When you're alone, silence is all you know...
A Christmas Carol is the first of the Eleventh Doctor Christmas specials and set the mode for what the Christmas special would be during his tenure. It would continue in the RTD tradition of being a one-off romp but Moffat seemed to put a greater emphasis on both Christmas and comedy, something to which the Eleventh Doctor was well suited. Expectations were mixed as the appearance of Michael Gambon (known especially for playing Dumbledore) excited people but the inclusion of operatic singer Katherine Jenkins (and the knowledge that she would be singing) caused consternation as fears of a Kylie Minogue style stunt cast rippled through fandom. In the end, it paid off with the fans as this is generally considered the best of the Eleventh Doctor Christmas specials and some argue the best of all the Christmas specials.
Plot Summary
Amy and Rory are spending their honeymoon on a space luxury liner that is suffering mechanical failure and crashing through the ice cloud layer of a colonized planet. Amy sends a distress signal and the Doctor lands on the planet to help them.
Control of the cloud layer is done through a machine owned by an old man named Kazran Sardick. As the Doctor leaps out of the fireplace, he is dismissing a family that had asked for the wife's sister, Abigail, to be released for Christmas as she had frozen herself as a deposit against a debt the family had taken out. Kazran declines to stop the machine, indifferent to the potential deaths of the 4,000 people aboard the liner. As the Doctor and the family are shoved out, the young son hits Kazran with a piece of charcoal. Kazran moves to strike the boy but can't bring himself to do it. They are then taken out.
The Doctor notes Kazran's restraint and puts together quickly that Kazran's hatred of Christmas and indifference to people are by-products of his upbringing and hatred of his father. That he could not strike the boy was evidence that he was not his father and not beyond hope. He calls Amy to update her on the situation but having failed to turn off the isomorphic controls is now working on a different plan. He gets an idea by using the Christmas Carol story to change Kazran's mind and salvage his soul.
The Doctor salvages a recording Kazran made one Christmas Eve where he had hoped to see a fish flying in the fog, a natural occurrence on that planet. His father berates him when he discovers him and closes the window. The Doctor dips back into Kazran's past and begins to change things, changing Kazran's memories as he does, also allowing him to watch the recording of the past as it follows the Doctor.
The Doctor arrives outside Kazran's window and after telling him he is his new babysitter, they set a lure for a fish using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. The lure brings in a small fish which nips at it but it also brings in a shark which eats the smaller fish and the sonic screwdriver before turning to attack the Doctor. It tries to break through the closet door but the Doctor is able to trigger the sonic screwdriver inside to stun the large fish.
Kazran is sad that the fish is dying and wants to try and save it. To do so, they would need a mobile freezing chamber like the Doctor saw earlier. Kazran takes the Doctor to the vault in the basement where the freezer chambers are kept and after getting the passcode from the old Kazran, they enter the chamber. Kazran picks the unit with Abigail in it, knowing that she wouldn't mind as her recorded message included the fact that she is fond of the fish.
The Doctor notices his sonic activating, trying to repair itself as Kazran opens Abigail's chamber. They notice the shark has woken and followed the sonic down. As they hide, Abigail steps out and begins to sing, calming the shark into a docile state. That allows them to get it into the chamber and into the TARDIS where they release it into the clouds.
The Doctor takes them back where Kazran tells Abigail that she has been released for Christmas and they will do it again next year. The Doctor jumps forward another year where he and Kazran release Abail for further adventures including seeing sights on Earth and hooking a carriage to the shark and having it pull them through the clouds. Every year that they release Abigail, the counter on her chamber ticks down by one.
One Christmas, when Kazran is a late teenager, Abigail a more feminine interest in him. She asks that they visit her family, the same one that asked for her release at the Doctor's first arrival. Abigail only watches at first with Kazran standing stoically with her until the Doctor barges in. They have Christmas dinner and celebrate. That night, before going back into her chamber, Abigail kisses Kazran.
The following year, the Doctor takes them to 1950's Hollywood where Abigail discloses her illness to Kazran. Her chamber counter has dropped to 1, indicating that when she goes back in, the next time she is released, she will die. Kazran embraces her as the Doctor tries to get out of marrying Marilyn Monroe. Upon sealing her back in, Kazran informs the Doctor that he is too old for Christmas now and that he should not come back. Puzzled, the Doctor give Kazran the broken half of the sonic screwdriver and tells him to summon him when he needs him. Kazran puts in a drawer, pulling it out only once when his father is about to give him control of the sky machinery. The Doctor appears outside the window but Kazran closes the curtain.
Modern Kazran reflects on these changed memories. The portrait of his father had briefly changed to Abigail before she had told him of her illness but it had changed back to his father. He raged at the Doctor for giving him hope only to see it dashed. As he rages, a hologram of Amy appears acting as the Ghost of Christmas Present. She indicates for him to head to the vault where the passengers of the liner are singing Christmas carols.
Kazran dismisses them and tells Amy how Abigail will die the next time she is let out. It's not fair to him and he feels no obligation to give fairness to anyone else. Amy then tells Rory to expand the hologram field, bringing Kazran's field of view from the vault to the bridge of the ship as it is crashing through the cloud layer. They tell Kazran that the passengers are singing, hoping to manipulate things as Abigail did but it not enough yet. Kazran is still indifferent and Amy signals the Doctor.
The hologram cuts out and Kazran finds himself back in the vault with the Doctor who now invokes the Ghost of Christmas Future. Kazran angrily rebuffs him, railing about how he doesn't care while the Doctor stays silent. When Kazran asks what future he could possibly show him, he steps aside to reveal Kazran's child self watching him, stunned. He whispers his father and the older Kazran moves to strike him in a rage but breaks down crying. He hugs his younger self and apologizes.
The older Kazran moves to deactivate the cloud controls but finds himself locked out. The Doctor changed him too much and his father never gave him access in this form. Kazran offers the half of the sonic screwdriver to help. The Doctor gets and idea to signal the other half of the sonic in the shark which would echo throughout the clouds but he needs the perfect vibration to make it happen. Ruefully, Kazran opens Abigail's chamber once again.
Abigail gently chides Kazran for hoarding her last Christmas like a miser but embraces him nonetheless. The group heads outside where the Doctor connects his sonic to the PA system and has Abigail sing into it. The sharks is attracted by the singing and it resonates throughout the clouds, overriding the cloud controls. A path opens up and luxury liner is able to land safely. It also causes the clouds to break apart and snow falls to the ground.
Rory and Amy meet with the Doctor and enter the TARDIS while the Doctor says goodbye to Kazran and Abigail. The TARDIS vanishes leaving the old carriage with the shark hookup behind. The TARDIS flies through the atmosphere and the Doctor spies Kazran and Abigail flying through the clouds, pulled by the shark.
Analysis
Despite the changes to a personal past being a bit confusing at times, this is a damn fine story. It is well acted, well paced and poignant all at the same time. It is also very hard not to be moved by Abigail's song no matter what your opinion of it is in the context of the story at the time. It's just a story that works well on so many levels.
This story gets the Eleventh Doctor at probably his best point. He is zany, manic and funny. But there is also a slight edge to him, a darkness that will be embraced from time to time. That dark edge is only really seen in the Ghost of Christmas Future scene where the Doctor has an "I've tried to be nice" look to him and then unleashes the killing stroke of letting him see that he has become the man he despised. But for the most part, he's fun and a good guide through the romp. He even gets chided when trying to give exposition that is to be used later but disrupts the mood by the biting fish and that is quite amusing. It's just a fun performance.
Amy and Rory don't do much other than be objects of rescue and provide a touch of comic relief here and there, especially with the callback costumes that they were evidently using for some role play. But they are true to character and their comedic timing is quite enjoyable.
