This is totally my favorite episode of this entire series so far. Wow! I LOVE Craig!
So the Doctor pops in on Craig to say hi, kind of like the Tenth Doctor went around and said goodbye to his former companions before he regenerated. So all the people who think that was crappy can SHUT UP now!! Craig and Sophie have a son now named Alfie, although the Doctor says that his name is Stormageddon (he speaks Baby). The Doctor notices that the lights are flickering, and against his better judgment, he decides to stick around and figure out what's going on.
Craig insists on going with the Doctor to investigate, hilarity ensures. It turns out that a Cybermat is draining energy, and Cybermen are taking people and converting them. The Doctor finds the Cyberman space ship, is captured, Craig tries to help, almost gets turned into a Cyberman, but then they hear Alfie crying and Craig is able to reverse the conversion.
The episode ends with River Song investigating the Doctor's "last" appearance on Earth. Then Eyepatch Lady and the Silence show up, stick River in a space suit, and put her at the bottom of Lake Silencio.
Likes:
1) The exchanges between the Doctor and Craig are fantastic, just like last time.
Doctor: You've redecorated! I don't like it.
Craig: It's a new house!
Craig: You know what to do if he cries!
Doctor: No, I don't!
Craig (OS): Me neither!
2) Okay, this baby is totally reminiscent of Stewie from Family Guy. While I don't like another baby being a character on the show, he is MUCH better than wet old Melody Pond. Also, I don't believe that the Doctor actually speaks Baby - I think he just speaks for the babies the way "speak" for our pets. He's just having a good time.
3) I love the Doctor's reference to K-9 when he's playing with the robot dog. "Not as fun as I remember".
4) I liked the Cybermat - it was very reminiscent of Tomb of the Cybermen.
5) Craig: Metal rat with a mouth! Metal rat with a mouth!
Dislikes:
1) Didn't like the baby. Why does everyone have babies? Best thing about Rose, Martha, and Donna - NO GORRAM BABIES!
2) I didn't like when the Doctor pretended he was going to kiss Craig. It wasn't funny at all, insinuating that even Craig might be a little bit in love with the Doctor. Everyone shouldn't be in love with the Doctor! Again, a HUGE complaint about the RTD era, and I have yet to read anything online about people having an issue with it now. Cause Moffat is such a gorram god to so many people.
3) I don't like Matt Smith tossing his hair around all the time. Can't they bobby pin it down or something? Hair spray? Something?
4) I didn't like the Ponds showing up. And suddenly she's a model. Of course, we have no idea how much time has passed. However, I have a very hard time believing she's a model. Not only that, but she's modeling Petrichor (the smell of dust after rain) and the tagline is "For the girl who's tired of waiting". So apparently she has control over the entire line of perfume. So is she a model or did she develop the perfume? That kind of career takes years to develop, and her only experience is being a Kiss-O-Gram. On the other hand, what did I expect her to do, become a rocket scientist?
5) Again, the solution to the problem is LOVE. Gag me with a spoon.
6) The Doctor says that his "shhh" power only works once, and only on those with underdeveloped brains, thus making it a big joke that it works on Craig and the girl in the shop. Haha! But then he uses the "shh" trick on the shopgirl a second time. Wait a minute ... what happened to it only working once? Oh, right, no one gives a shit about any kind of continuity these days.
Curiouser and Curiouser
1) These Cybermen lack the Cybus Industries logo, and the Doctor says that they've been buried there for centuries.
2) We finally get an explanation as to why River never remembered anything about her past - Eyepatch Lady says that they were "far too thorough" with her "dear little head".
Enjoy this little exchange between Craig and the Doctor:
Showing posts with label amy pond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amy pond. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
S6 Episode 11: The God Complex
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!
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!
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:
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.
Monday, August 22, 2011
S6 Episode 7: A Good Man Goes to War
Well, I'm not sure where to begin with this one. It seems so disjointed to me, but I'll give it a shot.
The episode starts out with brief looks at various characters who have appeared in (I can only guess here) classic Doctor Who episodes. Each of their stories ends with the TARDIS appearing - the Doctor has come to collect his debts. He is clearly amassing an army to storm the castle and rescue Amy. Meanwhile on Demon's Run, Amy is talking to her newborn daughter, telling her not to worry because The Last Centurion will come to rescue them. Somewhere in space, Rory shows up on board a Cybership. He says he has a message and a question - "where is my wife?" When the Cybermen ask what the message is, there is an explosion in the background, as several Cyberships are blown to smithereens. Rory says, "shall I repeat the question?"
