Posts Tagged ‘Doctor Who’

Last week on Doctor Who we had pulp with Let’s Kill Hitler, this week we got horror with a twist of British Social Realism.

The horror is scary, fairy tailish horror rather than gross horror. It mixed up lots of classic horror elements of abduction horror, body horror with the transformation of people into the dolls, the dolls stalking people to “play” and the spooky nursery rhymes. It’s sinister, scary but I’d think it’s the kind of scare most kids will enjoy rather than cause nightmares. The revelation of the alien and the monsters was a nice twist nicely resolved.

The social realism is more in the background than front and central to the story. We see it in urban tower block, the flats, the bin bags and the nasty landlord. With the fantasy and horror elements it’s a bit Billy Liarish.

The set dressing for the dolls house and the housing estate are quite different but both nicely done. The dolls are a good one shot villain. Daniel Mays was a good choice for the main guest star. He brings an interesting combination of normality along with something slightly disquieting. He’s a real Dad rather than an idolised one which is perfect for the story.

There are some funny lines about making a house call and after the Doctor has a bit of a monologue “You’re not from social services are you?”

All in all Night Terrors was a good episode.

Tonight’s Doctor Who, Let’s Kill Hitler, was a cracking fun episode from the start. Now I’ve been known to complain about certain issues with illogicality and this episode certainly started with plenty – writing Doctor in a corn field, introducing Amy’s best friend who’s never been so much as mentioned before with a montage and crashing the TADIS into Hitler’s office.

BUT (and it’s a big But so big I’m going to start a sentence with it, write it in capitals and underlined bold for good measure) anyone who thinks a Doctor Who episode with the title Let’s Kill Hitler is going to be another Blink their head examining. It’s going to be pulp silliness and its going to try and give Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds a run for its money on a BBC TV episode budget.

Introducing Mel and getting the episode title into the pre title sequence was nicely done. The montage has its moments. Young Rory moments are humorous. Most especially there is the scene that shows Amy and Rory get together with Amy having thought Rory was gay. It’s all topped off with a lovely 2001 reference to get us into the action in the visual of Mel throwing model TARDIS cutting to TARDIS flying erratically.

The killer robot piloted by miniaturised crew silly idea and could have been such a bad Terminator 2 rip off except completely saved by the Tessellating exterior effect. Its slightly incompetent crew and killer robots added to the episodes pulp feel and humour. There was something of Men in Black about the whole set up.

It’s nice to see Rory’s transformation into action hero continuing. He gets stuff to do and good lines: Knocking out Hitler, a German soldier, riding a motorbike with a hint of The Great Escape and driving a mini through a cornfield. The contrast of post plastic Roman with early Rory as seen in the montage is telling of his character’s development. Amy gets her moments too.

That Amy’s childhood best friend turns out to be Melody Pond and her regeneration is triggered by being shot by Hitler. She gets one of the best pre regeneration lines ever in “shut up Dad I’m focusing on a dress size” and lovely post regeneration fun. Yet this is River as we’ve never seen her before. This River reminds me of Angelica in The Stainless Steel Rat books. Like Angelica we see the character transform from psychopath to the River we’ve previously seen.

Which brings me to her attempts to kill the Doctor. Their little duel of intelligence with Melody trying to kill him with knives and guns. Yet she succeeds by poisoning him with a kiss – the one strategy he wouldn’t be expecting – with the poison of the Judas tree. I wonder if the two religious references were slipped into the section on regeneration deliberately or accidentally.

It all gets wrapped up with the Doctor’s death plenty of sillyness which fits this episode perfectly. The temporally convoluted story of the Doctor, Rory, Amy and River takes more steps forward. I was going to call it a soap opera but it’s something older than that.

The set dressing, costumes and period detail throughout was deserve a mention. Going to the trouble of making Hitler’s office based on photographs of the actual office just to smash it up was a good idea. Dressing the Doctor in top hat and tails was a nice touch.

There were some nice things about the latest Doctor Who episode: A Good Man Goes to War.  It started very well with the Cybermen and the collection of various allies from across Time and Space.  There was the nice idea that Doctor becoming word for warrior in many cultures that have encountered him.   There was the clever twist of a villain using The Doctor’s righteous indignation and anger against him.  There were some nice lines and some nice jokes including some written just for the adults watching.

