur ends up dying after uttering some cryptic words, and the Doctor realizes that he needs to take Amy and Rory home. He leaves them at their house (with a new car for Rory), and Amy tells Rory that the Doctor is saving them.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
Amy's fear lies behind Door 7. The Doctor's fear lies behind Door 11. This is the 11th Doctor, but Amy is by no means the 7th companion, even in the new series. So what does Amy's door number mean?
Likes:
1) Not sure if I like this or not, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind, so I'm going to go with my instinct: I liked that we didn't see what either Amy or the Doctor feared. I feel that Moffat is leaving too much up in the air since he took over the show, but at the same time, I liked that we didn't have anything concrete. We may eventually find out, but I don't think it's necessary.
2) Rory was, as always, brilliant. It turns out that he never found his room because he doesn't have faith. Faith in what? Religion? I talked about this with my husband this week, and we decided that he has no faith in Amy since she kept her pregnancy from him. I quite agree with that; however, I still don't understand why Rory would have ever had faith in her from the beginning. Even now, after all they've been through, I feel like she couldn't care less about him. I don't know if they just don't have chemistry or what, but the Amy/Rory relationship seems so forced to me, and even when they're embracing, Amy is so cold towards Rory. But I digress.
3) I loved how Rory said to the Doctor, "that's my favorite car, how did you know?" and the Doctor replies, "because you showed me a photo and said, 'that's my favorite car.'" I thought the exchange was hilarious.
4) Howie, Rita and Gibbis were some of the most developed characters that we've seen so far. They reminded me a lot of Craig and Sophie (incidentally, Craig returns to us next week!)
5) You knew this was coming - AMY'S GONE!!! I have to say, though, that I doubt that this is the last we're seeing of the Ponds. But I almost did a little dance of joy. However, I DISLIKE that there will be no more Rory if they actually are gone.
Dislikes:
1) Again, the callbacks to other characters bothered me. I'm still not really sure why it bothers me so much when Moffat recalls Hartnell or other characters/aliens, but every time it just leaves me feeling highly uncomfortable.
2) Why does the Doctor give Rory a car? Rory doesn't need to be convinced to leave the TARDIS; he hasn't wanted to be there - well - EVER. Maybe it was a way of saying "thank you". I don't know, but I do know that for as hilarious as their exchange regarding the car was, I found the whole concept to be tasteless. Like a consolation prize or something. "You've lost all of time and space, but you did win this fabulous gift!"
3) When the Minotaur was talking with the Doctor at the end, why wasn't his language being translated? (I feel like this has happened before, too, but I can't remember which episode it would have been.) The TARDIS should be translating everything that the Minotaur says - I'm sure it was done on purpose to show how the Doctor is clueless, but still, little stuff like this really bothers me.
4) When the Doctor makes Amy lose her faith in him, I couldn't help but think, "Really? That's all it takes? She must not have had much faith in him to begin with".
5) I didn't like Amy and Rory's exit. First of all, I have a hard time believing that Amy is willing to just let him go so easily. However, he's left them a few times before, so maybe she thinks that he'll be back (and I'm sure he will be, those short skirts are like a Siren's call).
6) What was the point of the Weeping Angels? It couldn't have been Gibbis's fear, as he never turned to Minotaur-worship. I don't like how Moffat just throws something in for the sake of throwing it in. It's very frustrating.
7) I wish that Rory would leave Amy and travel with the Doctor. Arthur Darvil and Matt Smith remind me very much of Frazer Hines and Patrick Troughton. I think it would be brilliant if Rory ditched the ungrateful bitch and took off with the Doctor. How much fun would they have?
8) The thing Amy fears is waiting for the Doctor? That he'll never return? God, could this girl be any more obsessed? She needs to get over herself. On the other hand, it's possible that because this fear is now "cured" by the Minotaur, that is why it's so easy for Amy to let the Doctor go?
9) I'm adding this in late because I've been doing some more thinking about this episode, and I've come to the conclusion that it makes no sense. The Minotaur feeds on faith. So it shows them what they're afraid of, and suddenly they're saying "praise him". Exactly HOW does this change occur? It makes no sense, and now I think I have to say that I don't like this episode.
Hey, this literally just popped into my head - during The Impossible Astronaut, River, Rory and Amy are all called to the Doctor because they're the people he trusts the most. Really? He's letting them go now, he has (presumably) another two hundreds years to live, and after less than two years, THESE are the people he trusts the most? River I can understand, since they apparently have this amazing relationship, but Amy and Rory? He hasn't met ANYONE in two hundred years that can compare? I guess you can argue that he trusts them the most because they already know what's going on, but still ... that wouldn't be trust, that would be called HEY YOUR DAUGHTER THAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT YET IS GOING TO TRY TO SHOOT ME IN THE FACE AND SET OFF ALL THE EVENTS THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN IF YOU DIDN'T COME HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE - OOPS.
My husband and I were having a discussion about River Song last night, and I mentioned this in an online forum as well; I am so disappointed with what Moffat has done with River. He could have made her into a much more interesting character. Mels was fantastic, and instead of having her regenerate into Alex Kingston, she should have regenerated into a different actress. Every time he meets her in the future (from this point on) she could be played by another actress, or at least, several actresses. He could have continued this storyline for so long, and have the River he has a relationship with be one actress for a long time. Mels should have been a character from the beginning, and Alex Kingston would still have been able to appear up until Let's Kill Hitler (as this is the end of her life, though she doesn't know it). But, by making Mels regenerate into Alex, he now has to throw her into as many stories as possible because of her age. How can the Doctor and River get together now when Alex is clearly aging? She already looks much older than she did in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.
And with that, I'm not sure I have much more to say about The God Complex. Yes, the Doctor has issues. Blah blah blah. We know this, it's been explored already in the last few episodes of the Tenth Doctor. Do we need to go over this again?
Here's your palate-cleaner (and a shameless plug). I made this video last weekend after hearing a brilliant Paul and Storm song. Enjoy!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
S6 Episode 10: The Girl Who Waited
I hope you're ready for my scathing review of The Girl Who Waited. Let's jump into it, shall we?
I loved it. Well, at least, I loved it compared to all the other episodes this series. It's definitely one I would willingly watch again. I'm sure I'll still find plenty of problems with it, though. However, I'm a little worried that if I watch it a second time through, I might stop liking it, since last series when I watched an episode for the second time, my feelings about it flipped 180˚. Although, I usually went from disliking to liking an episode. But again, that could just be because there was so much about Series 5 (and the first part of 6) that I vehemently didn't like. But I digress.
The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to Apalapucia. Due to Amy needing to get her camera phone, they get separated. It turns out that the planet is suffering from a plague which only affects those with two hearts - like the Doctor. It kills them within a day, but they are placed into "kindness centers", which allow them to live out their entire lives in the span of one day. There are magnifying glass-looking mirrors that let their loved ones watch. Therefore, even though they only have one day to live, the dying person does get to live out a long life.
While Rory and the Doctor entered one of the "watching" rooms, Amy accidentally entered one of the containment rooms, so she is on the "fast track", as Madame de Pompadour would call it. The span of a few seconds for Rory and the Doctor is a week for Amy. The Doctor says he'll get her out of there immediately, and he and Rory head back to the TARDIS. Because the Doctor is susceptible to the plague, he outfits Rory with glasses (which my husband promptly declared would become the new "Rory" costume) through which the Doctor can see.
Meanwhile, Amy has been wandering around the facility and discovered something called Interface, which I'm still not really sure about. I guess it's purpose is to give people information? There are also Interrodroids - I mean, Handbots - that distribute medication which would be fatal to humans. To escape from the Handbots and wait for the Doctor, Amy finds a mechanical room and writes "Doctor - I'm waiting" in lipstick.
The Doctor sends Rory out into the facility to find Amy, and when he does, he finds that they have gone into the wrong time stream, and she's aged 36 years. And she's not happy about it. She's been alone this whole time with only Interface and a disarmed (literally) Handbot that she's named Rory. The Doctor and Rory want to find the younger Amy, but Older Amy doesn't want to help. If she helps them rescue younger Amy, she'll have never existed. The Doctor finds younger Amy's correct time stream, and he instructs Rory to use the magnifying glass to speak with her. The two Amys have a conversation (which Older Amy remembers having 36 years ago) in which Older Amy refuses to help younger Amy. However, she reconsiders for Rory's sake, but says that they need to take her back in the TARDIS as well.