So Melody is taken from Amy; meanwhile, the Eyepatch Lady and her troops are mustering forces against the Doctor. Among them are the Headless Monks. I'm still not really sure why they're even in this, as they don't really serve much point. A young soldier named Lorna comes to Amy's room with a present of a prayer leaf with Melody's name stitched in the tongue of the Gamma forest people.
The Doctor shows up on Demon's Run disguised as a Headless Monk, and with him are all his buddies who are going to help him. They seem to take over Demon's Run quite quickly, saving Melody and giving her back to Amy. Now, instead of getting on the TARDIS and flying Amy and Rory and Melody off somewhere safe, they all just lark around in the big ol' empty place. The Doctor brings out a cradle for Melody and says it was originally his (which I don't believe for a second). He tells Amy that he believes that she was taken shortly before America, (which I have a hard time believing, too). The lesbians call him to the control room, and it is there that they tell him that the people who had stolen Amy were scanning Melody, and that she was part Time Lord. Cause Amy and Rory did the nasty on the TARDIS.
Just then, the Headless Monks attack and almost all of the Doctor's buddies are killed. During this, the Eyepatch Lady gets on a video link with the Doctor and says something about how fooling him once was super cool but fooling him again in the same way was like the epitome of awesomeness. Well, as the Doctor rushes to Amy, we see that the baby has melted into plastic goo - the baby was an avatar, just like Amy had been. So they have Melody after all.
Lorna dies after seeing the Doctor, and then River shows up. She brings the Doctor over to the cradle and says, "can't you read"? He gets all weird and mentally challenged again and then pops off into his TARDIS and quite irresponsibly leaves them all there. River shows Amy the prayer leaf from Lorna, and since it takes the TARDIS sooooo long to translate the written word, we now see that it says "River" on one side and "Song" on the other. Wow. River is Amy and Rory's daughter. Who'dve guessed?
Curiouser and Curiouser
1) So Moffat is supposed to be this brilliant writer, yet he knocks us on the head with the whole "River Song" thing. Apparently, he didn't think we were smart enough to figure it out from the name "Melody Pond". And River saying, "they don't have a name for 'pond' in the Gamma forests, the only water in the forest is the river". Again, WHACK! Beating us over the head with it.
2) While we're on the prayer leaf (which is actually a pretty neat little concept), let's talk about this whole TARDIS translation thing. According to River, it sometimes takes a little while to translate the written word. Yet, it had no problem translating HELLO SWEETIE on the side of a cliff the second they opened the door last season.
3) It makes no sense that Amy would have been taken before America. She thought she was pregnant. Then they separated, and months later she tells the Doctor that she's better - no pregnancy. It makes soooo much more sense for them to have grabbed her while she was on her own running across the USA, not before.
4) When Rory comes to River at her cell to ask for her help, she stares at him like she's never seen him before. She gets this look of awe and wonder on her face. It's almost sickening. She has to have known in all the previous episodes that Amy and Rory are her parents, so why has she never stared at them like that before, especially when she says that they've already met? Or did she lie? It's so messed up.
5) If Melody was taken from Amy so quickly, how on earth were those pictures of the girl and Amy in the orphanage? I have a hard time believing that Amy would have posed for such a nice picture at Demon's Run. Also, if Melody is River and is also the girl in the astronaut suit, then I will ask again - how does River not know what is going on?
6) My husband pointed this one out to me - the Cybermen in this episode don't have the Cybus Industries mark on them. Are they another type of Cybermen? Do they have a different origin story?
Dislikes:
1) What a strange way to discuss Rory. Moffat clearly wants us to think that Amy's talking about the Doctor - can we please be done with the love triangle? It's soooo tiresome. And seriously, she thinks that Rory has the ability to rescue them? Since when does she have any kind of confidence in Rory? Not to mention that he's NOT older than he looks, if, "in this reality", as the Doctor says, the universe has been rebooted. Also, the Doctor is the one who said that they were going to come get her, not Rory.