The true companions of this story are obviously Kazran and Abigail. Michael Gambon is as excellent as you would expect with a familiar but still subtly different take on Scrooge. He mixes indifference to others with a bitterness that fleshes out the true source of his refusal to help: he has been brought pain by life so why alleviate that pain for others. I also found it interesting that the Doctor nearly succeeds in replacing the bitterness of the fish experiment night with love of another only to have that bitterness returned and hardened by the knowledge that the development of the love between Kazran and Abigail also contributed to her being taken away from him. Unlike the steady softening of Scrooge throughout the story, Kazran is initially redeemed by the past only to have his old character reinforced. It's just such an enjoyable and compelling arc to watch.
Abigail is also an interesting performance as it could have easily gone so wrong so easily. She is pure and joyful to a point that oversaturation could easily make her annoying. It was very important to have that scene of melancholy, her looking wistfully over her sister's family and seeing something she could never have. It humanized her and gave her joy in the face of sorrow more poignancy. That poignancy comes through so well in her signing, especially the last song which is so swelling and (to me) extraordinarily moving. It is very hard to not well up just slightly whenever I hear that song.
The direction effects were also pretty good in this. Yes it's obvious that the fish are CGI but you go in expecting that. It's only painfully obvious when looking at the schools in the clouds. The individual fish work rather well in my opinion. I also like the constant dark atmosphere of the piece. There is a coldness that reflects Kazran very well as well also hiding some limitations in the production values I'm sure. But it all just flows together and meshes nearly perfectly.
About the only negative bits I can come up with are the lack of detail in the effects of changing the past. The Doctor's initial change of the past had a singular effect that was still alterable. But how will doubling up on it change things further? Boy Kazran now knows that his and the Doctor's adventures will accelerate Abigail's death so will be more resistant and try to change that? Will he remember still having the later adventures with the Doctor and Abigail under that changed condition? Does he remember additional beatings from his father as he refused to become the hard man his father wanted and thus was not given control over the machine controlling the clouds? It's all such a swirl of odd logic that you ignore at the time because you are wrapped in the emotional arc of the story but can come back and niggle at you when you think about it.
Fanboys will also grouse about how the old and young Kazrans are able to hug and fix each other without setting off a massive discharge due to the Blinovitch Limitation effect. But that's something you throw out the window because it doesn't help the arc of the story at all.
So I would highly recommend this one. It's definitely the best of the 11th Doctor specials and probably the best of any that are of the romp-y variety. It's just a fun story that you can go back to without any problem time and again. It's also nice to see just a different take on the Scrooge story when most versions are just window dressing on the same body. This is at least a new view. Watch this one both at Christmas and anytime you're in the mood for a solid, entertaining story.
Overall personal score: 5 out of 5
Friday, December 22, 2017
Friday, December 15, 2017
The Snowmen
I'm the clever one; you're the potato one.
The Snowmen was the third Christmas special of the Moffat era and was the bridging episode between the two halves of Series Seven. Like The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, there was a lead-in short where the Doctor is shown to have retired to late Victorian London in a fit of melancholy. Because of the bridging nature of this episode, the usual stand alone romp was not permitted and a more in-depth story was required. That suited fans and this episode was received much better than it's predecessor. It also added to the mystery of Clara, who made her return here following her introduction in Asylum of the Daleks.
Plot Summary
In 1842, a young boy is building a snowman, refusing to play with the other children as he views them as "too silly". The snowman begins to echo the boy's thoughts and offers to help him if it helps it. Fifty years later, the boy has grown to become the cold Dr. Simeon. He hires workers to collect the snow and bring it to a workshop where he collects it in an electrified glass globe. When the workers come to his house to be paid, snowmen manifest out of the ground and tear the workers apart.
Outside a pub in London, a new version of Clara emerges and spies a snowman in the alley. She asks the Doctor, who is passing by, morose after losing Amy and Rory, if he built it. He says no but takes a look at it. He tamps down his curiosity and walks away. Clara, unable to contain her own, follows him as he is taken away in a hansom driven by Strax. She is discovered and they are forced to stop to examine the snow while locking her in the cab.
Elsewhere, Dr. Simeon leaves a local residence, warning the owner, Captain Latimer, that within the pond where the prior governess drowned, is something that belongs to his institute and that they will be coming to collect it soon. As he walks away, he is confronted by Jenny and Madame Vastra. Simeon is unperturbed by their suspicions into his activities and the snow that seems to have been infected with an alien, low level telepathic field. They warn him to stop or he will be stopped by another. Simeon walks away.
After taking a closer look at the snow with Strax, the Doctor decides to wipe Clara's memory with a memory worm. Strax however bobbles the job and wipes his own memory. Before the Doctor can apply the worm to Clara, several snowmen manifest and attack Clara and the Doctor. The Doctor realizes that Clara is visualizing them, causing them to appear and orders her to imagine them melted. They do so. She then uses this information to convince the Doctor that if he wipes her memory, she'll be in danger again. He agrees, puts her back in the hansom and orders Strax to take her back to the pub.
Clara slips out of the hansom and follows the Doctor at a distance. She sees him head to a park where he plucks a ladder out of the air and climbs up, disappearing as he does so. Clara walks over and plucks the same ladder out of the air. At the top she finds that while she can see people, they cannot see her. She climbs a spiral staircase to a cloud above London where she finds the TARDIS. She knocks at the door but hides when the Doctor opens the door. She heads back down the staircase though the Doctor spies a scarf she dropped on her way down.
Clara wakes the next morning and leaves the pub job, with the owner begging her to stay. Clara changes clothes in the cab and is dropped off the house Dr. Simeon visited the night before where she returns to her job as a governess of the owner's two children, though under the fake name of Ms. Montague. Captain Latimer is relieved at her return and asks that she talk to his daughter, Alice, as she has been having nightmares lately. Clara speaks to her and Alice tells her of their old governess emerging from the pond as woman made of ice and terrifying them once again. Clara notes that while it has warmed up enough to melt most of the snow, the pond is still iced over.
Recalling her encounter with the snowmen, Clara returns to the park and tries to call out to the Doctor or even grab the ladder but is unable to. She is spotted by Jenny who takes her back to Paternoster Road where Vastra quizzes Clara but forces her to only answer in single words. After finishing, Vastra calls the Doctor and fills him in, triggering his interest by noting that Clara used the word "pond" to emphasize her problem.
The Doctor heads to Dr. Simeon's house where he sees the sphere of the Great Intelligence. He deduces that the snow is a crystalline life form that expresses itself through a telepathic field. He also realizes that it plans to transfer it's consciousness into a blend of ice and human DNA, animated in the form of the governess who drowned in the pond outside the Latimer home. He then dashes off before Simeon's servants can restrain him.
He investigates the pond and heads inside the home when Clara spies him outside. While Clara is putting the children to bed, the ice figure of the governess bursts and attacks them. They run and the Doctor emerges and shatters the figure with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor starts to realize how much he has missed this life but before he can reminisce, Dr. Simeon begins to pump snow and cold air towards the house from a machine he has parked nearby and the governess begins to reform.
Immune to the screwdriver now, the group dashes downstairs where they find Vastra, Jenny and Strax entering the home along with Captain Latimer and the housemaid Francesca. Jenny lobs a field grenade and traps the ice governess in a force field. The trio then usher the house residents into the study to defend them, although Clara slips out to stay by the Doctor's side. Dr. Simeon knocks at the door and warns them to turn over the governess in five minutes or he and the snowmen who have formed outside will attack the house.