The Doctor agrees to this, saying that the TARDIS will be able to handle the paradox, so he sets about getting the two Amys into the same time stream. Rory, Amy and Amy head back to the TARDIS, but they are assaulted by Handbots. Older Amy shows off some more of her fighting skills, but Amy is brushed by one of the Handbots, and Rory picks her up and carries her into the TARDIS. The doors slam shut behind them. Older Amy disables most of the Handbots, and she begs the Doctor to let her into the TARDIS, but he refuses. He tells Rory that he lied about the paradox, and that only one Amy can exist. It's Rory's choice. Older Amy decides to sacrifice herself, and she bids Rory an emotional goodbye, telling him not to let her into the TARDIS, just before she is touched by a Handbot and (we assume) goes to her death.
In the TARDIS, Amy wakes up (she'd only been knocked out) and the first words out of her mouth are, "where is she"?
Repeat Ideas:
The whole time stream thing was just done in The Doctor's Wife, so I wasn't pleased with it popping up again. I know it wasn't real in The Doctor's Wife, but it was the same basic concept. However, it was pulled off successfully in The Girl Who Waited.
Dislikes:
1) I don't understand why Amy didn't just try to go back to the TARDIS in the week that she waited in the other room. And shouldn't she be severely dehydrated by now?
2) I don't understand why 36 years later, not only is she wearing the same clothes, she's wearing the same nail polish.
3) They could have really attempted to make her hands old. I kept noticing how her face was beautifully aged, but then she had the hands of a 24-year-old. It's just too bad that they can't do reverse aging to make River look less a grandmother.
4) I'm not sure I like the Doctor's new coat.
5) I would have preferred for Older Amy go back with them. Just Older Amy. She's a lot more interesting and sympathetic than Amy.
6) Amy makes a sonic screwdriver. Let me repeat that: Amy makes a sonic screwdriver. I have a very hard time believing that anyone can just "make" a sonic screwdriver. I'm going to just pretend it's like when you're a kid and you "make" binoculars out of two empty toilet paper rolls.
Likes:
1) Wow. Karen Gillan has more than one acting style other than wide eyes! It's so nice to know that the reason her acting sucks is because of the writing and directing. Because she knocked it out of the park in this episode. I really believed she had aged 36 years. She was worn, she'd put up walls, she had a kind of quiet bitterness. Brilliant. And I seriously cannot believe that I just said that about Karen Gillan.
2) For the first time this series, I was absolutely riveted. I was totally invested in what happened to these characters. I cared about them - I was crying like a baby during the entire exchange between Amy and Rory at the TARDIS. I hated to see Amy left behind - she didn't want to stay with the Doctor and Rory, she wanted to go off on her own and have a new life. She was absolutely a sympathetic character, and I was rooting for a way for both Amys to be able to go on.
3) Rory had brilliant lines, and he just keeps getting better and better all the time. I so wish that it was just the Doctor and Rory. I have a feeling that I'd like Doctor Who about 10 times as much if Amy were out of the picture. Seriously, I find I actually really like the Doctor when he's not around Amy. After watching several stories from the Second Doctor, I feel like Matt Smith and Arthur Darvil have a very similar chemistry to Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines. And Amy is just the annoying Victoria who you'd wish would just get eaten by one of the Abominable Snowmen.
4) I liked how the Doctor blatantly lied about the TARDIS being able to manage a paradox for a short time. We knew he was lying almost immediately, and at one point we see things are starting to go wrong in the console room. It just makes the audience wonder exactly how much the Doctor lies about.
5) I'm sure there are all kinds of issues that I could have with the two time streams, but the fact that this episode was just so fun makes me not care about details. It made me feel like (most of) the RTD Doctor Who episodes did - yes, there are some plot holes, but they're not really critical to the story that is being told, so they're easily ignored. Plus, it's a lot easier to ignore the badness when there are more good things than bad things. And yes, I won't deny that there are many RTD episodes that I pretend never happened, like all the BS with the Master. (See, I'm critical when necessary, I don't just blindly love the RTD era!) God, he could have done such fantastic things with that storyline ... sorry, I'm off on a tangent again!
Let's wrap things up with a little bit of Karen Gillan on playing Older Amy.
I loved it. Well, at least, I loved it compared to all the other episodes this series. It's definitely one I would willingly watch again. I'm sure I'll still find plenty of problems with it, though. However, I'm a little worried that if I watch it a second time through, I might stop liking it, since last series when I watched an episode for the second time, my feelings about it flipped 180˚. Although, I usually went from disliking to liking an episode. But again, that could just be because there was so much about Series 5 (and the first part of 6) that I vehemently didn't like. But I digress.
The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to Apalapucia. Due to Amy needing to get her camera phone, they get separated. It turns out that the planet is suffering from a plague which only affects those with two hearts - like the Doctor. It kills them within a day, but they are placed into "kindness centers", which allow them to live out their entire lives in the span of one day. There are magnifying glass-looking mirrors that let their loved ones watch. Therefore, even though they only have one day to live, the dying person does get to live out a long life.
While Rory and the Doctor entered one of the "watching" rooms, Amy accidentally entered one of the containment rooms, so she is on the "fast track", as Madame de Pompadour would call it. The span of a few seconds for Rory and the Doctor is a week for Amy. The Doctor says he'll get her out of there immediately, and he and Rory head back to the TARDIS. Because the Doctor is susceptible to the plague, he outfits Rory with glasses (which my husband promptly declared would become the new "Rory" costume) through which the Doctor can see.
Meanwhile, Amy has been wandering around the facility and discovered something called Interface, which I'm still not really sure about. I guess it's purpose is to give people information? There are also Interrodroids - I mean, Handbots - that distribute medication which would be fatal to humans. To escape from the Handbots and wait for the Doctor, Amy finds a mechanical room and writes "Doctor - I'm waiting" in lipstick.
The Doctor sends Rory out into the facility to find Amy, and when he does, he finds that they have gone into the wrong time stream, and she's aged 36 years. And she's not happy about it. She's been alone this whole time with only Interface and a disarmed (literally) Handbot that she's named Rory. The Doctor and Rory want to find the younger Amy, but Older Amy doesn't want to help. If she helps them rescue younger Amy, she'll have never existed. The Doctor finds younger Amy's correct time stream, and he instructs Rory to use the magnifying glass to speak with her. The two Amys have a conversation (which Older Amy remembers having 36 years ago) in which Older Amy refuses to help younger Amy. However, she reconsiders for Rory's sake, but says that they need to take her back in the TARDIS as well.
The Doctor agrees to this, saying that the TARDIS will be able to handle the paradox, so he sets about getting the two Amys into the same time stream. Rory, Amy and Amy head back to the TARDIS, but they are assaulted by Handbots. Older Amy shows off some more of her fighting skills, but Amy is brushed by one of the Handbots, and Rory picks her up and carries her into the TARDIS. The doors slam shut behind them. Older Amy disables most of the Handbots, and she begs the Doctor to let her into the TARDIS, but he refuses. He tells Rory that he lied about the paradox, and that only one Amy can exist. It's Rory's choice. Older Amy decides to sacrifice herself, and she bids Rory an emotional goodbye, telling him not to let her into the TARDIS, just before she is touched by a Handbot and (we assume) goes to her death.
In the TARDIS, Amy wakes up (she'd only been knocked out) and the first words out of her mouth are, "where is she"?
Repeat Ideas:
The whole time stream thing was just done in The Doctor's Wife, so I wasn't pleased with it popping up again. I know it wasn't real in The Doctor's Wife, but it was the same basic concept. However, it was pulled off successfully in The Girl Who Waited.
Dislikes:
1) I don't understand why Amy didn't just try to go back to the TARDIS in the week that she waited in the other room. And shouldn't she be severely dehydrated by now?
2) I don't understand why 36 years later, not only is she wearing the same clothes, she's wearing the same nail polish.
3) They could have really attempted to make her hands old. I kept noticing how her face was beautifully aged, but then she had the hands of a 24-year-old. It's just too bad that they can't do reverse aging to make River look less a grandmother.
4) I'm not sure I like the Doctor's new coat.
5) I would have preferred for Older Amy go back with them. Just Older Amy. She's a lot more interesting and sympathetic than Amy.
6) Amy makes a sonic screwdriver. Let me repeat that: Amy makes a sonic screwdriver. I have a very hard time believing that anyone can just "make" a sonic screwdriver. I'm going to just pretend it's like when you're a kid and you "make" binoculars out of two empty toilet paper rolls.