2) I can't believe the Doctor blew up an entire Cyber Legion to make his point. Since when is killing so easy for him? It really bothers me. I suppose it's to make their point about how the Doctor has become synonymous with "warrior". However, we already went through all of this at the end of David Tennant's reign. He was starting to act like God, etc. etc. I feel like we're just rehashing all of that. Not to mention the fact that Davros made a huge point about how the Doctor makes people dangerous, he turns them into soldiers. Well, here's the Doctor forcing them into that role, and half of them die. Does he even care? No, he just gets all giggly about River and prances off to his TARDIS, tra la la.
3) River Song is starting to look really old and puffy. I hope they get rid of her fast - and that's not likely to happen. It's going to become the River and Amy Show, isn't it?
4) When the Doctor and his buddies descend on Demon's Run, it really took me aback. One criticism of Russell T. Davies was that he was always bringing back companions and other characters. It's almost like Moffat said, "WWRTDD?" And seriously - Danny Boy? I'm sure that all the Moffat fans LOVED it, though. Had RTD done it, there would have been nothing but whinging. What constant, f-ing hypocrites.
5) The Doctor is so mean. He wants the Colonel to be remembered as "Colonel Runaway". Yes, this is something that Ten would have done (remember, "doesn't she look tired?") However, Eleven is such as ass about it. He cannot be angry without also being a total douche.
6) Again, why don't they just get in the TARDIS where they'll be safe? No, they have to skip around like they're on holiday. Idiots. I get that the Doctor wants to know what's going on, but Amy would still be safer in the TARDIS than anywhere else.
7) The hug between the Doctor and Amy goes on for so long, it's completely awkward. They're having a conservation in the midst of a hug. WTF?
8) When River tells Amy and Rory that she's their daughter, it so reminded me of a soap opera. And that's essentially what Doctor Who is now. Amy and Rory's daughter, who was stolen at birth, is really River Song, their best friend's future wife - we think - who all this time has been sharing adventures with them before they even knew they would have a child. BARF.
Likes:
When the Sontaran is dying, Rory tells him that he'll be okay, he's a warrior. The Sontaran replies, "I'm not a warrior, I'm a nurse". This is quite a reflection of Rory, who is also a nurse, and maybe not the warrior that he is pretending to be at the moment.
Speaking of Cybermen, I just watched this episode the other day - Tomb of the Cybermen - and this scene made me laugh so hard!
The episode starts out with brief looks at various characters who have appeared in (I can only guess here) classic Doctor Who episodes. Each of their stories ends with the TARDIS appearing - the Doctor has come to collect his debts. He is clearly amassing an army to storm the castle and rescue Amy. Meanwhile on Demon's Run, Amy is talking to her newborn daughter, telling her not to worry because The Last Centurion will come to rescue them. Somewhere in space, Rory shows up on board a Cybership. He says he has a message and a question - "where is my wife?" When the Cybermen ask what the message is, there is an explosion in the background, as several Cyberships are blown to smithereens. Rory says, "shall I repeat the question?"
So Melody is taken from Amy; meanwhile, the Eyepatch Lady and her troops are mustering forces against the Doctor. Among them are the Headless Monks. I'm still not really sure why they're even in this, as they don't really serve much point. A young soldier named Lorna comes to Amy's room with a present of a prayer leaf with Melody's name stitched in the tongue of the Gamma forest people.
The Doctor shows up on Demon's Run disguised as a Headless Monk, and with him are all his buddies who are going to help him. They seem to take over Demon's Run quite quickly, saving Melody and giving her back to Amy. Now, instead of getting on the TARDIS and flying Amy and Rory and Melody off somewhere safe, they all just lark around in the big ol' empty place. The Doctor brings out a cradle for Melody and says it was originally his (which I don't believe for a second). He tells Amy that he believes that she was taken shortly before America, (which I have a hard time believing, too). The lesbians call him to the control room, and it is there that they tell him that the people who had stolen Amy were scanning Melody, and that she was part Time Lord. Cause Amy and Rory did the nasty on the TARDIS.
Just then, the Headless Monks attack and almost all of the Doctor's buddies are killed. During this, the Eyepatch Lady gets on a video link with the Doctor and says something about how fooling him once was super cool but fooling him again in the same way was like the epitome of awesomeness. Well, as the Doctor rushes to Amy, we see that the baby has melted into plastic goo - the baby was an avatar, just like Amy had been. So they have Melody after all.
