Finally, the episode we've all been waiting for!
The Doctor is resigned to his fate, but first, he wants to know why he has to die. Moffat makes things even more ridiculously complicated by having Dorium tell him some crazy-ass prophecy. The Silence wants to avoid this prophecy from coming true, so their solution is to kill the Doctor. Because apparently, if he lives, the universe will end (for what, the 6,000th time?) He gives the Teselecta the invitations for Amy, Rory, River, Canton, and himself to deliver because he can't cross his own time line (this week).
He goes to Lake Silencio and, sure enough, the Impossible Astronaut is River Song, who just found out that she's the one who kills him. But then, shockingly, the Doctor doesn't die! River somehow stops the suit from killing him!
And now time is screwed up. All of time is existing at once (but selectively, there's not a dozen Prime Ministers running around). People can't remember the way it was before, and time is always stuck at 5:02.
The Doctor finds Amy, who is wearing an eyepatch. She doesn't seem to know that Rory is Rory, and she tells the Doctor that she's looking for him (but she thinks he looks like someone else - is that drawing supposed to be the other guy from The Eleventh Hour?) Anyway, she takes him to the pyramids, there are a bunch of Silence and Madame Eyepatch imprisoned, Rory is a guard, and River is there ... because ...
But wait! It's a trap! The Silence "escape" by making the eye patches malfunction; the Doctor and Amy get out, but Rory insists on staying behind to save Amy. However, just as the Silence are about to kill him, Amy saves Rory. They leave Madame Eyepatch to die.
So if the Doctor touches River, this time will be undone, and they'll be back at Lake Silencio. But the Doctor insists on fixing things, so he and River get married, and time reverts back to Lake Silencio. The Doctor dies.
Some time after this, River shows up at Amy and Rory's house. She has a chat with Amy, wherein she tells her that the Doctor is still alive. And, sure enough, he is. Because the thing that "died" was the Teselecta. But now everyone thinks he's dead, so everything will be okay and no one will come after him.
Dang.
Dislikes:
1) Well, I hated just about everything in this episode. Where to start? I guess, first of all, I am really tired of all these characters coming back and coming back and coming back. During the RTD era, everyone who didn't like RTD complained about characters showing up all the time - I just cannot wrap my head around why it's okay for Moffat to do the same thing, and the RTD haters have no problem with it. Personally, I don't have a problem with characters coming back, except for the fact that it was an issue with RTD haters!
2) So ... the Doctor has to save the universe again? Once again, this was an issue with RTD haters. I don't see all of them shouting about how ridiculous is it for the Doctor to have to save the universe at the end of every series now.
3) The Doctor says, "I hate rats" - please do not tell me that this is an Indiana Jones reference ("I hate snakes"). I guess that's my only issue with the line ...
4) Again with the Rose and Jack references - they drive me crazy. I'd be okay with him never mentioning them, since previous Doctors don't seem to mention former companions. But I have a hard time believing that he'd send letters to Amy and Rory over Jack. So shut the f*&# up about him.
5) Since when does the Doctor care about crossing his own time stream? Seriously, I'd appreciate a bit of consistency in the rules.
6) Silence = still not scary, especially since it looks like they're all farting in their little water prisons.
7) How did River rewrite time? Is it because she's a magical TARDIS baby?
8) Why is the Doctor trying to get Amy and Rory together? Rory is so much better without her. Oh, probably because without Rory, Amy would be trying to rape the Doctor. Yeah, I'd try to set her up with someone else, too.
9) So much of this episode doesn't make sense - it seems like Moffat did certain things, like Amy not recognizing Rory, just to have a gag. Honestly, why does Amy remember River, but not Rory?
10) Overall, I hate the structure of this entire episode. I'm not sure what I meant by that statement, but I don't really want to watch it again, so I'll leave that to you, Dear Reader, to figure out.
11) If Silence will fall when the Doctor dies, and it's the Silence orchestrating the whole thing, then why do they want to destroy themselves? Are they that stupid, that they don't understand that silence = Silence? (Although, I still think that "silence" and "Silence" being the same thing is ridiculous. I still maintain that the "silence" spoken of in the last series was referring to the crack obliterating the universe. Why would the fishy vampires be running from the Silence?)