Likes:
1) Wow. Karen Gillan has more than one acting style other than wide eyes! It's so nice to know that the reason her acting sucks is because of the writing and directing. Because she knocked it out of the park in this episode. I really believed she had aged 36 years. She was worn, she'd put up walls, she had a kind of quiet bitterness. Brilliant. And I seriously cannot believe that I just said that about Karen Gillan.
2) For the first time this series, I was absolutely riveted. I was totally invested in what happened to these characters. I cared about them - I was crying like a baby during the entire exchange between Amy and Rory at the TARDIS. I hated to see Amy left behind - she didn't want to stay with the Doctor and Rory, she wanted to go off on her own and have a new life. She was absolutely a sympathetic character, and I was rooting for a way for both Amys to be able to go on.
3) Rory had brilliant lines, and he just keeps getting better and better all the time. I so wish that it was just the Doctor and Rory. I have a feeling that I'd like Doctor Who about 10 times as much if Amy were out of the picture. Seriously, I find I actually really like the Doctor when he's not around Amy. After watching several stories from the Second Doctor, I feel like Matt Smith and Arthur Darvil have a very similar chemistry to Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines. And Amy is just the annoying Victoria who you'd wish would just get eaten by one of the Abominable Snowmen.
4) I liked how the Doctor blatantly lied about the TARDIS being able to manage a paradox for a short time. We knew he was lying almost immediately, and at one point we see things are starting to go wrong in the console room. It just makes the audience wonder exactly how much the Doctor lies about.
5) I'm sure there are all kinds of issues that I could have with the two time streams, but the fact that this episode was just so fun makes me not care about details. It made me feel like (most of) the RTD Doctor Who episodes did - yes, there are some plot holes, but they're not really critical to the story that is being told, so they're easily ignored. Plus, it's a lot easier to ignore the badness when there are more good things than bad things. And yes, I won't deny that there are many RTD episodes that I pretend never happened, like all the BS with the Master. (See, I'm critical when necessary, I don't just blindly love the RTD era!) God, he could have done such fantastic things with that storyline ... sorry, I'm off on a tangent again!
Let's wrap things up with a little bit of Karen Gillan on playing Older Amy.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
S6 Episode 9: Night Terrors
Overall, I did not like this episode. Yes, I know that you're shocked.
The Doctor gets a message on the psychic paper, and he and his Companions show up at the estate where the message is coming from. They split up to search for the sender, and the Doctor meets Georgie, a little boy who is terrified of everything. When something scares Georgie, he puts it in the cupboard.
While Amy and Rory are searching, they get into a lift which seemingly falls out of control. When they land, they find that they are in a house, and no one else is around.
Meanwhile, an old lady on the estate as well as the landlord disappear; the old lady gets sucked into a pile of garbage bags, and the landlord gets sucked into the floor. They both also end up in this house. Some terrifying, nightmare-inducing life-sized dolls grab the landlord, and he turns into a doll as well. And then, guess what? Amy gets turned into a doll, too!
Back at the ranch, the Doctor is working with Georgie's father to try to figure out what's going on. Suddenly, both the Doctor and Georgie's dad get sucked into the cupboard and also end up in the house. Because it's actually the dollhouse that's inside the cupboard! But Georgie faces his fears and everything turns out okay. Except for Georgie, who is really an alien who got himself adopted by his Earth parents and changed their memories slightly so that they thought he was really theirs. And he doesn't know it. I dunno.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Really? The Doctor saves another child from a scary monster? I suppose this isn't a shock, as Doctor Who is (supposedly) a children's show, but haven't we had enough of this from Moffat for a while?
2) I'm not really sure why I'm putting this next item here, but instinct says it goes here: Amy and Rory are miniaturized and put into the dollhouse. So weird ... why would I think this is a repeat? That time when they got miniaturized and transferred into the head of that robot thing was like forever ago - what? OH MY GOD! THAT WAS ONLY THE LAST EPISODE?!?!
3) The idea of planted memories of children has been done before - anyone remember Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead? Seriously, does Moffat just have a list of plots that he goes over every time he gets a story pitched to him and says, "that's great, but instead of an original idea, why don't we use this one? We haven't used that storyline in four episodes. Let's just change one or two things and people will think it's totally original". (And yes, he absolutely says that just like a Valley Girl.) Look, I understand that there are what, two or three basic plots in the world that just keep getting used over and over and over, but those are simple ideas. Moffat keeps reusing very specific plot devices. Oh, and also, this reeked of Dawn.
Dislikes:
1) I didn't like Georgie. To be specific, I didn't like the actor. And I feel bad about that, because he's just a kid. I think I've been spoiled by Amelia Pond.
2) Wow, they could have really done a fantastic job with the dollhouse idea. I LOVE the concept, but it was so half-assed. With the exception of the doll's eye and the copper pot, everything else was scaled to Amy and Rory's size, NOT to dollhouse size. Have the set designers ever seen a dollhouse? Unless it's Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle (the weeping willow cries real tears!) or the Thorne Miniature Rooms, most dollhouse furniture is NOT to scale, especially a cheap dollhouse like Georgie would have. Yeah, that dollhouse as a whole was way too elaborate. I love the idea, and I'd love to see it done well, but then it would have to move to the top section of the blog ...
3) Since when does the Doctor knock on doors? Something about that really irritated me. I supposed it shouldn't, but it did.
4) The second hand of the clock in the kitchen doesn't move. Normally this stuff doesn't bother me, but that's because it's not noticeable. During the entire scene in the kitchen, I was staring at the clock and actually had to rewind to see what had happened.
Likes:
1) Psychic paper! I love the psychic paper. I can't remember where I read this, but apparently Russell T. Davies invented the psychic paper to cut out all the explaining that the Doctor has to do so often. Just - here ya go, this is who I am, doesn't it look official? Also, I cannot stress enough how happy I am that Georgie didn't call the Doctor. I love it when psychic paper is used as a message board.
2) I loved the Doctor in this episode - more proof that I like him when he's not with Amy. I love the exchange he has with Georgie's dad about opening and not opening the cupboard.
3) When Rory and Amy tumble out of the lift, Rory says something like, "we're dead - again!" I love that he hasn't actually died for a while.
Here ya go:
The Doctor gets a message on the psychic paper, and he and his Companions show up at the estate where the message is coming from. They split up to search for the sender, and the Doctor meets Georgie, a little boy who is terrified of everything. When something scares Georgie, he puts it in the cupboard.
While Amy and Rory are searching, they get into a lift which seemingly falls out of control. When they land, they find that they are in a house, and no one else is around.
Meanwhile, an old lady on the estate as well as the landlord disappear; the old lady gets sucked into a pile of garbage bags, and the landlord gets sucked into the floor. They both also end up in this house. Some terrifying, nightmare-inducing life-sized dolls grab the landlord, and he turns into a doll as well. And then, guess what? Amy gets turned into a doll, too!
Back at the ranch, the Doctor is working with Georgie's father to try to figure out what's going on. Suddenly, both the Doctor and Georgie's dad get sucked into the cupboard and also end up in the house. Because it's actually the dollhouse that's inside the cupboard! But Georgie faces his fears and everything turns out okay. Except for Georgie, who is really an alien who got himself adopted by his Earth parents and changed their memories slightly so that they thought he was really theirs. And he doesn't know it. I dunno.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Really? The Doctor saves another child from a scary monster? I suppose this isn't a shock, as Doctor Who is (supposedly) a children's show, but haven't we had enough of this from Moffat for a while?
2) I'm not really sure why I'm putting this next item here, but instinct says it goes here: Amy and Rory are miniaturized and put into the dollhouse. So weird ... why would I think this is a repeat? That time when they got miniaturized and transferred into the head of that robot thing was like forever ago - what? OH MY GOD! THAT WAS ONLY THE LAST EPISODE?!?!
3) The idea of planted memories of children has been done before - anyone remember Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead? Seriously, does Moffat just have a list of plots that he goes over every time he gets a story pitched to him and says, "that's great, but instead of an original idea, why don't we use this one? We haven't used that storyline in four episodes. Let's just change one or two things and people will think it's totally original". (And yes, he absolutely says that just like a Valley Girl.) Look, I understand that there are what, two or three basic plots in the world that just keep getting used over and over and over, but those are simple ideas. Moffat keeps reusing very specific plot devices. Oh, and also, this reeked of Dawn.
Dislikes:
1) I didn't like Georgie. To be specific, I didn't like the actor. And I feel bad about that, because he's just a kid. I think I've been spoiled by Amelia Pond.