It was nice to see the appearance of The Spitfires (Victory of the Daleks) and Captain Avery and his crew (The Curse of the Black Spot).  It seems a bit of a shame the other allies couldn’t have been recurring characters or have it explained why they owed him a little better.

There is one important exception to those the Doctor has already met – Lorna Bucket.  I’m assuming the Doctor doesn’t remember because he’s not run through the Gama forests with her yet.  That suggests “The only water in the forest is the river” is not just an explanation of how River Song’s name comes about but also where the baby is being held captive or at least the next step along the road.

Lorna Bucket isn’t the only new characters who I’d like to see in future episodes: Madame Vastra and her maid Jenny seem interesting enough to deserve another appearance.

Then there was the episodes key revelations that Amy and Rory’s baby has Time Lord DNA and that River Song is Melody Pond.   So some significant dots of River’s arc are joined and two new question posed:

• Why does she have Time Lord DNA.  Did The TARDIS tweak River Song’s DNA to add a bit of Time Lord to give the Doctor a companion of a different sort?
• How do you make a Time Lord a weapon to kill a Time Lord?

For all its good points, answers and questions this episode has left me slightly underwhelmed.  I can’t really explain why but after two viewings I’d have to say I enjoyed the series opening and The Doctor’s Wife more.   Maybe it just didn’t feel expansive enough, the cliff hanger lacked danger and the revelations not astonishing enough after the build up?

Going back for a moment to The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People I really do hope someone explains how there comes to be highly concentrated acid to be pumped from under a 13^th Century monastery on an island.  Concentrated acid is usually made at chemical works and even if there was some massive underground reserve it being under a millennium old monastery is rather odd.  Does the monastery tie into all the other religious references somehow?  Headless Monks, The Papal mainframe and militant Anglicans.

Which just leaves the much tweeted about title of the next episode.  I’m guessing but I’m wondering if Let’s Kill Hitler isn’t actually a metaphor.  A reference to the old time travel SF chestnut that if you could go back in time and Kill Hitler and so stop the evil of the Nazis how can you know some greater evil will not happen without the lesson from history?

The latest Dr Who episode The Rebel Flesh was a nicely done, solid story with nothing to complain about.  That’s a relief after the time I’ve spent on reviews for The Doctor’s Wife or Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  The Gangers are nicely realised I may be over reading one comment by the Doctor but I’m assuming these Plastic People are prototype Autons.

I do have one question: Where did the highly corrosive acid they are pumping from under the medieval monastery on the island come from?  I do hope it’s explained next week because thirteenth century monasteries don’t tend to have been built on the site of former ICI plants.

As to the ongoing series 6 /32 mysteries…

It  may give us the answer to the question of how we saw the Doctor die given we now know there is a Plastic Doctor who may be floating around past the end of next week’s The Almost People.

Rory’s reaction to the Plastic People is a nice touch.  Does this shed some light on the picture of the Lone Centurion in The Doctor Goes to War from the Radio Times a few weeks ago?

There were the inevitable reminders of Amy’s Schrödinger pregnancy and ‘eye-patched woman’ making a brief appearance.

So roll on next Saturday and part 2: The Almost People.

So was the new Doctor Who episode, The Doctor’s Wife, a return to the form of The Impossible Astronaut and The Day of the Moon after The Curse of the Black Spot last week with its rather damp powder?  Would Neil Gaiman writing an episode turn out to be a stunt to promote both the show and the writer?

The action opened with a nice pre-title teaser and didn’t let up till the end credits rolled.  The story cracked along at a great pace with twists and turns along the way.  The story was full of nods to Dr Who Lore while adding a few bits itself around the relationship between the TARDIS and the Doctor.  But, like Idris, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself…

Having a writer as famous as Neil Gaiman write an episode brings both expectations and a certain fear.  Sometimes using big name writers or actors can end up being a stunt when they can’t mesh their ego with a show even one they love as much as fans.  Thankfully Gaiman really knew what a Who episode should deliver and the cast and crew delivered his vision 100%.  He packed in some big ideas, some nods to Who lore, some snappy dialogue, some spills, some thrills and some behind the sofa scares too.