The Doctor and Clara create a small hole in the force field and slip through, causing the governess to chase them upstairs to the roof of the house. They then climb up the ladder and staircase to the TARDIS, the Doctor having moved it over the house. The governess pursues but the Doctor slows her down by thickening the water vapor of the cloud the TARDIS is resting on. He takes Clara into the TARDIS and gives her a key, wanting her to become his new companion. While distracted, neither of them see the governess pass through the TARDIS door where she grabs Clara. She pulls her away but doesn't know where the stairs are and instead pulls her back to the edge of the cloud where they both fall off.
The governess shatters while Clara is killed on impact. The Doctor materializes the TARDIS around them and then moves them into the house. Strax is able to revive Clara and continues to work on her while the Doctor isolates the pieces of the shattered ice governess. He teases Simeon with a piece of the ice and orders him to meet him back at the Institute.
When Simeon arrives at the Institute, he finds the Doctor and Vastra waiting for him. The Doctor then confronts Simeon, forcing him to realize that the snow was actually just a parasite and that it has merely been reflecting his own thoughts back on to him. Initially shocked, Simeon regains his composure and rips open the box the Doctor claims to have the ice crystal in. Instead, it is the memory worm, which latches on to his hand and begins to drain the memories from him. Simeon collapses and the Great Intelligence is also weakened by it's host's loss of mind.
However, the Great Intelligence has grown in strength and as Simeon becomes and empty shell, the Great Intelligence is able to transfer it's own mind into his body. The reanimated body knocks Vastra down and attacks the Doctor. The Doctor tries to fight him off but he is too strong. But just as suddenly as he attacked, he stops. The crystalline form of the Great Intelligence collapses into water and Simeon loses all strength and falls to the ground. The Doctor and Vastra check the rain but discover that it is salty, like tears.
The majority of the crystalline form of the parasite was around the house where Clara is dying. Her impending death and the sorrow felt by the family has overcome it's own telepathic field and replaced it, causing it all to collapse in tears. The Doctor and Vastra return to the house to see Clara just before she dies where she whispers to the Doctor, "Run you clever boy and remember."
After she is buried, the Doctor confides to Vastra and Jenny that he never saw the girl from Asylum of the Daleks' face but he did recognize parts of her voice and her words. He now realizes they were the same girl but in two different places and times. Invigorated with the mystery, the Doctor takes off to search for her. Over a hundred years later, Clara walks past the gravestone as a shortcut to meet a friend of hers across the field.
Analysis
Because of its bridging nature, The Snowmen could not be a stand alone romp as had been the tradition of most Christmas specials. I think this made it much better as it gave Steven Moffat something to focus on. There are small flaws but on the whole, this is an excellent story and a good fun ride.
We get two different phases of the Doctor in this story. In the second half, we get the traditional zany Eleventh Doctor that we all know and love. But in the first half we get a morose Doctor who is determined to wallow in melancholy. That would probably be a bit boring if that was it, but most of the Doctor's scenes in the first half deal with him being morose and yet slowly becoming interested in Clara and the events regarding the snow. It helps that he has both Clara and Strax to play off of but it's just interesting to see the Doctor trying to resist investigating and stay miserable when he is clearly being tempted to return to his old ways. "I don't do that anymore" is more the Doctor reinforcing himself rather than an actual tell off of the people trying to persuade him.
I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out why I like this version of Clara so much more than Clara prime. I mean, I don't hate Clara but I always found her a bit annoying, especially in her arrogance. This Clara has arrogance as well but I think it's a touch more tempered. She is bold but you see a bit restrained, like she is giving in to fear a bit more. She has wit and can argue but she also has restraint. I go back to the "one word" scene with Vastra and this Clara understands the rules immediately. I think Clara prime would have resisted and given into exasperation first before manipulating it to her advantage.
I also think that having a more overt attempt at romance between them played better. Unlike the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor would not have responded to it in any fashion other than his awkward manner so it's safe to say that the Doctor and Victorian Clara would not have become a Ten/Rose type thing. But in the Victorian attitudes, it makes sense that the Doctor's reactions and attitudes would be confused for romantic intentions and they would have been in line with her own sense of adventure. Had she not died, he would have rebuffed her affections and a more traditional friendship would have developed. Modern Clara by contrast was much more wary and held the Doctor at arm's length which made for some funny scenes but did not seem to enhance the friendship that well. It's hard to put into words but there was just something more natural and perhaps traditional in Victorian Clara's interaction with the Doctor than modern Clara and that just put be off.
The Paternoster Gang was fun as always. Strax is the major comic relief in this one but it was nice to see Vastra get a little more prominent role. I also liked the fact that they had a significant role in this story in terms of getting the Doctor back involved. There are a couple of stories where their involvement seems to be only because the story is set in late Victorian London. Here though, they are going about their way but trying to get the Doctor back involved. They supply backstory to him, provide a means of getting him back with Clara as well as their usual armed back up. I do wish Vastra had put up a better fight with the possessed Simeon because she is somewhat useless other than a person to talk to when they return to the Great Intelligence globe.
Speaking of the Great Intelligence, that is probably the weakest point of the story in two ways. The more direct problem is that its plan and even its nature is passed off with only a rushed line or two. A bit more development would have been nice, especially with Richard E. Grant and Ian McKellen playing off each other. I also think their plan is somewhat dumb in the fact that they could have recreated a person being frozen in a pond without involving outsiders. There had to have been room on the Institute grounds to make a pool of water and freeze it with a person inside. That would have allowed everything to happen without outside interference. We certainly had already seen that Simeon had no qualms about murder so killing someone else to create an ice creature should have been easy. It's just another aspect of the villain's plan being overly complicated for the sake of the hero.
The less direct problem with the villain as portrayed is its effect on other stories. Mr. Moffat clearly had a plan in how he wanted to use the Great Intelligence as the overarching enemy in Series 7B and he also clearly wanted a tie in to The Web of Fear. That's all fine but it neglects the first Great Intelligence story: The Abominable Snowmen. The Snowmen has the Great Intelligence created as a mirror of the antisocial thoughts of Simeon in 1842. However, the Great Intelligence is noted to have taken possession of Padmasambhava not long after the Doctor was given a bell by him, which would have occurred in the first half of the 17th century. I very much doubt that without the influence of the Great Intelligence, Padmasambhava would have lived even 100 years beyond that time, much less the nearly 300 he needed to match the 1892 time frame where the Great Intelligence is freed as its own consciousness. This point has no bearing on the enjoyment of The Snowmen, but it is unfortunate that Mr. Moffat was so attuned to The Web of Fear that he forgot The Abominable Snowmen.
The direction and graphics were fairly nice. The ice governess is obviously the weak link in the chain but it was pretty good for 2012 and still holds up if given some leeway. It's not so janky as to cause any problems and everyone's reaction to it sells it a great deal more than any kind of perfection within the computer. The pacing of the story was also nice with a good balance between humor and tension. Again, I think the only real flaw is the development of the villain and the nature of their plan.
Overall this is a good story. It's fun with a good mix of comedy and drama. It's a good intro into Clara as a companion as well as a transition to the slightly less manic Eleventh Doctor that had dominated the prior two and a half series. With the exception of the Doctor's reference to the Clara that was in Asylum of the Daleks, it can also be watched as a completely stand alone story, which is also good for a Christmas special, even if it is a bridge. I think this would be an excellent story to pop in any time you had the itch for a bit of Victorian adventure.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
The Snowmen was the third Christmas special of the Moffat era and was the bridging episode between the two halves of Series Seven. Like The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, there was a lead-in short where the Doctor is shown to have retired to late Victorian London in a fit of melancholy. Because of the bridging nature of this episode, the usual stand alone romp was not permitted and a more in-depth story was required. That suited fans and this episode was received much better than it's predecessor. It also added to the mystery of Clara, who made her return here following her introduction in Asylum of the Daleks.