2) Wow, they could have really done a fantastic job with the dollhouse idea. I LOVE the concept, but it was so half-assed. With the exception of the doll's eye and the copper pot, everything else was scaled to Amy and Rory's size, NOT to dollhouse size. Have the set designers ever seen a dollhouse? Unless it's Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle (the weeping willow cries real tears!) or the Thorne Miniature Rooms, most dollhouse furniture is NOT to scale, especially a cheap dollhouse like Georgie would have. Yeah, that dollhouse as a whole was way too elaborate. I love the idea, and I'd love to see it done well, but then it would have to move to the top section of the blog ...
3) Since when does the Doctor knock on doors? Something about that really irritated me. I supposed it shouldn't, but it did.
4) The second hand of the clock in the kitchen doesn't move. Normally this stuff doesn't bother me, but that's because it's not noticeable. During the entire scene in the kitchen, I was staring at the clock and actually had to rewind to see what had happened.
Likes:
1) Psychic paper! I love the psychic paper. I can't remember where I read this, but apparently Russell T. Davies invented the psychic paper to cut out all the explaining that the Doctor has to do so often. Just - here ya go, this is who I am, doesn't it look official? Also, I cannot stress enough how happy I am that Georgie didn't call the Doctor. I love it when psychic paper is used as a message board.
2) I loved the Doctor in this episode - more proof that I like him when he's not with Amy. I love the exchange he has with Georgie's dad about opening and not opening the cupboard.
3) When Rory and Amy tumble out of the lift, Rory says something like, "we're dead - again!" I love that he hasn't actually died for a while.
Here ya go:
Torchwood: Miracle Day
I know that this is a blog about Doctor Who, not Torchwood; however, since I have been so disappointed by the turn that Doctor Who has taken, I waited and waited for Torchwood: Miracle Day to air, only to be disappointed by that, too. And I need to get this all off of my chest, or I'm going to explode.
There were so many flaws with Miracle Day that I don't even know where to begin. This show did not feel like Torchwood. It was more CSI than sci-fi. We only ever saw one alien, and that was only just an alien tentacle, which was on screen for no more than ten seconds. The first two series of Torchwood weren't very good. They certainly cannot compare to Doctor Who. There were episodes that were really bad, and there were episodes that were really good. It wasn't consistent; however, it was always either fun or scary. When the third series, Children of Earth aired, it was minus two of the main characters (who died at the end of series 2). We also lost Ianto in the fourth episode, leaving the series with only Gwen Cooper, who I never liked much, and Captain Jack Harkness. I would have loved for them to have pulled in Martha Jones (although, Freema is involved in another show) or Lois Habiba, who assisted them in Children of Earth. Instead, we are ripped out of Wales and transplanted to the good ol' USA, where weak characters become the focus of the first half of the series.
To me, Children of Earth wasn't the same as the first two series; we see so much from others' perspectives that it almost gives the game away. Miracle Day suffered the same problem; when we know who the baddies are, the show loses its edge. That was one of the great things about the original Torchwood run - we may have seen scenes with the baddies, but we never really got invested in them, we mostly learned things as the team did. With Children of Earth and Miracle Day, I feel like we don't have any element of surprise. We know more than the team, and I don't like that.
Without going into an entire review of this 10-episode series, I'll take a look at some of the things I had a real problem with.
Characters:
There are almost too many characters to know what to do with, and it shows. While Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger are prominently featured in the first few episodes, they suddenly disappear halfway through the series, just to reappear at the end.
Gwen Cooper: This is the first time I've liked Gwen, actually. She doesn't take crap from anyone. She's always been this way, it's just that now I like it. I don't know if it's the way she's being written or if Eve Myles is doing something different, but I like Gwen.
Captain Jack: I have always preferred the Jack on Doctor Who to the Jack in Torchwood. However, in the past he's always seemed mysterious and like he's holding back, and now I don't really get that. Yes, he's keeping secrets, but at the same time, I'm not sure how much I care.
Rhys: Rhys is always fantastic, and I was very pleased to see his role expanded in this series a bit. He was very well-written, and it was obvious that he is the one who holds the family together.
Andy: It was great to see PC Andy again, and the fact that he got to be a hero was really great.
Oswald Danes: At first, Oswald is a really powerful character. Well, throughout the entire series he's great. He's creepy, he's disgusting, he makes your skin crawl. He's probably the most interesting character out of them all. Bill Pullman did such a great job that I'll never be able to watch Independence Day again without being slightly disturbed. However, there is no real point to Oswald Danes. Yes, he survived. Yes, he achieved this weird level of fame. But in the end, he just tags along and then blows himself up. It was so disappointing.
Jilly Kitzinger: In my opinion, Jilly is the second-best character on the show. She's driven, she's ruthless ... but ... we don't know why. We never know why she does the things she does. She clearly cannot stand Dane. She seems terrified of the families. So, who is she, and what motivates her? That is the one thing that makes no sense. The only point of Jilly is for us to see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen do. She really adds nothing to the story besides being an interesting character.
Esther Drummond: Wow, could there be a more fragile, weepy girl? She spends half her time being all trembly and squeaky-voiced. She's so unsure of herself, even though she's petite and gorgeous and blond. When she died, I was a bit shocked, but not really upset.
Rex: He is the most unlikable character ever. I have zero sympathy for him from start to finish. I couldn't even summon up a bit of empathy for Rex. Of all the people to become immortal, why him? I wanted to punch the TV when he came back.
Vera: She's not blond, but she's the stupidest character on the whole show. She keeps taunting the guy at the camp until he kills her. How on earth did she think that was a good idea? I wasn't glad when she died, but her absence really wasn't felt.
Major Plot Holes:
1) The main theme of Miracle Day is that no one dies. At first, people are getting blown up and they're still conscious. Sierra gets her neck broken, and she staggers around backwards chasing Rex. Rex has a gaping hole in his chest. In episode 4, a woman gets crushed in a car, and her eyeball peeks out at us. And yet, by the next episode, a simple heart attack renders a person completely incapacitated. Such a big deal was made about living forever, being conscious of all your pain, being so alive, and yet halfway through the series, it is suddenly forgotten. Quite honestly, once they started burning people who were unconscious, I really didn't have a problem with it.
2) One of the major questions is, "how is the world going to continue?" Well, besides burning people, that question wasn't really addressed. There was a brief mention at the beginning of episode 9 about rationing and dictatorships, but nothing else. What a missed opportunity!
3) In the very last episode, it is revealed that the Three Families sent the Torchwood message to everyone around the world - however, they don't say why. Really, what was the point of that? Yes, let's get Torchwood involved so they can solve it? Or let's kill Torchwood, because they can solve it? It makes no sense.
4) Gwen and Rhys are in hiding in South Wales. After Rex shows up at their cottage, they are attacked by an unknown helicopter. When I met him at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con, I asked Kai Owen about why Gwen and Rhys were hiding. He said that the government might be after Gwen because she knows about the 456, but he didn't seem too sure of that answer. And who are the people in the helicopter? The government? The Three Families?
5) Jack is omnisexual - he'll shag anything that walks upright. And yet, they only show his relationships with men. At one point, Gwen does ask him how many children he has, but that's the only time that there is a reference that he might like girls, too!
6) Esther's sister is mentally unstable, so Esther turns her in to DCFS. The sister is put in a hospital, and over the phone she tells Esther that she's volunteering herself and her children for Category 1. This becomes Esther's motivation to shut down the Miracle. However, I find it highly unlikely that a woman who is in a mental hospital would be given the right to make that decision for her children.
7) The whole point of the Miracle is weak. Apparently, the families want to control the world. Okay. I get that; after all, they are mobsters. However ... really? They want to take over the banks and the governments, just so they can become the Fourth Reich or something? It's very weak.
8) The giant vagina. Yes, The Blessing looks dirty. Also, it's supposed to be in the center of the Earth, and yet they look across at it. Last time I checked, gravity still works inside the Earth - shouldn't they be looking down at it, if stuff is getting sucked through the way it is? If I tunneled straight down a mile right now and then looked across, I wouldn't be looking at China, I'd be looking at the ocean.
9) Apparently the Three Families are in the birth control business now, because they invite Jilly to help them with Plan B. Really? I don't think I can take more of this world domination crap. Bring back the aliens!!