The episodes first big idea was having a villain who feeds on the energy of TARDIS and who lures them in using Time Lord psychic distress messages.  A villain that feeds on TARDIS needs to be a big villain a bloke in a latex mask just wouldn’t have cut it.  So we got an asteroid sized villain who to all intent and purpose was a disembodied villain like Tolkien’s Sauron.  Yet disembodied villains are hard to pull off and can go very badly wrong.  Thankfully House, voiced by Michael Sheen, managed to be threatening through his power to shape other characters environment and play tricks on their minds.  To aid him House had the delightfully gothic, patchwork henchmen Auntie and Uncle along with a bad Ood.

I know some fans would have loved to have seen a 1970s TARDIS control room but I think the choice of the now dusty steampunk one fitted better with the story.  The scratch built TARDIS had the honour of getting elements of one of the shaky set 1970s models and got to shake, rattle, roll, fizz and bang its way along in a rare TARDIS chase sequence.

The Junk World or Plug Hole at the end of the Universe (a lovely line echoing the title of Douglas Adam’s book in the week of the 10^th Anniversary of his untimely death) was wonderfully realised through the set dressed quarry and matte paintings with joins that didn’t show.  The wonderfully theatrical lighting in blues and greens with shafts of light coming from odd angles really worked to create an eerie, gothic feel.

Alongside shooting in a quarry and the use and nods to old control rooms Gaiman snuck in another Doctor Who cliché with the running down the TARDIS corridors.  I find it odd that fans are complaining about using corridor chase scenes in a Doctor Who episode or that they used the wrong corridors.  It almost seems like some people desperately want something to complain about being wrong with the episode.  If the chases were set in rather uniform corridor sets for budgetary reasons rather than in a disused hospital or other location isn’t that in itself a nod to the truth of Doctor Who having to live within its means?

The snappy, dialogue was littered with great lines just casually thrown away like “Another Ood I failed to save”.  Alongside crowd pleasing great lines delivered beautifully like “Fear me I’ve killed hundreds of time lords.” “Fear Me, I’ve killed all of them…”

The second big idea, which according to confidential was the inception of the idea for the story, was personifying the TARDIS  as Idris.  This let Gaiman play with the origin story. The revelations that the TARDIS stole the Doctor so she could see the Universe and that she takes the Doctor to where he needs to be not where he wants to be are great additions to the shows back story.  This could have been a real disappointment but the writing and the acting both hit the mark.

Gaiman laid the foundations with a great deal of restraint and respect.  Suranne Jones played the part beautifully moving through confusion to acceptance, to understanding and finally to dying.  Along the way delivering some great moments with the Doctor.  By not being entirely tied to linear time even when trapped in a body gave Idris an otherworldly quality. Knowing what people are going to say and do, archiving things that haven’t happened yet.  There was a real intimacy to her relationship with the Doctor the TARDIS really is the Doctor’s Wife and that relationship is complicated. Yet she wasn’t just about big ideas and back story she had nice human moments vanity on seeing herself in a mirror; thinking Rory is the pretty one.

There are some really great lines between the Doctor and Idris but I’ll pick one “I exist across all space and time.  You talk and run around; bring home strays” sums up the show so well.

So inevitably we come to the end of the ride that has had Amy and Rory in jeopardy with first of being eaten and then from a bad Ood and a disembodied threat that plays with the TARDIS and inside their heads. That great Doctor Who cliché of running down identical corridors turner on its head to be a great asset with interesting and scary stuff happening in the corridors.  Meanwhile the bubble universe will reach absolute zero in three hours and Idris dying.  Yet working together The Doctor, Idris, Amy and Rory manage to see off the Ood and the House.  Leaving Idris / TARDIS one last moment for Gaiman’s gothic sensibility “‘Alive.’ I’m alive.” And  after a bit of fun interplay and underlining the new addition to this series’ mystery the last scene a moment between The Doctor and a set, sorry the TARDIS, there aren’t many shows that could have an actor playing to the set as a character.

So if you’ve not guessed yet I think Gaiman, cast and crew have pulled off a top notch Doctor who that worked really well and was also good, old fashioned fun.