Likes:
1) How did I forget about the Teselecta? I should have realized then that he would have them assume his appearance. This was cool, and I don't think anyone expected it.
2) I believe that when the eyepatch viking falls into the pit, that's the first time this Doctor has tried to save his enemy (as opposed to Ten, who almost always tried to save his enemies).
3) When Amy leaves Madame Eyepatch to die, she says of her coldness, "River didn't get it all from you, sweetie." That was pretty cool.
4) Hot damn, I think Karen Gillan has finally learned how to act. I love the look on her face when she says that she's the Doctor's mother-in-law.
5) I really enjoyed the scene between Amy and River at the end, when Amy says that she got them a bottle of wine. It was the first moment where I really gave a crap about their relationship. It was a genuine moment, and it was such a relief to see that after two series where so much seems forced.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
There were a few things in the "Dislikes" section that belong here, but they bothered me so much that I put them in the earlier category. However, let's explore this whole "dead Doctor" idea, and the problems it presents.
1) The Teselecta know that he's not dead.
2) If his "not dying" made the world all funky, but he didn't die, then why is the world all funky (because Moffat needed a reason to do something SO SUPER CRAZY!) His death, or at least, the appearance of his death, was a fixed point in time. Unless River shooting him is the fixed point. But wait, why was she able to not shoot him?
3) How can he go on any more adventures if he's "dead"? And since he's a Time Lord and can do things out of chronological order, then how do the Silence know that killing him on April 22, 2011 will prevent the future event from happening? Shit, can everyone time travel?
4) The whole universe just keeps resetting, Amy has all these memories of other time streams. She is seriously going to end up in a mental institution.
5) On a separate note, we are led to believe that the Doctor is actually 200 years older than he was when he left Amy. I have a very hard time believing that out of all of his companions, Amy and Canton are on his Top Four Most Trusted list. What about Jack? Martha? Sarah Jane (sniff)? And I guess we have to assume that he's been courting River this whole time, including time in her own time line before she was forced to kill him?
So, at the end of Series 6, we're left with more questions, more convoluted problems, and very few real answers. I'd like to see River Song leave for good. I don't think that she and the Doctor have any chemistry, and I didn't feel like he "married" her because he loves her. I don't feel any of the chemistry between River and Eleven that we felt with Rose and Ten, or even Rose and Nine. I don't know if it's the directing, the writing, or the huge age gap between the two actors, but I just don't buy the Doctor/River relationship. And since Moffat has thrown the whole "my past is his future" concept out the window, we have no idea where we are in either of their time lines.
And I'm so done with Amy. I can't imagine what use she is to the Doctor anymore. He's used her, the Silence have used her - let her just go and live her little life with Rory. Or, you know, that handsome guy from The Eleventh Hour, so Rory can go off and have adventures with the Doctor.
We won't have any new episodes of Doctor Who until next fall, and it really, honestly pains me to say this, but I don't care. I don't care what happens to any of these characters. I'm not on the edge of my seat the way I was after watching the first three series back-to-back, then having to wait an excruciatingly long time for series 4 and the specials. I don't feel that way anymore, and it makes me really sad. I'd love to see Eleven break out on his own for a while, or hang out with Sally Sparrow. I'd love (as mentioned above) for Amy to have an affair and dump Rory so he can tool around the 'Verse in the TARDIS.
Since there will be no more Eleven to write about for a while, I'll pop in here every once in a while to discuss other things that bother me about Doctor Who. For instance, when I read forums and Facebook groups, I often think that these people must be watching a different series from me, since they interpret things so differently. I'll pick out the things that I disagree with and write about them here, rather than start a flame war.
Until then, this is for both Amy and River:
Showing posts with label river song. Show all posts
Showing posts with label river song. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 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!
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!