Lorna dies after seeing the Doctor, and then River shows up. She brings the Doctor over to the cradle and says, "can't you read"? He gets all weird and mentally challenged again and then pops off into his TARDIS and quite irresponsibly leaves them all there. River shows Amy the prayer leaf from Lorna, and since it takes the TARDIS sooooo long to translate the written word, we now see that it says "River" on one side and "Song" on the other. Wow. River is Amy and Rory's daughter. Who'dve guessed?
Curiouser and Curiouser
1) So Moffat is supposed to be this brilliant writer, yet he knocks us on the head with the whole "River Song" thing. Apparently, he didn't think we were smart enough to figure it out from the name "Melody Pond". And River saying, "they don't have a name for 'pond' in the Gamma forests, the only water in the forest is the river". Again, WHACK! Beating us over the head with it.
2) While we're on the prayer leaf (which is actually a pretty neat little concept), let's talk about this whole TARDIS translation thing. According to River, it sometimes takes a little while to translate the written word. Yet, it had no problem translating HELLO SWEETIE on the side of a cliff the second they opened the door last season.
3) It makes no sense that Amy would have been taken before America. She thought she was pregnant. Then they separated, and months later she tells the Doctor that she's better - no pregnancy. It makes soooo much more sense for them to have grabbed her while she was on her own running across the USA, not before.
4) When Rory comes to River at her cell to ask for her help, she stares at him like she's never seen him before. She gets this look of awe and wonder on her face. It's almost sickening. She has to have known in all the previous episodes that Amy and Rory are her parents, so why has she never stared at them like that before, especially when she says that they've already met? Or did she lie? It's so messed up.
5) If Melody was taken from Amy so quickly, how on earth were those pictures of the girl and Amy in the orphanage? I have a hard time believing that Amy would have posed for such a nice picture at Demon's Run. Also, if Melody is River and is also the girl in the astronaut suit, then I will ask again - how does River not know what is going on?
6) My husband pointed this one out to me - the Cybermen in this episode don't have the Cybus Industries mark on them. Are they another type of Cybermen? Do they have a different origin story?
Dislikes:
1) What a strange way to discuss Rory. Moffat clearly wants us to think that Amy's talking about the Doctor - can we please be done with the love triangle? It's soooo tiresome. And seriously, she thinks that Rory has the ability to rescue them? Since when does she have any kind of confidence in Rory? Not to mention that he's NOT older than he looks, if, "in this reality", as the Doctor says, the universe has been rebooted. Also, the Doctor is the one who said that they were going to come get her, not Rory.
2) I can't believe the Doctor blew up an entire Cyber Legion to make his point. Since when is killing so easy for him? It really bothers me. I suppose it's to make their point about how the Doctor has become synonymous with "warrior". However, we already went through all of this at the end of David Tennant's reign. He was starting to act like God, etc. etc. I feel like we're just rehashing all of that. Not to mention the fact that Davros made a huge point about how the Doctor makes people dangerous, he turns them into soldiers. Well, here's the Doctor forcing them into that role, and half of them die. Does he even care? No, he just gets all giggly about River and prances off to his TARDIS, tra la la.
3) River Song is starting to look really old and puffy. I hope they get rid of her fast - and that's not likely to happen. It's going to become the River and Amy Show, isn't it?
4) When the Doctor and his buddies descend on Demon's Run, it really took me aback. One criticism of Russell T. Davies was that he was always bringing back companions and other characters. It's almost like Moffat said, "WWRTDD?" And seriously - Danny Boy? I'm sure that all the Moffat fans LOVED it, though. Had RTD done it, there would have been nothing but whinging. What constant, f-ing hypocrites.
5) The Doctor is so mean. He wants the Colonel to be remembered as "Colonel Runaway". Yes, this is something that Ten would have done (remember, "doesn't she look tired?") However, Eleven is such as ass about it. He cannot be angry without also being a total douche.
6) Again, why don't they just get in the TARDIS where they'll be safe? No, they have to skip around like they're on holiday. Idiots. I get that the Doctor wants to know what's going on, but Amy would still be safer in the TARDIS than anywhere else.
7) The hug between the Doctor and Amy goes on for so long, it's completely awkward. They're having a conservation in the midst of a hug. WTF?