Plot Summary
In 1842, a young boy is building a snowman, refusing to play with the other children as he views them as "too silly". The snowman begins to echo the boy's thoughts and offers to help him if it helps it. Fifty years later, the boy has grown to become the cold Dr. Simeon. He hires workers to collect the snow and bring it to a workshop where he collects it in an electrified glass globe. When the workers come to his house to be paid, snowmen manifest out of the ground and tear the workers apart.
Outside a pub in London, a new version of Clara emerges and spies a snowman in the alley. She asks the Doctor, who is passing by, morose after losing Amy and Rory, if he built it. He says no but takes a look at it. He tamps down his curiosity and walks away. Clara, unable to contain her own, follows him as he is taken away in a hansom driven by Strax. She is discovered and they are forced to stop to examine the snow while locking her in the cab.
Elsewhere, Dr. Simeon leaves a local residence, warning the owner, Captain Latimer, that within the pond where the prior governess drowned, is something that belongs to his institute and that they will be coming to collect it soon. As he walks away, he is confronted by Jenny and Madame Vastra. Simeon is unperturbed by their suspicions into his activities and the snow that seems to have been infected with an alien, low level telepathic field. They warn him to stop or he will be stopped by another. Simeon walks away.
After taking a closer look at the snow with Strax, the Doctor decides to wipe Clara's memory with a memory worm. Strax however bobbles the job and wipes his own memory. Before the Doctor can apply the worm to Clara, several snowmen manifest and attack Clara and the Doctor. The Doctor realizes that Clara is visualizing them, causing them to appear and orders her to imagine them melted. They do so. She then uses this information to convince the Doctor that if he wipes her memory, she'll be in danger again. He agrees, puts her back in the hansom and orders Strax to take her back to the pub.
Clara slips out of the hansom and follows the Doctor at a distance. She sees him head to a park where he plucks a ladder out of the air and climbs up, disappearing as he does so. Clara walks over and plucks the same ladder out of the air. At the top she finds that while she can see people, they cannot see her. She climbs a spiral staircase to a cloud above London where she finds the TARDIS. She knocks at the door but hides when the Doctor opens the door. She heads back down the staircase though the Doctor spies a scarf she dropped on her way down.
Clara wakes the next morning and leaves the pub job, with the owner begging her to stay. Clara changes clothes in the cab and is dropped off the house Dr. Simeon visited the night before where she returns to her job as a governess of the owner's two children, though under the fake name of Ms. Montague. Captain Latimer is relieved at her return and asks that she talk to his daughter, Alice, as she has been having nightmares lately. Clara speaks to her and Alice tells her of their old governess emerging from the pond as woman made of ice and terrifying them once again. Clara notes that while it has warmed up enough to melt most of the snow, the pond is still iced over.
Recalling her encounter with the snowmen, Clara returns to the park and tries to call out to the Doctor or even grab the ladder but is unable to. She is spotted by Jenny who takes her back to Paternoster Road where Vastra quizzes Clara but forces her to only answer in single words. After finishing, Vastra calls the Doctor and fills him in, triggering his interest by noting that Clara used the word "pond" to emphasize her problem.
The Doctor heads to Dr. Simeon's house where he sees the sphere of the Great Intelligence. He deduces that the snow is a crystalline life form that expresses itself through a telepathic field. He also realizes that it plans to transfer it's consciousness into a blend of ice and human DNA, animated in the form of the governess who drowned in the pond outside the Latimer home. He then dashes off before Simeon's servants can restrain him.
He investigates the pond and heads inside the home when Clara spies him outside. While Clara is putting the children to bed, the ice figure of the governess bursts and attacks them. They run and the Doctor emerges and shatters the figure with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor starts to realize how much he has missed this life but before he can reminisce, Dr. Simeon begins to pump snow and cold air towards the house from a machine he has parked nearby and the governess begins to reform.
Immune to the screwdriver now, the group dashes downstairs where they find Vastra, Jenny and Strax entering the home along with Captain Latimer and the housemaid Francesca. Jenny lobs a field grenade and traps the ice governess in a force field. The trio then usher the house residents into the study to defend them, although Clara slips out to stay by the Doctor's side. Dr. Simeon knocks at the door and warns them to turn over the governess in five minutes or he and the snowmen who have formed outside will attack the house.
The Doctor and Clara create a small hole in the force field and slip through, causing the governess to chase them upstairs to the roof of the house. They then climb up the ladder and staircase to the TARDIS, the Doctor having moved it over the house. The governess pursues but the Doctor slows her down by thickening the water vapor of the cloud the TARDIS is resting on. He takes Clara into the TARDIS and gives her a key, wanting her to become his new companion. While distracted, neither of them see the governess pass through the TARDIS door where she grabs Clara. She pulls her away but doesn't know where the stairs are and instead pulls her back to the edge of the cloud where they both fall off.
The governess shatters while Clara is killed on impact. The Doctor materializes the TARDIS around them and then moves them into the house. Strax is able to revive Clara and continues to work on her while the Doctor isolates the pieces of the shattered ice governess. He teases Simeon with a piece of the ice and orders him to meet him back at the Institute.
When Simeon arrives at the Institute, he finds the Doctor and Vastra waiting for him. The Doctor then confronts Simeon, forcing him to realize that the snow was actually just a parasite and that it has merely been reflecting his own thoughts back on to him. Initially shocked, Simeon regains his composure and rips open the box the Doctor claims to have the ice crystal in. Instead, it is the memory worm, which latches on to his hand and begins to drain the memories from him. Simeon collapses and the Great Intelligence is also weakened by it's host's loss of mind.
However, the Great Intelligence has grown in strength and as Simeon becomes and empty shell, the Great Intelligence is able to transfer it's own mind into his body. The reanimated body knocks Vastra down and attacks the Doctor. The Doctor tries to fight him off but he is too strong. But just as suddenly as he attacked, he stops. The crystalline form of the Great Intelligence collapses into water and Simeon loses all strength and falls to the ground. The Doctor and Vastra check the rain but discover that it is salty, like tears.
The majority of the crystalline form of the parasite was around the house where Clara is dying. Her impending death and the sorrow felt by the family has overcome it's own telepathic field and replaced it, causing it all to collapse in tears. The Doctor and Vastra return to the house to see Clara just before she dies where she whispers to the Doctor, "Run you clever boy and remember."
After she is buried, the Doctor confides to Vastra and Jenny that he never saw the girl from Asylum of the Daleks' face but he did recognize parts of her voice and her words. He now realizes they were the same girl but in two different places and times. Invigorated with the mystery, the Doctor takes off to search for her. Over a hundred years later, Clara walks past the gravestone as a shortcut to meet a friend of hers across the field.
Analysis
Because of its bridging nature, The Snowmen could not be a stand alone romp as had been the tradition of most Christmas specials. I think this made it much better as it gave Steven Moffat something to focus on. There are small flaws but on the whole, this is an excellent story and a good fun ride.
We get two different phases of the Doctor in this story. In the second half, we get the traditional zany Eleventh Doctor that we all know and love. But in the first half we get a morose Doctor who is determined to wallow in melancholy. That would probably be a bit boring if that was it, but most of the Doctor's scenes in the first half deal with him being morose and yet slowly becoming interested in Clara and the events regarding the snow. It helps that he has both Clara and Strax to play off of but it's just interesting to see the Doctor trying to resist investigating and stay miserable when he is clearly being tempted to return to his old ways. "I don't do that anymore" is more the Doctor reinforcing himself rather than an actual tell off of the people trying to persuade him.
I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out why I like this version of Clara so much more than Clara prime. I mean, I don't hate Clara but I always found her a bit annoying, especially in her arrogance. This Clara has arrogance as well but I think it's a touch more tempered. She is bold but you see a bit restrained, like she is giving in to fear a bit more. She has wit and can argue but she also has restraint. I go back to the "one word" scene with Vastra and this Clara understands the rules immediately. I think Clara prime would have resisted and given into exasperation first before manipulating it to her advantage.