Friday, July 22, 2011
S6 Episode 2: Day of the Moon
Here we are with Part 2 of Moffat's two-part series opener. When last we left our heroes, Amy had just shot at the little girl in the astronaut outfit. But now, surprise! It's three months later and Amy is running through the desert. Canton appears and pulls out a body bag. He apparently shoots Amy, who falls to the ground and we see that her arms are covered in black marks. Canton then corners River, who is writing marks on her skin as she counts the Silence. She then jumps out of a building. He also hunts down marker-covered Rory. Amy and Rory are taken in body bags to the Doctor, who is tied in a straight jacket out in Area 51. Soldiers have built some kind of magic box around him, and as Canton closes the door, Amy and Rory burst out of their body bags. The Doctor leans against the invisible TARDIS, and they rush off to save River, who plunges into the TARDIS's swimming pool as she dives off of the building.
Reunited in the TARDIS, the group discusses the Silence, whom they have discovered have been on Earth for thousands of years - it's not an alien invasion, it's been complete domination and no one knows. Well, except for the Doctor, Rory, Amy, River, and Canton. No one else remembers after seeing them except for these guys. WTF. They've been traveling the US for three months counting how many Silence they see. Also, Amy tells the Doctor that she's not pregnant after all.
Moving on. The Doctor injects a little red light in each of their hands - it's kind of a recorder, in which they can leave themselves messages. If the light is blinking, they've left a message, which is usually "holy crap, the Silence are here!" In X-Files style, Amy and Canton apparently travel from orphanage to orphanage looking for the missing little girl. I'm not really sure how they came to the conclusion that they had to go to orphanages, but there you have it. They find an orphanage that closed down in 1967, but the guy who runs it thinks it's not 1967 yet. He's clearly messed up. Amy explores and finds a bunch of Silence hanging from the ceiling sleeping. She runs out of the room, but forgets right away that there was something there, and she continues to explore. As she approaches a door, a slot opens in it and a lady wearing an eyepatch looks through and says, "I think she's dreaming". Amy enters the room and finds a child's room with lots of pictures of the little girl. She also finds a picture of herself holding a baby. Ooh. The astronaut/little girl enters the room, followed by the Silence, and Amy starts screaming. Canton finds a Silent, too, and when he hears Amy screaming, he shoots it.
Meanwhile, the Doctor has been tinkering in Apollo 11. He is taken into custody, but Rory and Nixon walk out of the TARDIS and convinces the guards to release him.
The Doctor shows up and they find that Amy is missing, and the blinking light is laying on the floor. They can hear Amy through the light, but they don't know where she is. They find the astronaut suit, which is empty - the girl clawed her way out of it, so she must be super strong ("my kind of girl", the Doctor says. ::Shudder::) The Doctor tells them that the Silence are implanting thoughts into people's minds, giving them ideas, advancing the culture (I'm still not seeing the problem with the Silence). The reason that man decided to go to the moon was because the Silence needed a space suit. Apparently the Silence are lazy and didn't feel like building one themselves.
Back in Area 51, Canton and Nixon walk out of the super secure bunker thingie to the surprise of everyone. Inside, Canton uses Amy phone to record the Silent, whom they took hostage, saying "you should kill us all on sight".
The Doctor discovers Amy's location and takes the TARDIS there. Just as Neil Armstrong starts his famous line, "one small step for man - " the Doctor interrupts the live feed with the video of the Silent saying "you should kill us all on sight" over and over and over. He tells the Silence that they just ordered their own demise. The Silence try to give them the Dementor's Kiss, and River opens fire. They all escape, but only after River'scheesy totally awesome gun skills, where she spins around while firing her gun, take out the rest of the Silence.
The Doctor takes River back to her prison, where she snogs him. She's shocked and horrified to discover that it's the first time the Doctor has kissed her. One step closer to death, River dear! The Doctor then runs a full-body scan on Amy to see if she's pregnant, and the scan keeps oscillating between POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
The final scene shows us the little girl six months later as she regenerates. Ta da.
Epic Entrance
At first, you're all like, "whoa! Why is Canton hunting them down?" Amy pleads with him, "don't you remember the warehouse?" River asks him, "why are you doing this?" And the Doctor is all tied up. So wow, what made Canton do this? We don't know! We never find out! There is no point to this entrance, other than to demonstrate how awesome Moffat is. Seriously, there is no reason whatsoever. It's not like anyone really knew that the Doctor and his companions existed. No one else certainly knew about the Silence. Did something happen while they were going all over America looking for the Silence? Is it just a way for them to be reunited? What, they couldn't say, "look mates, we'll all reunite back on this spot on July 15"? I think this is not only an unnecessarily epic entrance, it's STUPID.