8) When River tells Amy and Rory that she's their daughter, it so reminded me of a soap opera. And that's essentially what Doctor Who is now. Amy and Rory's daughter, who was stolen at birth, is really River Song, their best friend's future wife - we think - who all this time has been sharing adventures with them before they even knew they would have a child. BARF.
Likes:
When the Sontaran is dying, Rory tells him that he'll be okay, he's a warrior. The Sontaran replies, "I'm not a warrior, I'm a nurse". This is quite a reflection of Rory, who is also a nurse, and maybe not the warrior that he is pretending to be at the moment.
Speaking of Cybermen, I just watched this episode the other day - Tomb of the Cybermen - and this scene made me laugh so hard!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
S6 Episode 3: Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Curse of the Black Spot
Surprisingly, I don't have too many issues with this episode. I should rephrase that: I have less issues that I expected I'd have, considering I LOATHE Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. A lot of reviews that I've read or listened to heavily criticized the graphics. I had zero problems with the graphics - that's about the only thing I had zero problems with.
The Doctor and his Companions are off on a storyarc-less adventure on the high seas! They arrive on board a pirate ship whose crew is slowly being taken by a Siren-like creature. Once they are injured, even in the slightest way, they are marked with the black spot; she appears (I almost wrote "Apparates") and sings to the sailors, enchanting them. At her touch, they apparently explode. The crew get picked off rather quickly, despite having been becalmed for eight days. At one point, Rory gets a superficial cut, but Amy and the Doctor prevent him from being taken by the Siren. Pretty soon it's just the Captain, the Doctor, Amy, Rory, Toby (the Captain's stowaway son) and two other pirates. After discovering that the Siren can get in through water, they barricade themselves inside the armory.
The Doctor and the Captain make their way to the TARDIS, who is also becalmed, and disappears (or "Disapparates", if you prefer) as they watch. One of the crew members leaves the armory to pilfer the loot, and he is taken by the Siren. It is then that the Doctor then realizes that it's not water that calls the Siren, but reflections. And, OH NO! The Captain's pendant is gone! They rush back to the armory just as Toby starts to polish the pendant. The Doctor starts breaking out all the windows and throwing all the treasure overboard, but the Captain secrets a crown inside his coat. He LOVES treasure!
Well, then a huge storm whips up, and as Toby brings his father his coat, the crown rolls out and Toby is taken by the Siren. Then Rory gets knocked overboard. The Doctor, Captain, and Amy all cut their hands so that the Siren will come take them. She arrives, and they all reach out to her.
They all wake up on the floor of a space ship. All of the crew members are lying on beds, hooked up to machines. The Doctor figures out that the Siren is really some kind of hologram, and the space ship had been becalmed just like the pirate ship. And reflections were a way for the hologram to get through. She was rescuing all of the people who were injured, even if it was minor. However, she doesn't know how humans work, so she can't actually heal them, just keep them in stasis. Amy wants to take Rory back to the TARDIS, so she gives her consent to the hologram. Before unhooking Rory, he wakes up and tells her that she'll have to do CPR, which Amy says she doesn't know. But he trusts her. So she unhooks him, they get back to the TARDIS, and Amy performs CPR. After a minute, though, she gives up. And then, miraculously, Rory spits out water and is okay.
Before they leave, the Captain says he's not leaving his son. So, he decides to fly the space ship away (a ship is a ship, after all). All the crew members (that we'd met) and Toby all stand around his chair.
Repeat Ideas:
Hmm. I couldn't come up with any repeat ideas, as this is the first time we've seen a watery tart charming things with her singing ... hang on a minute ...
1) A watery tart charming things with her singing. We JUST watched Abigail charm the shark and control the fog with her singing. Yes, it was a few months prior to this episode, but it was only FOUR episodes ago!
2) A medical specialist who didn't know how to heal its patients? I have four words for you - ARE YOU MY MUMMY?
3) When they find the aliens in the space ship, the Doctor makes a comment along the lines of, "have you ever looked in a mirror and thought you were seeing a different world?" This is a bit too similar to the line in Family of Blood, "He trapped her inside a mirror ... If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that's her. That's always her.
4) In case you haven't been keeping count, this is the third time that Rory dies. Fourth, if you count his fake death in Day of the Moon.
Dislikes:
1) The crew gets picked off so fast. Seriously, are there THAT many injuries on a ship? At the rate that everyone is getting injured, the whole crew should have been gone days ago.