10) Rex is immortal. The insinuation is that Jack's blood made Rex immortal. That makes no sense; Jack's blood has nothing to do with it. My husband says that they mentioned how the Blessing went too far by making everyone immortal, maybe it went too far the other way. He says that maybe the Blessing was trying to reward Rex for making a sacrifice and meant only to heal him, but went too far and made him immortal like Jack. Or maybe it's because Jack went back to being immortal, so the Blessing thought Rex was supposed to be immortal, too. Either way, I don't care. Rex shouldn't be immortal. At least we won't have to watch him chew pain killers like a horse anymore. Jesus, could he have made a bigger show about chewing those damn things? ETA: In writer Jane Espenson's live tweets for the UK audience, she explains that yes, it was The Blessing that made Rex immortal and NOT Jack's blood. However, the fact that every week she's had to explain so much in her tweets demonstrates that they should have done a better job of writing the damn show.
11) That whole Null Field thing? Jack said that it was scavenged from the Hub after it blew up. That means that 1) Angelo had some idea that it was there, or 2) he knew what to look for. The Hub was a big place - I have a very hard time believing that someone could waltz in and find what they were looking for in the rubble.
Things that appear, but then we never see again:
1) The mysterious helicopter people who try to kill Gwen and Rhys. If they were really after Gwen, why didn't they also come after her when she was with her parents in Cardiff?
2) The mass stockpiling of drugs by PhiCorp. So, all this time we think that PhiCorp is the baddie, but it turns out that they're just taking advantage of the situation. However, that doesn't explain why they have an entire warehouse full of these medications. They must have been in on it, but that never gets resolved.
3) Danes tells the world about PhiCorp's painkiller legislation. Oswald becomes the spokesperson for PhiCorp, and Jilly is his PR girl. However, we never really come back to the whole "everyone deserves drugs!" storyline. Again, another potentially interesting thing that gets tossed to the wayside.
4) Rex has a father. The only time we see him is in episode 4, Escape to LA. The subject is never revisited again. I suspect that this is because Rex's father is actually Mr. X, who didn't die, but is now hiding out in Los Angeles. (Okay, it's not Steven Williams, but it looks a lot like him.)
5) Dead is Dead. This is a huuuuge campaign by Ellis Hartley Monroe. The idea is that once you're in a state that would normally equal death, you're considered legally dead. We never really ever come back to Dead is Dead.
6) The hitman who is left for dead. So Torchwood steals these hard drives, right? And they're all super secret about it, right? And then they shoot a man and leave his dead body for everyone to find, right? Wait a minute ... they never address what happens to the hit man. Seriously, did they just leave him there? Did they dispose of it? Did Ianto and Tosh come back from the grave to take care of it?
7) The New World Order that the hitman mentions. Is this the same thing that doesn't get referenced until the last episode? Very confusing.
8) What's the deal with PhiCorp? PhiCorp drugs and "kills" Ellis Hartley Monroe because she's taking the attention off of Oswald. Okay ... so do the Three Families own PhiCorp? Is this whole thing a big scheme for the Three Families to get rich off of drugs? It is all so murky ...
9) People are less and less alive. In The Categories of Life, the Category 1s are essentially dead. They are unconscious, they show no signs of life. So what happened to running around with their heads on backwards?
10) Where did the Angels go? In Danes's big speech, he says that humans have evolved into Angels. This is never addressed again.
11) The Soulless. People are walking around with masks. This is the only time we see the Soulless.
12) The pointless COO. In the PhiCorp building, a COO asks an associate in Shanghai to investigate a site. The associate then jumps to his end-of-consciousness. When confronted by Jack, the COO explains that PhiCorp is just a pawn. We never hear about this again. If PhiCorp is actually owned by the Three Families, then no, PhiCorp is not a pawn.
13) No one cares about the ovens. Gwen goes through all this trouble of filming the ovens, and then making them explode. She gives a big speech about it, too. We see it on the television once, but then everyone seems to forget that the ovens exist. There is virtually no follow-up to the entire episode.
14) Jack is referred to as The Blessing. In Immortal Sins, Jack is repeatedly killed by people in Angelo's neighborhood and his blood is collected. He is referred to as "a blessing". However, we find out at the end that Jack is NOT The Blessing, even though his blood is what activates the Miracle. In addition, the Three Families "buy" Jack. They are referenced later, but it's never clear what "buying Jack" is. Why didn't they just "buy" his blood?
15) Angelo has a Null Field around his bed. When Jack kisses Angelo, he dies. Apparently this is due to the platform that the bed was resting on. Turns out the bed was on a Null Field, and I guess this is how Angelo was able to die? Still not clear on that. He takes part of the device and convinces Rex and Esther to help him escape. The Null Field is never again mentioned, so Jack taking part of the technology was pretty pointless. In addition, if it takes Jack's blood to nullify the Miracle, wouldn't the Null Field actually need his blood? So confusing.
16) A CIA mole becomes Jilly's assistant. This lasts for all of half an episode, when the Nazi dude from the Three Families shoots the mole and gives Jilly a promotion. So ... what was the point of the mole, again? Add her to the list of pointless characters that are introduced and killed off in one episode.
17) Esther has been removing blood from Jack. Now I don't know much about giving blood, but I do know that my mother gives blood, and she can't do it more often than every six weeks. And yet, Esther has taken pints from a very ill Jack. Where is he getting all this blood from, and why have they decided it's necessary?
18) Jilly goes to Shanghai. Also, she is now "Lucy" and has been hired by the Three Families to write world history for them. First, we haven't really seen much of what Jilly actually does; second, this seems pretty dumb to me. Sorry, that's the best I can do. I feel like if they were going to do this, they should have done it much, much earlier. Essentially, Jilly has no point now. The only reason she went to Shanghai at all was so that we'd see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen. It really would have been more of an impact if we'd discovered it at the same time as the Torchwood team.
19) The blood leaves a trail. When the drop of blood falls from Jack's bandages, it travels across the room, and it leaves a trail behind. So ... shouldn't the blood run out a few feet from the bandage? If it's leaving a trail, then it's leaving part of itself, which means that soon there won't be any more drop of blood.
20) Morphic fields. So apparently everyone became immortal because of the morphic field, but again, that was never really explained. For all the giggling that The Mother did, she certainly didn't make things any clearer.
Final Thoughts:
I actually cried when Rex came back to life. Because RTD crushed my soul. Miracle Day was terrible as a whole, and Rex's resurrection was the last straw. I clearly don't enjoy Doctor Who since Moffat took over, and I was looking forward so much to Miracle Day. And now I feel like I'm disappointed in everything in the Whoinverse, and even knowing what happens in Miracle Day kind of sours me on the rest of the series. I do NOT want another series, unless they can resurrect Tosh and Owen and Ianto and bring back the Hub and make it like it was before. Torchwood was never a GREAT show - it will never be Doctor Who - but it had some really great episodes, and it was fun and scary. Miracle Day was neither fun nor scary. I didn't enjoy Children of Earth very much, but at least it had Ianto and Wales. Also, the kids chanting "we are coming" was one of the most terrifying things ever. The Blessing? Ooh, a big hole in the ground, I'm trembling.
And where were the aliens, for pete's sake?
I really, really could have done without all the Americans. I'm just so disappointed, and I know it's stupid to be upset over a TV show, but I don't watch a lot of TV and I am very invested in the few shows that I do watch. I love the expanded universe material from Torchwood (radio plays, books, etc) but I just need to pretend like Miracle Day never happened.
There were so many flaws with Miracle Day that I don't even know where to begin. This show did not feel like Torchwood. It was more CSI than sci-fi. We only ever saw one alien, and that was only just an alien tentacle, which was on screen for no more than ten seconds. The first two series of Torchwood weren't very good. They certainly cannot compare to Doctor Who. There were episodes that were really bad, and there were episodes that were really good. It wasn't consistent; however, it was always either fun or scary. When the third series, Children of Earth aired, it was minus two of the main characters (who died at the end of series 2). We also lost Ianto in the fourth episode, leaving the series with only Gwen Cooper, who I never liked much, and Captain Jack Harkness. I would have loved for them to have pulled in Martha Jones (although, Freema is involved in another show) or Lois Habiba, who assisted them in Children of Earth. Instead, we are ripped out of Wales and transplanted to the good ol' USA, where weak characters become the focus of the first half of the series.
To me, Children of Earth wasn't the same as the first two series; we see so much from others' perspectives that it almost gives the game away. Miracle Day suffered the same problem; when we know who the baddies are, the show loses its edge. That was one of the great things about the original Torchwood run - we may have seen scenes with the baddies, but we never really got invested in them, we mostly learned things as the team did. With Children of Earth and Miracle Day, I feel like we don't have any element of surprise. We know more than the team, and I don't like that.