Repeat Ideas:
These aren't my typical I-have-beef-with-this repeat ideas. Just something that I've noticed has been mentioned before.
1) River says "There's always a way out" - this is what the Doctor says in The Time of Angels.
2) When Canton is hunting down Rory, he says, "I'm waiting for you to run. It would look better if I shout you while you were running." This is very similar to what is said in The Time of Angels about River Song: "Wait til she runs. Don't make it look like an execution."
Dislikes:
1) The writing all over them. It's creepy, it's shocking, but when you think about it, it's totally unnecessary. They know that there are countless Silence - do they really think they need to keep a tally? What are they going to do, take a census?
2) The flashing red lights in their hands. Umm ... why didn't the Doctor just give them, I don't know, a journal? Really, the only answer is to inject the flashing red light?
3) The Doctor's prison is comprised of zero balance dwarf star alloy. It's completely impenetrable; the blocks fuse together as they're placed on top of each other, and nothing can get in or out. Okay, cool. Wait - WTF? We haven't even been to the MOON yet - where did they get this supers awesome material? Again, it's completely ridiculous and its sole purpose is to add to the EPIC ENTRANCE. I'm more irritated the more I think about it ...
4) Nixon travels in the TARDIS. So, he's a companion now? Just like ALLLLLLL the other characters who have casually traveled in the TARDIS over the last season. It's like some kind of freaking taxicab.
5) The Doctor tells Nixon to tape everything that happens in his office. Sigh.
6) Since when does the Doctor encourage people to kill? And again, what did the Silence really do that was so bad? I feel like we don't have a good reason to get rid of them except they kill people who look at them too long.
7) I really feel like this whole Silence thing was pulled out of Moffat's rear end. The Silence clearly was connected to the Crack. Silence fell. SILENCE FELL. There are flashbacks when the Doctor learns what the Silence are called to people in Series 5 saying "Silence will fall" ... Okay, so are they telling him that the Silence will fall because of the Doctor? But then the Silent says himself, "and the Silence will fall!" Does "fall" have another meaning of which I'm unaware? I feel that the whole concept of the Silence being connected to the Crack is a real stretch. They could have been called something else and still had the same premise.
8) When the Doctor broadcasts the Silent saying, "you should kill us all on sight", it interrupts Neil Armstrong saying, "that's one small step for man -" but then picks up again with, "one small step for mankind". The video of the Silent clearly plays several times (it's not just being repeated for effect, to show that everyone around the world is seeing this). So what was Neil Armstrong saying in the interim? Seriously. It's a LIVE FEED. Also, you'll notice that after the Silent says that line, everyone turns around to see the Silence. Wait ... how did they know that the Silence were standing behind them?
Likes:
::crickets::
Okay, fine. I like Canton. Actually, to be more specific, I like Mark Sheppard.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Amy's ghosting. Yes, that's right, the only purpose for those little red lights are so that Amy can ghost, a la Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Oh, and kind of Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. It just really aggravates me that he can't come up with a new device.
2) River lands in the swimming pool. Just like she flew out of that space ship in Time of Angels and the Doctor caught her. This is aggravating to me because if he can just go back and catch her, then no one can ever truly be in peril. And seriously, is the Doctor going to keep catching her? Yawn.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
1) In The Impossible Astronaut, River tells Rory that the Doctor "dropped out of the sky". When Amy is ghosting, she says, "you dropped out of the sky", and "my life was so boring before you". We think she's talking about the Doctor, but it turns out she's talking about Rory. Come on, no she's not. She's totally talking about the Doctor, exactly in the same way that River was talking about the Doctor when he dropped out of the sky for her (when she was a little girl! Fancy that! I'm shocked! The Doctor visiting one of Moffat's characters when she was a little girl? Who'd have guessed? Seriously, though, is Moffat screwed up or what, that this is a running theme in all of his story lines?) Anyway, I'm so glad that the whole Amy/Doctor/Rory thing has been cleared up. Right.
2) The Doctor talks to Rory about when Rory was the Last Centurion. He asks if Rory remembers that. Wait ... how could Rory remember it? The whole universe got rebooted. How would he remember that if he wasn't plastic anymore? Is this a setup for what happens later in the series?