Before I go we got one obvious addition to the Series 32 / Series 6 mysteries list:

• The only water in the forest is the river.

Not really a lot to go on there – River may be River Song and a library is a dead forest where River was left in virtual form at the end of Forest of the Dead or I could be reading far, far too much into one line.

Just watched the latest Doctor Who – The Curse of the Black Spot.  Very much in the monster of the week / concept based science fiction mixed up with pirates.  In theory it had all the elements to be a really good episode.  Unfortunately somewhere along the way something got lost.  I don’t think the problem was that comparing it to Pirates of the Caribbean.  The becalmed pirate ship set up let them get away with a story that was in a nice, self-contained location.  Maybe they were so busy ticking pirate story boxes they lost the spirit of the pirate story?  I expected the pirates themselves to be both bad and scary in their own right but they’d be reduced to paper cut fearing, backboneless jellies who didn’t really come across as having been very naughty let alone worthy of the hangman’s rope.

The twist of the siren turning out to be a spaceship’s automated medical system trying to save the humans was a nice idea.

There were a couple of nods to The Day of the Moon and The Impossible Astronaut.  They felt a little bit heavy-handed in the way they were included as though someone felt we had to be reminded there is an ongoing plot this series in case we might forget.

So personally I felt The Curse of the Black Spot wasn’t a bad Doctor Who but it wasn’t a great one either.

The new Doctor Who episode, The Day of the Moon, is Doctor Who thinking and writ LARGE.

Part of the scale comes from the great use of locations.  The wide open spaces of Utah.  Iconic locations like: Apollo 11.  The Oval office.  Area 51.  The dark and spooky orphanage is a beautiful contrast with the peculiarly shaped corridor, air of decay and nest of sleeping Silence hanging upside down like bats. Doctor Renfrew a truly creepy character to show the danger of long-term exposure to The Silence.

The opening sequence (three months on from The Impossible Astronaut) was excellent with the apparent death of all three companions.  The Doctor locked in an inescapable, impenetrable, sensor proof room.  Escape proof unless you have an invisible TARDIS stashed away.  Rescuing River using the TARDIS’s swimming pool was both a really great idea and a nice nod to old Who Lore.  Bad Canton was a nice bit of icing on the cake.

I do hope Canton has been set up to be a recurring character as was hinted at by the Doctor’s farewell.

Steven Moffat made great use of the TARDIS too often in the past I’ve bemoaned how stories have been written around separating The Doctor and the TARDIS so that the story can happen without The Doctor simply hopping in and going somewhere else.   Moffat uses it in an almost casual way but always inventive.  River diving into the pool.  Bouncing Nixon from the White House to where they needed him to solve problems – I really like the way he seemed a bit confused after each trip.

There were other great touches like:

• Neil Armstrong’s foot
• Turning The Silence’s power of suggestion back on them
• The Doctor setting up Nixon to record everything was a nice touch
• Using the inescapable and impenetrable room to trap the wounded member of the Silence

I really like the move to use a structure in series six where the series sets out some mysteries at the start rather than dropping little seeds along the way to be pulled together in the last couple of episodes.  Playing along here are the mysteries we’ve had so far…

From The Impossible Astronaut:

• Can the Silence read thoughts? – Presumably not or the gloating one wouldn’t have handed Canton the recording he needed
• Are The Silence bad? –Now I’d say Most Definitely Bad
• What hit Canton on the head? – Not cleared up probably never will be
• How does this episode’s space ship control room tie in with the one in The Lodger? – Not cleared up although it may just belong to some of The Silence who have had an unfortunate encounter with humans
• Rory apparently zapped by The Silence and Rory and River’s escape – Not exactly explained but I’d assume The Silence removed themselves from their memory and opened the door as they did for Amy in the children’s home later
• The girl in the space suit shot by Amy – The suit healed her or Amy missed
• Why Canton was fired by the FBI and can’t get married – Explained

New mysteries from Day of the Moon:

• How does Rory sometimes remember being the last centurion since that was the Auton copy in The Big Bang?
• How did the girl get out of the space suit?
• To quote the Doctor “Canton Everet Delaware the Third who’s he?”

Which just leaves the three big mysteries:  The dead Doctor, Amy and the Girl in the Space Suit.  I’ll skip the first because if there were new clues they were too subtle for me.