I also think that having a more overt attempt at romance between them played better. Unlike the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor would not have responded to it in any fashion other than his awkward manner so it's safe to say that the Doctor and Victorian Clara would not have become a Ten/Rose type thing. But in the Victorian attitudes, it makes sense that the Doctor's reactions and attitudes would be confused for romantic intentions and they would have been in line with her own sense of adventure. Had she not died, he would have rebuffed her affections and a more traditional friendship would have developed. Modern Clara by contrast was much more wary and held the Doctor at arm's length which made for some funny scenes but did not seem to enhance the friendship that well. It's hard to put into words but there was just something more natural and perhaps traditional in Victorian Clara's interaction with the Doctor than modern Clara and that just put be off.
The Paternoster Gang was fun as always. Strax is the major comic relief in this one but it was nice to see Vastra get a little more prominent role. I also liked the fact that they had a significant role in this story in terms of getting the Doctor back involved. There are a couple of stories where their involvement seems to be only because the story is set in late Victorian London. Here though, they are going about their way but trying to get the Doctor back involved. They supply backstory to him, provide a means of getting him back with Clara as well as their usual armed back up. I do wish Vastra had put up a better fight with the possessed Simeon because she is somewhat useless other than a person to talk to when they return to the Great Intelligence globe.
Speaking of the Great Intelligence, that is probably the weakest point of the story in two ways. The more direct problem is that its plan and even its nature is passed off with only a rushed line or two. A bit more development would have been nice, especially with Richard E. Grant and Ian McKellen playing off each other. I also think their plan is somewhat dumb in the fact that they could have recreated a person being frozen in a pond without involving outsiders. There had to have been room on the Institute grounds to make a pool of water and freeze it with a person inside. That would have allowed everything to happen without outside interference. We certainly had already seen that Simeon had no qualms about murder so killing someone else to create an ice creature should have been easy. It's just another aspect of the villain's plan being overly complicated for the sake of the hero.
The less direct problem with the villain as portrayed is its effect on other stories. Mr. Moffat clearly had a plan in how he wanted to use the Great Intelligence as the overarching enemy in Series 7B and he also clearly wanted a tie in to The Web of Fear. That's all fine but it neglects the first Great Intelligence story: The Abominable Snowmen. The Snowmen has the Great Intelligence created as a mirror of the antisocial thoughts of Simeon in 1842. However, the Great Intelligence is noted to have taken possession of Padmasambhava not long after the Doctor was given a bell by him, which would have occurred in the first half of the 17th century. I very much doubt that without the influence of the Great Intelligence, Padmasambhava would have lived even 100 years beyond that time, much less the nearly 300 he needed to match the 1892 time frame where the Great Intelligence is freed as its own consciousness. This point has no bearing on the enjoyment of The Snowmen, but it is unfortunate that Mr. Moffat was so attuned to The Web of Fear that he forgot The Abominable Snowmen.
The direction and graphics were fairly nice. The ice governess is obviously the weak link in the chain but it was pretty good for 2012 and still holds up if given some leeway. It's not so janky as to cause any problems and everyone's reaction to it sells it a great deal more than any kind of perfection within the computer. The pacing of the story was also nice with a good balance between humor and tension. Again, I think the only real flaw is the development of the villain and the nature of their plan.
Overall this is a good story. It's fun with a good mix of comedy and drama. It's a good intro into Clara as a companion as well as a transition to the slightly less manic Eleventh Doctor that had dominated the prior two and a half series. With the exception of the Doctor's reference to the Clara that was in Asylum of the Daleks, it can also be watched as a completely stand alone story, which is also good for a Christmas special, even if it is a bridge. I think this would be an excellent story to pop in any time you had the itch for a bit of Victorian adventure.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
Monday, December 11, 2017
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
Who opens their Christmas presents before Christmas? Okay, everyone.
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe in generally regarded by fans to be the worst of the Moffat Christmas specials to date, though The Return of Doctor Mysterio might give it a run for it's money. I remember very little from the first and only time that I watched it except that I recall it being rather schmaltzy and that it took place in the Androzani system. I also recall not disliking it the way I recall other fans doing but that might just be a first impression. Either way, I'm going in with slightly lower expectations based both on fan reaction and my own memory.
Plot Summary
The Doctor dives out a spaceship above Earth after activating a self destruct button. He grabs a crash suit and puts it on as he tumbles into the atmosphere. He crashes in England on Christmas Eve, 1938 where he is spotted by a woman named Madge Arwell. She helps him out of the crater and then takes him around town to find his TARDIS. However, as the Doctor had put his helmet on backwards in his haste, she never sees his face.
Three years later, just before Christmas, Madge receives a telegram that her husband's plane disappeared over the English Channel. Not wanting Christmas to be ruined by the news of their father's death, Madge refuses to tell her children, Lily and Cyril, the news. Because of the London air raids, they are forced to leave their house and head to an old manor house owned by an uncle who is now in a rest home. Prior to their departure, Madge makes a wish for a good Christmas, which is picked up by the Doctor.
Upon arriving at the manor house, they are surprised by the Doctor who claims to be the caretaker. He has updated the house to be more whimsical, which impresses the children but agonizes Madge. Privately, she tells the Doctor of her conflict in wanting the children to have a good Christmas and knowing that immediately afterwards she will have to tell them of their father's death. The Doctor offers a small comfort in trying to make Christmas a happy time for them all.
While the Doctor and Madge are talking, the children discover a large wrapped present in the sitting room which glows periodically. Though fascinated, Madge shoos them away to other things in the house. That night, Lily creeps out of bed to look at the present. She is distracted though by sounds and lights coming from upstairs where she discovers the Doctor working on wires outside the TARDIS. Unbeknownst to them, Cyril also gets up and sneaks downstairs to open the present.
Cyril opens one side and discovers a hole to an evergreen forest covered in snow. As he steps through, a silver bauble forms on a tree. Cyril picks it but drops it when it starts to crack open. He dashes back through the hole but comes back when he sees that the thing inside walked away from him. Curious, he follows the tracks in the snow.
Upstairs, the Doctor notices activity on his instruments and finds Cyril has gone through early (he had planned to take the whole family Christmas morning). He and Lily follow Cyril into the forest and trace his tracks. They also see that whatever Cyril is following is growing at an accelerated rate as the tracks continuously grow in size.
Unable to sleep herself, Madge gets up and checks on the children. Finding them missing she goes to the present and finds the passageway to the forest. She also steps through and follows the now set of four prints. Madge however, runs into a team of three factory harvesters who tell her that she is nearly 3,500 years in the future and on the planet Androzani Major. She tricks them into thinking her harmless and then pulls a gun on them, demanding to know where her children are. She takes them back into their harvester and ties the two men to pillars in the cockpit while interrogating the woman as to how they can use the machine to track her children. The leader of the team, Droxil, informs Madge that the whole forest is scheduled to be melted down by acid rain from a set of satellites to harvest the tree's power.
Cyril follows the tracks to a wooden tower. Inside he finds a wooden statue of a bearded king sitting on a throne. He follows the spiral staircase to the top where a wooden queen is, holding a circlet over a throne. Distracted by the view, he doesn't notice the queen step towards him. Startled, he backs into the throne where she places the circlet on his head.
The Doctor and Lily arrive at the tower where the Doctor notes that the bearded king is actually what Cyril was following. They race up the stairs but are locked out of the top room. Lily notices bright lights emanating from the trees just as the door opens of its own accord. They find Cyril and the queen and are joined shortly afterwards by the bearded king. Lily notices the tree lights getting larger and brighter while Cyril, under the influence of the circlet, asks if they can hear the trees screaming.