These two episodes have me so mad, I kind of wish that every time I looked away from them I'd forget how much they infuriate me.
Ahhhh ... Ianto ...
Reunited in the TARDIS, the group discusses the Silence, whom they have discovered have been on Earth for thousands of years - it's not an alien invasion, it's been complete domination and no one knows. Well, except for the Doctor, Rory, Amy, River, and Canton. No one else remembers after seeing them except for these guys. WTF. They've been traveling the US for three months counting how many Silence they see. Also, Amy tells the Doctor that she's not pregnant after all.
Moving on. The Doctor injects a little red light in each of their hands - it's kind of a recorder, in which they can leave themselves messages. If the light is blinking, they've left a message, which is usually "holy crap, the Silence are here!" In X-Files style, Amy and Canton apparently travel from orphanage to orphanage looking for the missing little girl. I'm not really sure how they came to the conclusion that they had to go to orphanages, but there you have it. They find an orphanage that closed down in 1967, but the guy who runs it thinks it's not 1967 yet. He's clearly messed up. Amy explores and finds a bunch of Silence hanging from the ceiling sleeping. She runs out of the room, but forgets right away that there was something there, and she continues to explore. As she approaches a door, a slot opens in it and a lady wearing an eyepatch looks through and says, "I think she's dreaming". Amy enters the room and finds a child's room with lots of pictures of the little girl. She also finds a picture of herself holding a baby. Ooh. The astronaut/little girl enters the room, followed by the Silence, and Amy starts screaming. Canton finds a Silent, too, and when he hears Amy screaming, he shoots it.
Meanwhile, the Doctor has been tinkering in Apollo 11. He is taken into custody, but Rory and Nixon walk out of the TARDIS and convinces the guards to release him.
The Doctor shows up and they find that Amy is missing, and the blinking light is laying on the floor. They can hear Amy through the light, but they don't know where she is. They find the astronaut suit, which is empty - the girl clawed her way out of it, so she must be super strong ("my kind of girl", the Doctor says. ::Shudder::) The Doctor tells them that the Silence are implanting thoughts into people's minds, giving them ideas, advancing the culture (I'm still not seeing the problem with the Silence). The reason that man decided to go to the moon was because the Silence needed a space suit. Apparently the Silence are lazy and didn't feel like building one themselves.
Back in Area 51, Canton and Nixon walk out of the super secure bunker thingie to the surprise of everyone. Inside, Canton uses Amy phone to record the Silent, whom they took hostage, saying "you should kill us all on sight".
The Doctor discovers Amy's location and takes the TARDIS there. Just as Neil Armstrong starts his famous line, "one small step for man - " the Doctor interrupts the live feed with the video of the Silent saying "you should kill us all on sight" over and over and over. He tells the Silence that they just ordered their own demise. The Silence try to give them the Dementor's Kiss, and River opens fire. They all escape, but only after River's
The Doctor takes River back to her prison, where she snogs him. She's shocked and horrified to discover that it's the first time the Doctor has kissed her. One step closer to death, River dear! The Doctor then runs a full-body scan on Amy to see if she's pregnant, and the scan keeps oscillating between POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
The final scene shows us the little girl six months later as she regenerates. Ta da.
Epic Entrance
At first, you're all like, "whoa! Why is Canton hunting them down?" Amy pleads with him, "don't you remember the warehouse?" River asks him, "why are you doing this?" And the Doctor is all tied up. So wow, what made Canton do this? We don't know! We never find out! There is no point to this entrance, other than to demonstrate how awesome Moffat is. Seriously, there is no reason whatsoever. It's not like anyone really knew that the Doctor and his companions existed. No one else certainly knew about the Silence. Did something happen while they were going all over America looking for the Silence? Is it just a way for them to be reunited? What, they couldn't say, "look mates, we'll all reunite back on this spot on July 15"? I think this is not only an unnecessarily epic entrance, it's STUPID.
Repeat Ideas:
These aren't my typical I-have-beef-with-this repeat ideas. Just something that I've noticed has been mentioned before.
1) River says "There's always a way out" - this is what the Doctor says in The Time of Angels.