2) The Siren doesn't come for Rory until he realizes that he's been cut. That's convenient.
3) The original concept, that the Siren could travel through water, was a MUCH better concept than traveling through reflections.
4) How does the Captain knows that Toby is his son? He's clearly never met him, as Toby says, "[Mother] told me all about you, I should be proud to know you".
5) When the Doctor and the Captain leave the armory to go to the TARDIS, the Captain slips and almost cuts his hand. I have a hard time believing that a man who spends his whole life at sea could be that clumsy.
6) When they first enter the armory, there are two crew members besides Amy, Rory, and Toby. But, a few minutes later, there is only one. Where did the other crew member go?
7) Why did the Siren take the TARDIS? I understand that the TARDIS is alive, unlike the ship, but is there something wrong with the TARDIS besides being becalmed? I doubt it. They only made the TARDIS disappear so that they could get Rory onboard. If it was going to disappear, it should have happened before this.
8) If there are all these pieces of reflective treasure laying around, she would have total access to the ship. But, because you have to see a REFLECTION, then the treasure would have been fine being kept locked up somewhere. There was no need to throw it all overboard.
9) The Doctor calls the Siren to them by opening up the barrel of fresh water during the storm. DURING. THE. STORM. I've never been on a ship during a storm, but I'm guessing that the water isn't exactly reflection-friendly when the ship is being tossed about and there is no moon.
10) When the Siren takes the Doctor, Amy, and the Captain, they wake up on the floor of the space ship. Why aren't they in a bed like everyone else?
11) They find the aliens, and the Doctor touches them, then exclaims, "ew, alien bogies!" Wait a minute ... if the ship was becalmed for eight days, then the alien space ship must have been there for at least eight days, too. The aliens must have died pretty soon after landing there, since they're all still strapped in to their seats, and, if the Captain was able to fly the ship away, it wasn't becalmed. So why are their bogies still fresh?
12) How did the Doctor get consent from the Siren to take the TARDIS away? And how was Toby sitting up with the Captain when he flew the ship away? And all the other crew members? Did he give his consent? Is there some kind of long extension cord stretched between the bridge and the sick bay that's keeping Toby alive? I'm so confused.
Likes:
1) I did like how the Captain kept saying, "a ship's a ship". I love it when people from the past are able to grasp modern concepts. After all, they weren't stupid, just had no exposure to modern technology. It drives me crazy in books and movies when someone time travels to the past and everyone is terrified of technology. Overall, the Captain was a really good character.
Bottom line: most of this story didn't make sense, but it was kind of fun.
And now, Davy Jones has a question for Rory:
The Doctor and his Companions are off on a storyarc-less adventure on the high seas! They arrive on board a pirate ship whose crew is slowly being taken by a Siren-like creature. Once they are injured, even in the slightest way, they are marked with the black spot; she appears (I almost wrote "Apparates") and sings to the sailors, enchanting them. At her touch, they apparently explode. The crew get picked off rather quickly, despite having been becalmed for eight days. At one point, Rory gets a superficial cut, but Amy and the Doctor prevent him from being taken by the Siren. Pretty soon it's just the Captain, the Doctor, Amy, Rory, Toby (the Captain's stowaway son) and two other pirates. After discovering that the Siren can get in through water, they barricade themselves inside the armory.
The Doctor and the Captain make their way to the TARDIS, who is also becalmed, and disappears (or "Disapparates", if you prefer) as they watch. One of the crew members leaves the armory to pilfer the loot, and he is taken by the Siren. It is then that the Doctor then realizes that it's not water that calls the Siren, but reflections. And, OH NO! The Captain's pendant is gone! They rush back to the armory just as Toby starts to polish the pendant. The Doctor starts breaking out all the windows and throwing all the treasure overboard, but the Captain secrets a crown inside his coat. He LOVES treasure!
Well, then a huge storm whips up, and as Toby brings his father his coat, the crown rolls out and Toby is taken by the Siren. Then Rory gets knocked overboard. The Doctor, Captain, and Amy all cut their hands so that the Siren will come take them. She arrives, and they all reach out to her.