Without going into an entire review of this 10-episode series, I'll take a look at some of the things I had a real problem with.
Characters:
There are almost too many characters to know what to do with, and it shows. While Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger are prominently featured in the first few episodes, they suddenly disappear halfway through the series, just to reappear at the end.
Gwen Cooper: This is the first time I've liked Gwen, actually. She doesn't take crap from anyone. She's always been this way, it's just that now I like it. I don't know if it's the way she's being written or if Eve Myles is doing something different, but I like Gwen.
Captain Jack: I have always preferred the Jack on Doctor Who to the Jack in Torchwood. However, in the past he's always seemed mysterious and like he's holding back, and now I don't really get that. Yes, he's keeping secrets, but at the same time, I'm not sure how much I care.
Rhys: Rhys is always fantastic, and I was very pleased to see his role expanded in this series a bit. He was very well-written, and it was obvious that he is the one who holds the family together.
Andy: It was great to see PC Andy again, and the fact that he got to be a hero was really great.
Oswald Danes: At first, Oswald is a really powerful character. Well, throughout the entire series he's great. He's creepy, he's disgusting, he makes your skin crawl. He's probably the most interesting character out of them all. Bill Pullman did such a great job that I'll never be able to watch Independence Day again without being slightly disturbed. However, there is no real point to Oswald Danes. Yes, he survived. Yes, he achieved this weird level of fame. But in the end, he just tags along and then blows himself up. It was so disappointing.
Jilly Kitzinger: In my opinion, Jilly is the second-best character on the show. She's driven, she's ruthless ... but ... we don't know why. We never know why she does the things she does. She clearly cannot stand Dane. She seems terrified of the families. So, who is she, and what motivates her? That is the one thing that makes no sense. The only point of Jilly is for us to see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen do. She really adds nothing to the story besides being an interesting character.
Esther Drummond: Wow, could there be a more fragile, weepy girl? She spends half her time being all trembly and squeaky-voiced. She's so unsure of herself, even though she's petite and gorgeous and blond. When she died, I was a bit shocked, but not really upset.
Rex: He is the most unlikable character ever. I have zero sympathy for him from start to finish. I couldn't even summon up a bit of empathy for Rex. Of all the people to become immortal, why him? I wanted to punch the TV when he came back.
Vera: She's not blond, but she's the stupidest character on the whole show. She keeps taunting the guy at the camp until he kills her. How on earth did she think that was a good idea? I wasn't glad when she died, but her absence really wasn't felt.
Major Plot Holes:
1) The main theme of Miracle Day is that no one dies. At first, people are getting blown up and they're still conscious. Sierra gets her neck broken, and she staggers around backwards chasing Rex. Rex has a gaping hole in his chest. In episode 4, a woman gets crushed in a car, and her eyeball peeks out at us. And yet, by the next episode, a simple heart attack renders a person completely incapacitated. Such a big deal was made about living forever, being conscious of all your pain, being so alive, and yet halfway through the series, it is suddenly forgotten. Quite honestly, once they started burning people who were unconscious, I really didn't have a problem with it.
2) One of the major questions is, "how is the world going to continue?" Well, besides burning people, that question wasn't really addressed. There was a brief mention at the beginning of episode 9 about rationing and dictatorships, but nothing else. What a missed opportunity!
3) In the very last episode, it is revealed that the Three Families sent the Torchwood message to everyone around the world - however, they don't say why. Really, what was the point of that? Yes, let's get Torchwood involved so they can solve it? Or let's kill Torchwood, because they can solve it? It makes no sense.
4) Gwen and Rhys are in hiding in South Wales. After Rex shows up at their cottage, they are attacked by an unknown helicopter. When I met him at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con, I asked Kai Owen about why Gwen and Rhys were hiding. He said that the government might be after Gwen because she knows about the 456, but he didn't seem too sure of that answer. And who are the people in the helicopter? The government? The Three Families?
5) Jack is omnisexual - he'll shag anything that walks upright. And yet, they only show his relationships with men. At one point, Gwen does ask him how many children he has, but that's the only time that there is a reference that he might like girls, too!
6) Esther's sister is mentally unstable, so Esther turns her in to DCFS. The sister is put in a hospital, and over the phone she tells Esther that she's volunteering herself and her children for Category 1. This becomes Esther's motivation to shut down the Miracle. However, I find it highly unlikely that a woman who is in a mental hospital would be given the right to make that decision for her children.
7) The whole point of the Miracle is weak. Apparently, the families want to control the world. Okay. I get that; after all, they are mobsters. However ... really? They want to take over the banks and the governments, just so they can become the Fourth Reich or something? It's very weak.
8) The giant vagina. Yes, The Blessing looks dirty. Also, it's supposed to be in the center of the Earth, and yet they look across at it. Last time I checked, gravity still works inside the Earth - shouldn't they be looking down at it, if stuff is getting sucked through the way it is? If I tunneled straight down a mile right now and then looked across, I wouldn't be looking at China, I'd be looking at the ocean.
9) Apparently the Three Families are in the birth control business now, because they invite Jilly to help them with Plan B. Really? I don't think I can take more of this world domination crap. Bring back the aliens!!
10) Rex is immortal. The insinuation is that Jack's blood made Rex immortal. That makes no sense; Jack's blood has nothing to do with it. My husband says that they mentioned how the Blessing went too far by making everyone immortal, maybe it went too far the other way. He says that maybe the Blessing was trying to reward Rex for making a sacrifice and meant only to heal him, but went too far and made him immortal like Jack. Or maybe it's because Jack went back to being immortal, so the Blessing thought Rex was supposed to be immortal, too. Either way, I don't care. Rex shouldn't be immortal. At least we won't have to watch him chew pain killers like a horse anymore. Jesus, could he have made a bigger show about chewing those damn things? ETA: In writer Jane Espenson's live tweets for the UK audience, she explains that yes, it was The Blessing that made Rex immortal and NOT Jack's blood. However, the fact that every week she's had to explain so much in her tweets demonstrates that they should have done a better job of writing the damn show.
11) That whole Null Field thing? Jack said that it was scavenged from the Hub after it blew up. That means that 1) Angelo had some idea that it was there, or 2) he knew what to look for. The Hub was a big place - I have a very hard time believing that someone could waltz in and find what they were looking for in the rubble.
Things that appear, but then we never see again:
1) The mysterious helicopter people who try to kill Gwen and Rhys. If they were really after Gwen, why didn't they also come after her when she was with her parents in Cardiff?
2) The mass stockpiling of drugs by PhiCorp. So, all this time we think that PhiCorp is the baddie, but it turns out that they're just taking advantage of the situation. However, that doesn't explain why they have an entire warehouse full of these medications. They must have been in on it, but that never gets resolved.
3) Danes tells the world about PhiCorp's painkiller legislation. Oswald becomes the spokesperson for PhiCorp, and Jilly is his PR girl. However, we never really come back to the whole "everyone deserves drugs!" storyline. Again, another potentially interesting thing that gets tossed to the wayside.
4) Rex has a father. The only time we see him is in episode 4, Escape to LA. The subject is never revisited again. I suspect that this is because Rex's father is actually Mr. X, who didn't die, but is now hiding out in Los Angeles. (Okay, it's not Steven Williams, but it looks a lot like him.)
5) Dead is Dead. This is a huuuuge campaign by Ellis Hartley Monroe. The idea is that once you're in a state that would normally equal death, you're considered legally dead. We never really ever come back to Dead is Dead.
6) The hitman who is left for dead. So Torchwood steals these hard drives, right? And they're all super secret about it, right? And then they shoot a man and leave his dead body for everyone to find, right? Wait a minute ... they never address what happens to the hit man. Seriously, did they just leave him there? Did they dispose of it? Did Ianto and Tosh come back from the grave to take care of it?
7) The New World Order that the hitman mentions. Is this the same thing that doesn't get referenced until the last episode? Very confusing.
8) What's the deal with PhiCorp? PhiCorp drugs and "kills" Ellis Hartley Monroe because she's taking the attention off of Oswald. Okay ... so do the Three Families own PhiCorp? Is this whole thing a big scheme for the Three Families to get rich off of drugs? It is all so murky ...
9) People are less and less alive. In The Categories of Life, the Category 1s are essentially dead. They are unconscious, they show no signs of life. So what happened to running around with their heads on backwards?