2) When Canton is hunting down Rory, he says, "I'm waiting for you to run. It would look better if I shout you while you were running." This is very similar to what is said in The Time of Angels about River Song: "Wait til she runs. Don't make it look like an execution."
Dislikes:
1) The writing all over them. It's creepy, it's shocking, but when you think about it, it's totally unnecessary. They know that there are countless Silence - do they really think they need to keep a tally? What are they going to do, take a census?
2) The flashing red lights in their hands. Umm ... why didn't the Doctor just give them, I don't know, a journal? Really, the only answer is to inject the flashing red light?
3) The Doctor's prison is comprised of zero balance dwarf star alloy. It's completely impenetrable; the blocks fuse together as they're placed on top of each other, and nothing can get in or out. Okay, cool. Wait - WTF? We haven't even been to the MOON yet - where did they get this supers awesome material? Again, it's completely ridiculous and its sole purpose is to add to the EPIC ENTRANCE. I'm more irritated the more I think about it ...
4) Nixon travels in the TARDIS. So, he's a companion now? Just like ALLLLLLL the other characters who have casually traveled in the TARDIS over the last season. It's like some kind of freaking taxicab.
5) The Doctor tells Nixon to tape everything that happens in his office. Sigh.
6) Since when does the Doctor encourage people to kill? And again, what did the Silence really do that was so bad? I feel like we don't have a good reason to get rid of them except they kill people who look at them too long.
7) I really feel like this whole Silence thing was pulled out of Moffat's rear end. The Silence clearly was connected to the Crack. Silence fell. SILENCE FELL. There are flashbacks when the Doctor learns what the Silence are called to people in Series 5 saying "Silence will fall" ... Okay, so are they telling him that the Silence will fall because of the Doctor? But then the Silent says himself, "and the Silence will fall!" Does "fall" have another meaning of which I'm unaware? I feel that the whole concept of the Silence being connected to the Crack is a real stretch. They could have been called something else and still had the same premise.
8) When the Doctor broadcasts the Silent saying, "you should kill us all on sight", it interrupts Neil Armstrong saying, "that's one small step for man -" but then picks up again with, "one small step for mankind". The video of the Silent clearly plays several times (it's not just being repeated for effect, to show that everyone around the world is seeing this). So what was Neil Armstrong saying in the interim? Seriously. It's a LIVE FEED. Also, you'll notice that after the Silent says that line, everyone turns around to see the Silence. Wait ... how did they know that the Silence were standing behind them?
Likes:
::crickets::
Okay, fine. I like Canton. Actually, to be more specific, I like Mark Sheppard.
Repeat Ideas:
1) Amy's ghosting. Yes, that's right, the only purpose for those little red lights are so that Amy can ghost, a la Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Oh, and kind of Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. It just really aggravates me that he can't come up with a new device.
2) River lands in the swimming pool. Just like she flew out of that space ship in Time of Angels and the Doctor caught her. This is aggravating to me because if he can just go back and catch her, then no one can ever truly be in peril. And seriously, is the Doctor going to keep catching her? Yawn.
Curiouser and Curiouser:
1) In The Impossible Astronaut, River tells Rory that the Doctor "dropped out of the sky". When Amy is ghosting, she says, "you dropped out of the sky", and "my life was so boring before you". We think she's talking about the Doctor, but it turns out she's talking about Rory. Come on, no she's not. She's totally talking about the Doctor, exactly in the same way that River was talking about the Doctor when he dropped out of the sky for her (when she was a little girl! Fancy that! I'm shocked! The Doctor visiting one of Moffat's characters when she was a little girl? Who'd have guessed? Seriously, though, is Moffat screwed up or what, that this is a running theme in all of his story lines?) Anyway, I'm so glad that the whole Amy/Doctor/Rory thing has been cleared up. Right.
2) The Doctor talks to Rory about when Rory was the Last Centurion. He asks if Rory remembers that. Wait ... how could Rory remember it? The whole universe got rebooted. How would he remember that if he wasn't plastic anymore? Is this a setup for what happens later in the series?
These two episodes have me so mad, I kind of wish that every time I looked away from them I'd forget how much they infuriate me.
Ahhhh ... Ianto ...
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.
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