The statues use Cyril's voice to note that they have been preparing for them but that they can't use Cyril. The Doctor realizes that the vessel they are in is designed to take the living energy of the trees away from the destruction but that Cyril is not strong enough. He tries, though the circlet rejects him. Lily picks it up and is more accepting. The Doctor realizes that the transporter must be female.
They are interrupted by the approach of the harvest machine. The work team had teleported out and Madge had taken over it when the acid rain started. She gets it close but crashes at the base of the tower. She rushes in and receives the circlet from the wooden queen. Upon becoming the receptacle, Madge receives the essence of the trees into her mind and the ship at the top of the tower launches into space.
The ship flies into the time vortex and the Doctor coaches Madge to focus on home and the good things there. Madge's mind drifts to her husband and lets slip that she believes he is dead. The Doctor pulls her focus back and they land outside the manor house on Christmas morning, the essence of the trees having dispersed in the time vortex into the stars.
Lily and Cyril and tentative with their mother and she starts to break the news that their father is believed to have died. Before she can finish, the Doctor reenters the ship and insists they come outside. Outside they find their father's plane and him having climbed out of it. Madge's pull of focus had created a hole in time for him to follow in the damaged plane and he was pulled along with the ship to the manor house.
Reunited, they celebrate Christmas together while the Doctor prepares to leave. Madge finds the Doctor and the TARDIS upstairs and realizes he was the spaceman she had met before. She thanks him for his kindness and offers to have him stay for dinner. Upon learning that he has close friends who think him dead, she insists that he go have Christmas dinner with them and shoos him away. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS and knocks on Amy and Rory's door two years after the incident at Lake Silencio. After some ribbing, they invite him in for dinner.
Analysis
This story is heavily dependent on the viewer being both patient and very familiar with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The funny thing is that it reads like someone who has read a summary of the high points of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as you see symbols or hear a phrase rather than having any real connection to the story. But for even someone (like me) who fits those two criteria, this story has two rather large sins that are difficult to get past. The first is that it is very schmaltzy, to the point of almost being sickening. The second is that it is rather boring in the middle. The ties to C. S. Lewis are meant to string the viewer along, but they don't alleviate the sense of tedium that permeates the central part of the story.
The one thing that this story sets up right away is that it is going to be a comedy romp and that is not a bad thing. I have no problem with stories being silly or fun, especially at Christmas, and I would rather that be established right at the fore. Here we get that with the Doctor and Madge's introduction. This is even more so if you watch the one-minute prologue available on-line where the Doctor calls the TARDIS looking for Amy just before the ship blows up. This is all fine and it maintains the comedy and silliness, even with the presumed death of Madge's husband after the intro.
However, the comedy starts to go away once Cyril crawls through the porthole and that's where the slow down begins. I get that the comedy is supposed to be replaced by dramatic tension but it doesn't play that way as much. There's still a bit of whimsy in it. I also get that we're supposed to be pacified by the allusions to Narnia with the living trees, the lamppost in front of the tower, the lion's head knocker and the enthroning of a child, but it's just not enough, especially if one is not into the Narnia books.
Things pick up again comedicly with the trio of harvesters but they are only around for one full scene with Madge. Their appearance is so short that it's almost pointless. They tell about the acid rain that will destroy the trees and that's it. Comedic exposition and then vanish. At that point, all comedy ceases and we are given over to treacle.
I got the impression that Moffat tried to massage some more comedy in through the Doctor's dialogue but the heavy hand of the father's death casts a pall on everything. In a way, I think the reason the reason the schmaltz doesn't work is that the tone was too light in the beginning. We got allusions to Madge's loss with the telegram but with the romp-y tone at the beginning, there wasn't enough of a dark tone to counter the volume of sappiness. Instead it just comes across as too much, too thick.
Another small problem is that the Doctor is sidelined for a part of the story. I have no problem with him showing up as the caretaker after introducing Madge and the children, but once that happens, the Doctor needs to be the main focus. Instead you have a portion of the story where the Doctor only interacts with Lily. Cyril wanders on his own and Madge follows, interacting with the harvesters. The whole group is not reunited until about five minutes before the end when Madge finally arrives in the harvester. This can work when you have a companion that we are comfortable with but with a one-off companion, the Doctor should be at the fore, driving the action for most of the story.
In that regard, the Doctor is far and away the best thing in the story. He has the full Eleventh Doctor charm and zaniness that make him perfect for romp-y stories. He also makes him an excellent stand-in for Professor Kirke, who understands what is going on and remarks about the lack of children's knowledge. You also have a few jokes at the Doctor's expense where he acts as though he knows what he is doing and is just completely wrong. His moments of quietness and seriousness feel more earned because of how zany he is for most of the story.
Madge is not bad but she is so yanked around. She is very likeable and funny in that subdued way in the opening scene. But the loss of her husband turns her into a wet blanket who then becomes one note about trying to preserve Christmas and protect her children. It overwhelms other aspects of her character that would be more interesting to indulge in, such as the cold, quiet determination in tricking the harvesters to disarming themselves but then pulling a gun on them. These can play as both interesting and funny but there are too few of them to pay off properly. Her acting in the climax when piloting the ship into the time vortex becomes a bit over-the-top for my taste.
The children are okay but they have their limitations. Cyril is what you would expect and he plays fine for me. Lily is good up until the climax. At that point she gets a little dumb for me. Lily seems like she is an astute girl and she should not be in such denial about the possibility of her father's death, nor should she be getting into that pleading state with her mother where she denies what she should be easily aware of. It's what you would expect from a child much younger than what Lily is.
I will say that the direction and scenery are nice. The sets were also good and I'd love to live in a house the Doctor set up. The core problems are in the writing and it is just too sappy without enough darkness to counterbalance it. The story needed to be either a funny romp the whole way through or given some real darkness in the middle to counter the sap. It also should have accelerated the trek through the forest in the middle to give a bit more time to explain what was going on at the end as that felt rushed.
Now, despite my negativity, this is not a horrible story. It has larger than normal flaws but it is entertaining to some degree and I think it would be something better appreciated by children than adults. I think it is the weakest of the Moffat Christmas specials but it's not something to be avoided and not enjoyed. If you don't mind the treacle, it's a serviceable story and entertaining enough for an hour.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe in generally regarded by fans to be the worst of the Moffat Christmas specials to date, though The Return of Doctor Mysterio might give it a run for it's money. I remember very little from the first and only time that I watched it except that I recall it being rather schmaltzy and that it took place in the Androzani system. I also recall not disliking it the way I recall other fans doing but that might just be a first impression. Either way, I'm going in with slightly lower expectations based both on fan reaction and my own memory.
Plot Summary
The Doctor dives out a spaceship above Earth after activating a self destruct button. He grabs a crash suit and puts it on as he tumbles into the atmosphere. He crashes in England on Christmas Eve, 1938 where he is spotted by a woman named Madge Arwell. She helps him out of the crater and then takes him around town to find his TARDIS. However, as the Doctor had put his helmet on backwards in his haste, she never sees his face.
Three years later, just before Christmas, Madge receives a telegram that her husband's plane disappeared over the English Channel. Not wanting Christmas to be ruined by the news of their father's death, Madge refuses to tell her children, Lily and Cyril, the news. Because of the London air raids, they are forced to leave their house and head to an old manor house owned by an uncle who is now in a rest home. Prior to their departure, Madge makes a wish for a good Christmas, which is picked up by the Doctor.
Upon arriving at the manor house, they are surprised by the Doctor who claims to be the caretaker. He has updated the house to be more whimsical, which impresses the children but agonizes Madge. Privately, she tells the Doctor of her conflict in wanting the children to have a good Christmas and knowing that immediately afterwards she will have to tell them of their father's death. The Doctor offers a small comfort in trying to make Christmas a happy time for them all.