They all wake up on the floor of a space ship. All of the crew members are lying on beds, hooked up to machines. The Doctor figures out that the Siren is really some kind of hologram, and the space ship had been becalmed just like the pirate ship. And reflections were a way for the hologram to get through. She was rescuing all of the people who were injured, even if it was minor. However, she doesn't know how humans work, so she can't actually heal them, just keep them in stasis. Amy wants to take Rory back to the TARDIS, so she gives her consent to the hologram. Before unhooking Rory, he wakes up and tells her that she'll have to do CPR, which Amy says she doesn't know. But he trusts her. So she unhooks him, they get back to the TARDIS, and Amy performs CPR. After a minute, though, she gives up. And then, miraculously, Rory spits out water and is okay.
Before they leave, the Captain says he's not leaving his son. So, he decides to fly the space ship away (a ship is a ship, after all). All the crew members (that we'd met) and Toby all stand around his chair.
Repeat Ideas:
Hmm. I couldn't come up with any repeat ideas, as this is the first time we've seen a watery tart charming things with her singing ... hang on a minute ...
1) A watery tart charming things with her singing. We JUST watched Abigail charm the shark and control the fog with her singing. Yes, it was a few months prior to this episode, but it was only FOUR episodes ago!
2) A medical specialist who didn't know how to heal its patients? I have four words for you - ARE YOU MY MUMMY?
3) When they find the aliens in the space ship, the Doctor makes a comment along the lines of, "have you ever looked in a mirror and thought you were seeing a different world?" This is a bit too similar to the line in Family of Blood, "He trapped her inside a mirror ... If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that's her. That's always her.
4) In case you haven't been keeping count, this is the third time that Rory dies. Fourth, if you count his fake death in Day of the Moon.
Dislikes:
1) The crew gets picked off so fast. Seriously, are there THAT many injuries on a ship? At the rate that everyone is getting injured, the whole crew should have been gone days ago.
2) The Siren doesn't come for Rory until he realizes that he's been cut. That's convenient.
3) The original concept, that the Siren could travel through water, was a MUCH better concept than traveling through reflections.
4) How does the Captain knows that Toby is his son? He's clearly never met him, as Toby says, "[Mother] told me all about you, I should be proud to know you".
5) When the Doctor and the Captain leave the armory to go to the TARDIS, the Captain slips and almost cuts his hand. I have a hard time believing that a man who spends his whole life at sea could be that clumsy.
6) When they first enter the armory, there are two crew members besides Amy, Rory, and Toby. But, a few minutes later, there is only one. Where did the other crew member go?
7) Why did the Siren take the TARDIS? I understand that the TARDIS is alive, unlike the ship, but is there something wrong with the TARDIS besides being becalmed? I doubt it. They only made the TARDIS disappear so that they could get Rory onboard. If it was going to disappear, it should have happened before this.
8) If there are all these pieces of reflective treasure laying around, she would have total access to the ship. But, because you have to see a REFLECTION, then the treasure would have been fine being kept locked up somewhere. There was no need to throw it all overboard.
9) The Doctor calls the Siren to them by opening up the barrel of fresh water during the storm. DURING. THE. STORM. I've never been on a ship during a storm, but I'm guessing that the water isn't exactly reflection-friendly when the ship is being tossed about and there is no moon.
10) When the Siren takes the Doctor, Amy, and the Captain, they wake up on the floor of the space ship. Why aren't they in a bed like everyone else?
11) They find the aliens, and the Doctor touches them, then exclaims, "ew, alien bogies!" Wait a minute ... if the ship was becalmed for eight days, then the alien space ship must have been there for at least eight days, too. The aliens must have died pretty soon after landing there, since they're all still strapped in to their seats, and, if the Captain was able to fly the ship away, it wasn't becalmed. So why are their bogies still fresh?
12) How did the Doctor get consent from the Siren to take the TARDIS away? And how was Toby sitting up with the Captain when he flew the ship away? And all the other crew members? Did he give his consent? Is there some kind of long extension cord stretched between the bridge and the sick bay that's keeping Toby alive? I'm so confused.
Likes:
1) I did like how the Captain kept saying, "a ship's a ship". I love it when people from the past are able to grasp modern concepts. After all, they weren't stupid, just had no exposure to modern technology. It drives me crazy in books and movies when someone time travels to the past and everyone is terrified of technology. Overall, the Captain was a really good character.
Bottom line: most of this story didn't make sense, but it was kind of fun.
And now, Davy Jones has a question for Rory:
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
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:
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