10) Where did the Angels go? In Danes's big speech, he says that humans have evolved into Angels. This is never addressed again.
11) The Soulless. People are walking around with masks. This is the only time we see the Soulless.
12) The pointless COO. In the PhiCorp building, a COO asks an associate in Shanghai to investigate a site. The associate then jumps to his end-of-consciousness. When confronted by Jack, the COO explains that PhiCorp is just a pawn. We never hear about this again. If PhiCorp is actually owned by the Three Families, then no, PhiCorp is not a pawn.
13) No one cares about the ovens. Gwen goes through all this trouble of filming the ovens, and then making them explode. She gives a big speech about it, too. We see it on the television once, but then everyone seems to forget that the ovens exist. There is virtually no follow-up to the entire episode.
14) Jack is referred to as The Blessing. In Immortal Sins, Jack is repeatedly killed by people in Angelo's neighborhood and his blood is collected. He is referred to as "a blessing". However, we find out at the end that Jack is NOT The Blessing, even though his blood is what activates the Miracle. In addition, the Three Families "buy" Jack. They are referenced later, but it's never clear what "buying Jack" is. Why didn't they just "buy" his blood?
15) Angelo has a Null Field around his bed. When Jack kisses Angelo, he dies. Apparently this is due to the platform that the bed was resting on. Turns out the bed was on a Null Field, and I guess this is how Angelo was able to die? Still not clear on that. He takes part of the device and convinces Rex and Esther to help him escape. The Null Field is never again mentioned, so Jack taking part of the technology was pretty pointless. In addition, if it takes Jack's blood to nullify the Miracle, wouldn't the Null Field actually need his blood? So confusing.
16) A CIA mole becomes Jilly's assistant. This lasts for all of half an episode, when the Nazi dude from the Three Families shoots the mole and gives Jilly a promotion. So ... what was the point of the mole, again? Add her to the list of pointless characters that are introduced and killed off in one episode.
17) Esther has been removing blood from Jack. Now I don't know much about giving blood, but I do know that my mother gives blood, and she can't do it more often than every six weeks. And yet, Esther has taken pints from a very ill Jack. Where is he getting all this blood from, and why have they decided it's necessary?
18) Jilly goes to Shanghai. Also, she is now "Lucy" and has been hired by the Three Families to write world history for them. First, we haven't really seen much of what Jilly actually does; second, this seems pretty dumb to me. Sorry, that's the best I can do. I feel like if they were going to do this, they should have done it much, much earlier. Essentially, Jilly has no point now. The only reason she went to Shanghai at all was so that we'd see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen. It really would have been more of an impact if we'd discovered it at the same time as the Torchwood team.
19) The blood leaves a trail. When the drop of blood falls from Jack's bandages, it travels across the room, and it leaves a trail behind. So ... shouldn't the blood run out a few feet from the bandage? If it's leaving a trail, then it's leaving part of itself, which means that soon there won't be any more drop of blood.
20) Morphic fields. So apparently everyone became immortal because of the morphic field, but again, that was never really explained. For all the giggling that The Mother did, she certainly didn't make things any clearer.
Final Thoughts:
I actually cried when Rex came back to life. Because RTD crushed my soul. Miracle Day was terrible as a whole, and Rex's resurrection was the last straw. I clearly don't enjoy Doctor Who since Moffat took over, and I was looking forward so much to Miracle Day. And now I feel like I'm disappointed in everything in the Whoinverse, and even knowing what happens in Miracle Day kind of sours me on the rest of the series. I do NOT want another series, unless they can resurrect Tosh and Owen and Ianto and bring back the Hub and make it like it was before. Torchwood was never a GREAT show - it will never be Doctor Who - but it had some really great episodes, and it was fun and scary. Miracle Day was neither fun nor scary. I didn't enjoy Children of Earth very much, but at least it had Ianto and Wales. Also, the kids chanting "we are coming" was one of the most terrifying things ever. The Blessing? Ooh, a big hole in the ground, I'm trembling.
And where were the aliens, for pete's sake?
I really, really could have done without all the Americans. I'm just so disappointed, and I know it's stupid to be upset over a TV show, but I don't watch a lot of TV and I am very invested in the few shows that I do watch. I love the expanded universe material from Torchwood (radio plays, books, etc) but I just need to pretend like Miracle Day never happened.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
S6 Episode 8: Let's Kill Hitler
I don't know why I do this to myself. I am really not enjoying the new series at all. I suppose there are tons of fans who suffered through Doctors that they didn't like. There's a ton of people who absolutely hate Russell T. Davies, his stories, and his Doctors. So maybe if I just keep suffering through all this bullshit I'll be rewarded with a new Doctor and better companions.
The episode begins with Rory and Amy driving through a cornfield - the TARDIS appears in the center of the field, and the Doctor is standing there holding a newspaper that shows a crop circle with the word DOCTOR. There's a line through the center of the word, and Amy and Rory tell the Doctor that they didn't do that part. Suddenly, a car comes plowing through and a black girl jumps out and points a gun at the Doctor.
It turns out that she is Mels, who has been a friend of Amy and Rory since they were small children. Of course, we'd never heard of her before now, so they had to go and show us a montage of Mels interacting with Amy and Rory. Seems Mels is a bit of a trouble maker, and she's on the run from the police, so she makes the Doctor take her into the TARDIS. She fires her gun at some point and sends the TARDIS out of control. It happens to land in Hitler's office. Surprise!
In the meantime, there are little miniaturized people inside of a robot thing that can assume the shape of anyone. They are there to kill Hitler, but realize that they're not at the end of his timeline yet. Well, Hitler attempts to shoot the robot, but hits Mels instead. And you'll never guess what happens? She regenerates! Into River Song! Holy crap!
Yes, it turns out that Mels is Melody Pond (which I'm sure no one saw coming a mile away). Amy explains that she had named Melody after her good friend Mels (whom we'd never heard of before, remember?) She attempts to kill the Doctor several times, but each time, he outsmarts her. Oh, except for the whole poisoned lipstick thing. So he's poisoned, River/Mels gets away, and Rory and Amy leave the Doctor to apparently die on the floor and go after her, and the robot with the tiny people goes after them. After all, River Song is wanted for killing the Doctor.
Meanwhile, the Doctor lays dying inside of the TARDIS and attempts to activate the voice interface. It first flashes to an image of him, but he says, "show me someone I like!" We then see Rose, followed by Martha and Donna, and the Doctor keeps saying that he feels guilty. He says that there must be someone he hasn't messed up, and Amelia appears. She tells him that he has 32 minutes to live.
River/Mels crashes a party and steals everyone's clothes. Amy and Rory find her, and so does the robot, who now looks like Amy (and is actually called a Teselecta). It miniaturizes them, they almost die, and then I'm not really sure what happens next. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS, now dressed in a tuxedo, and Amy prevents the Teselecta from killing River. However, they are still determined to kill her, so Amy turns the robot against itself. All of the tiny people dematerialize, and the Doctor convinces River to fly the TARDIS into the Teselecta and rescue Amy and Rory. The TARDIS tells her what to do - it teaches her in a millisecond because she is "the child of the TARDIS".
The Doctor whispers something into River's ear and then apparently dies. River asks Rory and Amy why they keep calling her River. The Teselecta then takes on the physical appearance of River, and she is so moved that she saves the Doctor by pouring the rest of her regenerations into him. They take her to a hospital and leave her there. Back in the TARDIS, we see that the Doctor has downloaded all of the information from the Teselecta and has learned the date of his death. The last scene is River declaring that she wants to be an archaeologist.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
1) Why doesn't the Doctor just regenerate?
2) In The Impossible Astronaut, River tells Rory that she and the Doctor are living their time lines in reverse order - her past is his future. I can't remember which episode it is, but at one point she also says that when she first met the Doctor, she was a little girl and he knew everything about her. Also, if her past is his future, then we shouldn't be seeing any more of River Song, we should be seeing more of Mels, and that doesn't make sense. So make up your mind, Moffat - I don't care if they're going in opposite directions or if they can pop up all over the place in different orders, but be consistent.
3) How did Mels get from 1969 to the 1990's? How did she find a family to adopt her? Because she tore herself out of that suit and was wandering around by herself, remember? I have a hard time thinking that the Silence or Eyepatch Lady came back to get her and deposit her in bonny ol' England.
Dislikes:
1) First of all, when Amy and Rory were carving out the name "Doctor" in the cornfield, they made too many turns. Also, what the heck was written all over that paper that Amy was looking off of?