Amy:

• Her Schrödinger’s pregnancy
• Amy in the Silence’s time machine for many days – long enough to have a child?
• The picture of Amy holding a baby in children’s home
• The disappearing hatch in the door?  The woman “No I think she’s just dreaming”?

Why did the girl need a space suit and all that alien tech – was there more to it than a plot device to save the girl when Amy shoots her?  Why did she regenerate?  Presumably she is a Timelord so given all the fuss about destroying the Doctor after his death in The Impossible Astronaut potential sources for genetic material I can think of include:

• Some of The Doctor’s stolen when under the influence of The Silence
• The Master, The Ranni or another unrevealed Timelord
• The Doctor’s daughter
• The DNA stolen by the escaped Krillitane in School Reunion

So I think you can guess I fall into the really enjoyed the Doctor Who The Day of the Moon camp.

The first, new episode of the 2011 run of Dr Who The Impossible Astronaut is a joy.

If you’re going to do a Doctor Who in America why not go for it. Using the vast scale of the wide open spaces and light gives grandeur to the scene that chalk pits never could. Later the TARDIS appearing in the beautifully realised Oval Office. The villain in a NASA space suit.

The dialogue was snappy with great one liners, jokes, catch phrases and playing with in show jokes for regular viewers.

I’ve read some complaints that Steven Moffat is using time travel within episodes too much. Frankly that almost points up that writers in the past haven’t used it enough. The old formula used the TARDIS to drop the Doctor and friends into an interesting situation and then let them leave at the end.

The incidental music I am the Doctor and its variations are now as inextricably linked musically to the show for me as the theme. I keep catching myself tapping the rhythm.

River Song as always a joy from the Mrs Robinson gag. She continues the complication of someone who can travel in time in a non linear way independently of The Doctor that Captain Jack began. In some ways she is exploring companions in a way they’ve not been looked at before. We got a hint of this with Sarah Jane in School Reunion. Here we are seeing the slightly obsessive side of the jilted companion replaced by younger companions. Then there her prophetic, metaphorical sense that the day she meets The Doctor for his first time and he doesn’t know who she is may kill her foreshadowing Forest of the Dead.

Having Rory aboard the TARDIS for a whole season will change the shows dynamic. We get away from the RTD model of the companion. The adult side is still there thanks to River and Doctor flirting but now we have Doctor with companions that doesn’t apply to. Now she has Rory to share screen time with Amy seemed a bit more toned down.

It was a really nice touch having William Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard playing Canton Everett Delaware III at different ages rather than resorting to dodgy makeup. Really hope we’ll see more of Canton in Day of the Moon as he quickly established an interesting character. Will we get an explanation of why Canton getting married was a crime?

The first of the stories two monsters in the story is scary. Creepy 1960s suited MIB / Grey hybrids who make people forget. Is the one there just before the Doctor killed significant? Is it there to observe the death? Are these monsters just a bit Oodish. We only see its mouth when it kills but not when it speaks.

The other apparent bad guy is the space suited killer. Is the girl in the Space Suit the same one as at the lake? Steven Moffat seems to like space suit as monster motifs – The Vashta Nerada infected skull faced spacesuits in Silence in the Library had the space suit motif. These new monsters are being called The Silence which is odd since they cause people to forget them. It’s probably all just be a coincidence or playing with fans heads. If nothing else Moffat likes monsters with scary heads we can add his gas masked villains of The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances.

Then we have the mysteries: River in Flesh and Stone says she killed the best man she’d ever known. There is a girl in the space suit when we see it in 1969. Someone in a space suit kills the Doctor. Could it be that River is the girl in the space suit?

We get little time travel games – Rory the Roman used and then invented later by the earlier Doctor is a nice touch.

Amy is the first character to experience nausea after seeing The Silence. Then River is later and blames it on prison food. Is Amy really pregnant or is there more to it? Is it natural or is it related to The Silence or is there something else going on?

Rather than following more recent series where a series of episodic stories build up to reveal a mystery we’ve had a series of big mysteries dropped in out lap. Will the next episode clear them all up or have we been shown the shape of some or all of this series?