While the Doctor and Madge are talking, the children discover a large wrapped present in the sitting room which glows periodically. Though fascinated, Madge shoos them away to other things in the house. That night, Lily creeps out of bed to look at the present. She is distracted though by sounds and lights coming from upstairs where she discovers the Doctor working on wires outside the TARDIS. Unbeknownst to them, Cyril also gets up and sneaks downstairs to open the present.
Cyril opens one side and discovers a hole to an evergreen forest covered in snow. As he steps through, a silver bauble forms on a tree. Cyril picks it but drops it when it starts to crack open. He dashes back through the hole but comes back when he sees that the thing inside walked away from him. Curious, he follows the tracks in the snow.
Upstairs, the Doctor notices activity on his instruments and finds Cyril has gone through early (he had planned to take the whole family Christmas morning). He and Lily follow Cyril into the forest and trace his tracks. They also see that whatever Cyril is following is growing at an accelerated rate as the tracks continuously grow in size.
Unable to sleep herself, Madge gets up and checks on the children. Finding them missing she goes to the present and finds the passageway to the forest. She also steps through and follows the now set of four prints. Madge however, runs into a team of three factory harvesters who tell her that she is nearly 3,500 years in the future and on the planet Androzani Major. She tricks them into thinking her harmless and then pulls a gun on them, demanding to know where her children are. She takes them back into their harvester and ties the two men to pillars in the cockpit while interrogating the woman as to how they can use the machine to track her children. The leader of the team, Droxil, informs Madge that the whole forest is scheduled to be melted down by acid rain from a set of satellites to harvest the tree's power.
Cyril follows the tracks to a wooden tower. Inside he finds a wooden statue of a bearded king sitting on a throne. He follows the spiral staircase to the top where a wooden queen is, holding a circlet over a throne. Distracted by the view, he doesn't notice the queen step towards him. Startled, he backs into the throne where she places the circlet on his head.
The Doctor and Lily arrive at the tower where the Doctor notes that the bearded king is actually what Cyril was following. They race up the stairs but are locked out of the top room. Lily notices bright lights emanating from the trees just as the door opens of its own accord. They find Cyril and the queen and are joined shortly afterwards by the bearded king. Lily notices the tree lights getting larger and brighter while Cyril, under the influence of the circlet, asks if they can hear the trees screaming.
The statues use Cyril's voice to note that they have been preparing for them but that they can't use Cyril. The Doctor realizes that the vessel they are in is designed to take the living energy of the trees away from the destruction but that Cyril is not strong enough. He tries, though the circlet rejects him. Lily picks it up and is more accepting. The Doctor realizes that the transporter must be female.
They are interrupted by the approach of the harvest machine. The work team had teleported out and Madge had taken over it when the acid rain started. She gets it close but crashes at the base of the tower. She rushes in and receives the circlet from the wooden queen. Upon becoming the receptacle, Madge receives the essence of the trees into her mind and the ship at the top of the tower launches into space.
The ship flies into the time vortex and the Doctor coaches Madge to focus on home and the good things there. Madge's mind drifts to her husband and lets slip that she believes he is dead. The Doctor pulls her focus back and they land outside the manor house on Christmas morning, the essence of the trees having dispersed in the time vortex into the stars.
Lily and Cyril and tentative with their mother and she starts to break the news that their father is believed to have died. Before she can finish, the Doctor reenters the ship and insists they come outside. Outside they find their father's plane and him having climbed out of it. Madge's pull of focus had created a hole in time for him to follow in the damaged plane and he was pulled along with the ship to the manor house.
Reunited, they celebrate Christmas together while the Doctor prepares to leave. Madge finds the Doctor and the TARDIS upstairs and realizes he was the spaceman she had met before. She thanks him for his kindness and offers to have him stay for dinner. Upon learning that he has close friends who think him dead, she insists that he go have Christmas dinner with them and shoos him away. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS and knocks on Amy and Rory's door two years after the incident at Lake Silencio. After some ribbing, they invite him in for dinner.
Analysis
This story is heavily dependent on the viewer being both patient and very familiar with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The funny thing is that it reads like someone who has read a summary of the high points of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as you see symbols or hear a phrase rather than having any real connection to the story. But for even someone (like me) who fits those two criteria, this story has two rather large sins that are difficult to get past. The first is that it is very schmaltzy, to the point of almost being sickening. The second is that it is rather boring in the middle. The ties to C. S. Lewis are meant to string the viewer along, but they don't alleviate the sense of tedium that permeates the central part of the story.
The one thing that this story sets up right away is that it is going to be a comedy romp and that is not a bad thing. I have no problem with stories being silly or fun, especially at Christmas, and I would rather that be established right at the fore. Here we get that with the Doctor and Madge's introduction. This is even more so if you watch the one-minute prologue available on-line where the Doctor calls the TARDIS looking for Amy just before the ship blows up. This is all fine and it maintains the comedy and silliness, even with the presumed death of Madge's husband after the intro.
However, the comedy starts to go away once Cyril crawls through the porthole and that's where the slow down begins. I get that the comedy is supposed to be replaced by dramatic tension but it doesn't play that way as much. There's still a bit of whimsy in it. I also get that we're supposed to be pacified by the allusions to Narnia with the living trees, the lamppost in front of the tower, the lion's head knocker and the enthroning of a child, but it's just not enough, especially if one is not into the Narnia books.
Things pick up again comedicly with the trio of harvesters but they are only around for one full scene with Madge. Their appearance is so short that it's almost pointless. They tell about the acid rain that will destroy the trees and that's it. Comedic exposition and then vanish. At that point, all comedy ceases and we are given over to treacle.
I got the impression that Moffat tried to massage some more comedy in through the Doctor's dialogue but the heavy hand of the father's death casts a pall on everything. In a way, I think the reason the reason the schmaltz doesn't work is that the tone was too light in the beginning. We got allusions to Madge's loss with the telegram but with the romp-y tone at the beginning, there wasn't enough of a dark tone to counter the volume of sappiness. Instead it just comes across as too much, too thick.
Another small problem is that the Doctor is sidelined for a part of the story. I have no problem with him showing up as the caretaker after introducing Madge and the children, but once that happens, the Doctor needs to be the main focus. Instead you have a portion of the story where the Doctor only interacts with Lily. Cyril wanders on his own and Madge follows, interacting with the harvesters. The whole group is not reunited until about five minutes before the end when Madge finally arrives in the harvester. This can work when you have a companion that we are comfortable with but with a one-off companion, the Doctor should be at the fore, driving the action for most of the story.
In that regard, the Doctor is far and away the best thing in the story. He has the full Eleventh Doctor charm and zaniness that make him perfect for romp-y stories. He also makes him an excellent stand-in for Professor Kirke, who understands what is going on and remarks about the lack of children's knowledge. You also have a few jokes at the Doctor's expense where he acts as though he knows what he is doing and is just completely wrong. His moments of quietness and seriousness feel more earned because of how zany he is for most of the story.
Madge is not bad but she is so yanked around. She is very likeable and funny in that subdued way in the opening scene. But the loss of her husband turns her into a wet blanket who then becomes one note about trying to preserve Christmas and protect her children. It overwhelms other aspects of her character that would be more interesting to indulge in, such as the cold, quiet determination in tricking the harvesters to disarming themselves but then pulling a gun on them. These can play as both interesting and funny but there are too few of them to pay off properly. Her acting in the climax when piloting the ship into the time vortex becomes a bit over-the-top for my taste.