2) When the Doctor is dying, he gives Amy his sonic screwdriver. She uses it in the Teselecta, and it really looks like Amy is holding a glowing green penis. Seriously, I hate this new screwdriver.
3) Could they smack us in the face with River Song any more? Moffat spends so much time not telling us anything, and then he gives us almost her entire backstory in about 10 minutes. It seems so forced. It is time for River to go away. This soap-opery story is just getting ridiculous. It's now the Amy and River Show! I bet Moffat is kicking himself for killing River off in Forest of the Dead - he could have made her regenerate into Amy! TIMEY-WIMEY!!
4) Mels should have existed before now. Moffat had no idea that there was going to be a Mels, did he? To work her into the story now like this is insulting. Also, did anyone else notice that the first time Moffat introduces an important black character, she gets killed off almost immediately?
5) When the Teselecta replicates the German, he is able to replicate everything except the guy's glasses? What sense does that make?
6) I hated seeing Rose, Martha, and Donna. First of all, their appearances were simply publicity shots - they couldn't find any live footage? Second, this is the first time that Eleven has ever acknowledged their existence - he's constantly throwing around photos of himself as the First Doctor, but he never shows any of his previous companions. Was this really the time? I feel like this was just another slap in the face by Moffat - he wants to shut up the people who don't like Amy. Well, I will tell you something. There are a lot of people on fan boards who say that people who don't like Matt Smith or Karen Gillan need to get over David Tennant and Billie Piper. I'm sorry, but it IS possible to not like a character without being upset that another character is gone. I'm over it. I bet most fans are over it. It is highly insulting to suggest that I don't like an actor because he's not an actor that I DO like. It's not impossible to simply just NOT LIKE that person/character. The fact that Matt Smith isn't David Tennant has nothing to do with my dislike for him. The fact that Amy isn't Rose has nothing to do with the fact that I don't like her.
7) Moffat loves fucking with our minds about "is [x character] dead?" This is the third time that we think that the Doctor is dead. Enough already.
Likes:
1) Wow, Rory has balls!
2) No surprise here - I loved Amelia. The lines that she had in the TARDIS were fantastic - "for 31 minutes you will be fine. In 32 minutes you will be dead".
Since Moffat smacked us in the face with Rose, Martha, and Donna, here is a fantastic fan video I found on YouTube.
The episode begins with Rory and Amy driving through a cornfield - the TARDIS appears in the center of the field, and the Doctor is standing there holding a newspaper that shows a crop circle with the word DOCTOR. There's a line through the center of the word, and Amy and Rory tell the Doctor that they didn't do that part. Suddenly, a car comes plowing through and a black girl jumps out and points a gun at the Doctor.
It turns out that she is Mels, who has been a friend of Amy and Rory since they were small children. Of course, we'd never heard of her before now, so they had to go and show us a montage of Mels interacting with Amy and Rory. Seems Mels is a bit of a trouble maker, and she's on the run from the police, so she makes the Doctor take her into the TARDIS. She fires her gun at some point and sends the TARDIS out of control. It happens to land in Hitler's office. Surprise!
In the meantime, there are little miniaturized people inside of a robot thing that can assume the shape of anyone. They are there to kill Hitler, but realize that they're not at the end of his timeline yet. Well, Hitler attempts to shoot the robot, but hits Mels instead. And you'll never guess what happens? She regenerates! Into River Song! Holy crap!
Yes, it turns out that Mels is Melody Pond (which I'm sure no one saw coming a mile away). Amy explains that she had named Melody after her good friend Mels (whom we'd never heard of before, remember?) She attempts to kill the Doctor several times, but each time, he outsmarts her. Oh, except for the whole poisoned lipstick thing. So he's poisoned, River/Mels gets away, and Rory and Amy leave the Doctor to apparently die on the floor and go after her, and the robot with the tiny people goes after them. After all, River Song is wanted for killing the Doctor.
Meanwhile, the Doctor lays dying inside of the TARDIS and attempts to activate the voice interface. It first flashes to an image of him, but he says, "show me someone I like!" We then see Rose, followed by Martha and Donna, and the Doctor keeps saying that he feels guilty. He says that there must be someone he hasn't messed up, and Amelia appears. She tells him that he has 32 minutes to live.
River/Mels crashes a party and steals everyone's clothes. Amy and Rory find her, and so does the robot, who now looks like Amy (and is actually called a Teselecta). It miniaturizes them, they almost die, and then I'm not really sure what happens next. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS, now dressed in a tuxedo, and Amy prevents the Teselecta from killing River. However, they are still determined to kill her, so Amy turns the robot against itself. All of the tiny people dematerialize, and the Doctor convinces River to fly the TARDIS into the Teselecta and rescue Amy and Rory. The TARDIS tells her what to do - it teaches her in a millisecond because she is "the child of the TARDIS".
The Doctor whispers something into River's ear and then apparently dies. River asks Rory and Amy why they keep calling her River. The Teselecta then takes on the physical appearance of River, and she is so moved that she saves the Doctor by pouring the rest of her regenerations into him. They take her to a hospital and leave her there. Back in the TARDIS, we see that the Doctor has downloaded all of the information from the Teselecta and has learned the date of his death. The last scene is River declaring that she wants to be an archaeologist.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
1) Why doesn't the Doctor just regenerate?
2) In The Impossible Astronaut, River tells Rory that she and the Doctor are living their time lines in reverse order - her past is his future. I can't remember which episode it is, but at one point she also says that when she first met the Doctor, she was a little girl and he knew everything about her. Also, if her past is his future, then we shouldn't be seeing any more of River Song, we should be seeing more of Mels, and that doesn't make sense. So make up your mind, Moffat - I don't care if they're going in opposite directions or if they can pop up all over the place in different orders, but be consistent.
3) How did Mels get from 1969 to the 1990's? How did she find a family to adopt her? Because she tore herself out of that suit and was wandering around by herself, remember? I have a hard time thinking that the Silence or Eyepatch Lady came back to get her and deposit her in bonny ol' England.
Dislikes:
1) First of all, when Amy and Rory were carving out the name "Doctor" in the cornfield, they made too many turns. Also, what the heck was written all over that paper that Amy was looking off of?
2) When the Doctor is dying, he gives Amy his sonic screwdriver. She uses it in the Teselecta, and it really looks like Amy is holding a glowing green penis. Seriously, I hate this new screwdriver.
3) Could they smack us in the face with River Song any more? Moffat spends so much time not telling us anything, and then he gives us almost her entire backstory in about 10 minutes. It seems so forced. It is time for River to go away. This soap-opery story is just getting ridiculous. It's now the Amy and River Show! I bet Moffat is kicking himself for killing River off in Forest of the Dead - he could have made her regenerate into Amy! TIMEY-WIMEY!!
4) Mels should have existed before now. Moffat had no idea that there was going to be a Mels, did he? To work her into the story now like this is insulting. Also, did anyone else notice that the first time Moffat introduces an important black character, she gets killed off almost immediately?
5) When the Teselecta replicates the German, he is able to replicate everything except the guy's glasses? What sense does that make?
6) I hated seeing Rose, Martha, and Donna. First of all, their appearances were simply publicity shots - they couldn't find any live footage? Second, this is the first time that Eleven has ever acknowledged their existence - he's constantly throwing around photos of himself as the First Doctor, but he never shows any of his previous companions. Was this really the time? I feel like this was just another slap in the face by Moffat - he wants to shut up the people who don't like Amy. Well, I will tell you something. There are a lot of people on fan boards who say that people who don't like Matt Smith or Karen Gillan need to get over David Tennant and Billie Piper. I'm sorry, but it IS possible to not like a character without being upset that another character is gone. I'm over it. I bet most fans are over it. It is highly insulting to suggest that I don't like an actor because he's not an actor that I DO like. It's not impossible to simply just NOT LIKE that person/character. The fact that Matt Smith isn't David Tennant has nothing to do with my dislike for him. The fact that Amy isn't Rose has nothing to do with the fact that I don't like her.
7) Moffat loves fucking with our minds about "is [x character] dead?" This is the third time that we think that the Doctor is dead. Enough already.
Likes:
1) Wow, Rory has balls!
2) No surprise here - I loved Amelia. The lines that she had in the TARDIS were fantastic - "for 31 minutes you will be fine. In 32 minutes you will be dead".
Since Moffat smacked us in the face with Rose, Martha, and Donna, here is a fantastic fan video I found on YouTube.
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