• The Silence can at least know names. Can it read thoughts?
• The Silence killed Joy in the bathroom but other than that do we see them do anything bad?
• There are Tunnels under the entire planet for centuries or something added by the Tardis rebuilding the planet?
• What hit Canton on the head?
• How does this tie to the control room in The Lodger?
• Why has the Doctor been practicing escapes? Is this more significant than an opening joke?

I know in the past I’ve complained about there not being enough cliff hangers. I can hardly complain about that this week with not one, not two but three cliff hangers…

• Rory apparently zapped by The Silence
• The girl in the space suit shot by Amy
• The dead Doctor

I’m really looking forward to the next part and the rest of the season. Fingers crossed it lives up to this cracking series opener.

Since its the time of year when people post lists here are the top 11 most visited of my blog posts for the year.

1. The Expendables

2. Yes, Prime Minister

3. Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall Review

4. RED – Retired Extremely Dangerous – Review

5. Chavasse Park Ride

5. Lime Street Station Uncovered

7. Liverpool’s Pyramid – William Mackenzie Tomb

8. Doctor Who: The Big Bang

9. A Town Called Eureka – Season 2

10. Rotating Yates’s Wine Lodge Building

11. Pancetta, Chorizo and Broad Bean Risotto

Reviews have done well and some of the pictures I’ve been posting have picked up a healthy number of eyeballs too

Why do I write what I call reviews?

The short answer: Because it helps me think about my own writing.

The long answer:

I used to write what I’ll call proper reviews, they’d appear in Valkyrie and Ragnarok.  My review of 7th Sea produced at short notice got me the writing gig with Valkyrie so even though reviewing wasn’t what I’d set out to do I thought it was important to carry on and do the best job at it I could.  I’d think long and hard about them.  I’d spend hours carefully reading a product (and if possible playing it).  I’d consider the presentation, the content, the quality of the writing, the cost, its originality, production issues and a hundred and one other factors.  I’d try and give a balanced and fair assessment.

Then I had a run of what I will call issue reviews.  A publisher wasn’t happy with a review because I wasn’t their target market so I couldn’t apparently understand their product.  A book I reviewed that was ok but not exceptional and had a flaw won an award after sending high value goodie bags to the voting panel.  Having been asked to review a product for a magazine I’d not written for before I was told the review wouldn’t be used as they’d just signed a big advertising deal with the publisher and they didn’t think it was favorable enough.  Which was funny because I’d really worked hard to find good things in a product that I know retailers couldn’t sell.  It stank and it sat on game shop shelves.

So I stopped writing serious reviews.

I’ve been asked to occasionally for magazines and websites.  It might be good self promotion and get me some writing opportunities but I’m just not interested in running into the political side of  it again.

Now what I label as reviews here are more after action reports.  I try not to spend too long on them (although some still take a couple of hours to write).  I try to keep them personal – they are after all just my personal opinion.  I use the review label as a convenient way of lumping them all together to make them easier to find.  Maybe someone will be saved from wasting a turkey or will enjoy my insight.  I hope so because they do get a reasonable number of visits and visitors seem to spend time reading them.

Still that doesn’t explain why I write them.  I don’t see them as a great self promotion tool.  I write them to help me think about my own writing and game design.  By thinking about a Doctor Who episode or a film sometimes I see how to improve my own work.  I wrote about Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire and I knew where the script I’d written had gone wrong (using silly names and anachronism).  I’ve still not worked out what to put in their place but I think the script is tighter and funnier now without them (although one character is still called Snot because it just fits).

Sometimes the best thing happens.  I’ll get a good idea.  Not a simple rip off of someone else’s concept but a genuine tangential idea.  That moment when you’re watching something and you think you know what’s going to happen and then something else happens.  Sometimes those original ideas can take on a life of their own.  For example recently I had watched a Doctor Who episode and was writing up my thoughts.  That’s when I had a Good Idea^TM.   I’ve had a bad guy (originally a Darklord for a Ravenloft domain) floating around for a long time that I could never find a way to spin a story around and while I’ve been writing that review I now know how to make them work.  The only problem I have is they’d be fun for a Ravenloft adventure but they also fit in with a Dirk Dangerous story I’d got floating around.  I don’t suppose I can get away with using the same idea twice