The children are okay but they have their limitations. Cyril is what you would expect and he plays fine for me. Lily is good up until the climax. At that point she gets a little dumb for me. Lily seems like she is an astute girl and she should not be in such denial about the possibility of her father's death, nor should she be getting into that pleading state with her mother where she denies what she should be easily aware of. It's what you would expect from a child much younger than what Lily is.
I will say that the direction and scenery are nice. The sets were also good and I'd love to live in a house the Doctor set up. The core problems are in the writing and it is just too sappy without enough darkness to counterbalance it. The story needed to be either a funny romp the whole way through or given some real darkness in the middle to counter the sap. It also should have accelerated the trek through the forest in the middle to give a bit more time to explain what was going on at the end as that felt rushed.
Now, despite my negativity, this is not a horrible story. It has larger than normal flaws but it is entertaining to some degree and I think it would be something better appreciated by children than adults. I think it is the weakest of the Moffat Christmas specials but it's not something to be avoided and not enjoyed. If you don't mind the treacle, it's a serviceable story and entertaining enough for an hour.
Overall personal score: 2 out of 5
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
The Next Doctor
TARDIS. It stands for Tethered Aerial Release Developed in Style.
The Next Doctor is a story that suffered from a bit too much hype when it first went out. David Tennant had announced that he would be leaving at the end of the following year, where the only episodes would be a set of specials. Then it was announced that David Morrissey would be playing "the other Doctor" and the rumor mill went wild with speculation about whether Morrissey was actually going to be the Eleventh Doctor, an iteration beyond that or some other explanation. All this led to high viewing figures but the resolution gave some fans a feeling of being cheated. So I think a fair evaluation of this story can only be done in a context far removed from all the hype of that particular Christmas.
Plot Summary
The Doctor lands in London on Christmas Eve, 1851. While wandering around, he hears a woman call for the Doctor. He rushes over but she continues to call. Another man in Victorian dress arrives and calls for the woman to give him his sonic screwdriver. Amazed, the Doctor steps in as the door bursts open to reveal a animal with a copper Cyberman faceplate.
The other man lassos the creature but it pulls him along as it climbs the building. The Doctor also grabs the rope but both men are pulled along up the side and into the building. The Cyber-shade pulls the two men and jumps out the window on the opposite side. The woman, named Rosita, cuts the rope with an axe just before they are pulled out with it.
The other man, calling himself the Doctor, sends Rosita back to his TARDIS and asks the Doctor about himself. The Doctor initially believes he might be a future version of himself but is wary given the man's memory loss, due to an incident with the Cybermen, and gives his name as John Smith. The other Doctor is aware that the Doctor is a different man given his lack of astonishment at the talk of Cybermen but runs off to check out a funeral. Curious, the Doctor follows at a distance.
The funeral is for a prominent reverend and as the carriage leaves, the other Doctor tries to break into the man's house. The Doctor opens the door from the inside, having gone in through the front. He notes that the other Doctor's sonic screwdriver is an actual screwdriver. As they look through the study, the other Doctor tells the Doctor that the reverend was murdered by the Cybermen and that he is investigating other murders and disappearances. He states that it began several weeks ago with the murder and disappearance of a teacher called Jackson Lake and has continued with the disappearance of a large number of children.
The Doctor unlocks the roll top desk and finds two info-stamps. The sight of the stamps cause the other Doctor to fall into a jumble of memories. He recalls their presence at his regeneration and that the Doctor was also there. The Doctor reassures him that he will help him but uncovers a Cyberman waiting in a closet. They run upstairs, pursued by two Cybermen. The Doctor tries to fend them off with a sword but they advance on them. The other Doctor releases the core of the stamp which overloads the brains of the two Cybermen and causes both their heads to explode. The other Doctor collapses, recalling he did something similar the first time. Curious, the Doctor pulls out a stethoscope and checks the other Doctor's heartbeat, promising that they will find what was lost.
At the gravesite for the murdered reverend, a woman, Miss Hartigan, matron of one of the workhouses, approaches, disrupting the service. She notes that killing the reverend was the only way to get so many men belonging to charitable organizations in one place. Cybermen appear out of the fog and attack the men, killing all but the four who run the largest children's homes in London. They are partially cybernized and sent to bring all their children to a central location.
The two Doctors meet Rosita at a stable nearby where the other Doctor has set up headquarters. He has held Jackson Lake's luggage which the Doctor takes a quick rustle through and finds another info stamp. He has the other Doctor show him the TARDIS, which it turns out is a hot air balloon. After that, the Doctor takes the other Doctor and Rosita, sits them down and explains what happened.
Pulling out the fob watch, the Doctor shows the other Doctor that he is in fact Jackson Lake. He was attacked by the Cybermen and defended himself with the info stamp. But that info stamp was the Cybermen's record of the Doctor and that information was downloaded into his head. The Doctor also tells Jackson that his brain accepted the information because he was retreating from trauma. Jackson Lake then remembers that his wife was killed by the Cybermen.
They are distracted by a mechanical beeping and the Doctor finds a belt of info stamps in Jackon's luggage. He also sees a group of children being escorted by a man with cyber plants in his ears. The Doctor tries to remove them but spots a Cyber-shade and opts to just watch. Rosita comes with the Doctor while Jackson tries to sort through his grief. They spot the children entering a building where the sewers connect but are confronted by Miss Hartigan and two Cybermen. The Cybermen take the info stamp and recognize the Doctor. They advance on him but Jackson surprises them with another info stamp and kills them. Rosita knocks Miss Hartigan down and the three escape.
Jackson shows the Doctor a deed to a property nearby which is the house he had bought. Realizing that the Cybermen attacked him in the basement of that house, they suspect there is an entrance from the house to the building where the Cybermen are preparing. Jackson also tells the Doctor that he is sure there was something else in the basement that was taken but he can't remember what. They head to the house, destroying one Cyberman guard. The Doctor finds a dimensional machine, explaining how the Cybermen escaped the void and a passage into the sewer.
Inside the main building, the Cybermen put the children to work at the machinery. Miss Hartigan kills the four cybernized men but she herself is taken by the Cyberleader and placed in the command chair of the Cyber-King. Rather than completely taking over her, her mind begins to rewrite the software of the Cyber-King, harnessing the emotions of hate and rage. She kills the Cyberleader when he attempts to disconnect her, taking command of all other Cybermen. She orders the killing of the children when the power has reached 100% capacity and prepares to launch the Cyber-King.
At the other end of the sewer tunnel, the Doctor, Jackson and Rosita find the children working. They also discover the power rise and see Miss Hartigan overwriting the programing. The three storm into the factory using the info stamp to kill the Cybermen guards. The Doctor orders all the children to flee with Rosita leading them to safety. Jackson hesitates and remembers that his son was stolen when he was attacked. He sees his son trapped on a platform above. The Doctor rescues the boy and both of them flee the area as it destroys itself.
They emerge outside to see a large robot, the Cyber-King - a dreadnaught with internal Cyber factory - rising from the Thames. The Doctor orders Jackson to take his son and find cover while the Doctor runs to the TARDIS balloon. He launches it after having grabbed another belt of info stamps and the dimensional control from the machine that brought the Cybermen to London. He launches the balloon and offers Miss Hartigan a chance to surrender where he will take them to an empty world to live on.
Miss Hartigan scoffs and orders an attack. He then fires a group of info stamps, disrupting her connection to the Cyber-King. The disruption allows her emotions of horror and fear to manifest. They create a feedback loop as the Cyber-King program tries to reestablish itself and both she and the Cybermen are destroyed. The Cyber-King prepares to fall but the Doctor uses the dimensional control to teleport it back into the void. From the ground, Jackson sees the Doctor and proclaims cheers of thanks from the crowd.
Afterward, Jackson offers the Doctor a chance to come to Christmas dinner but he declines. The Doctor in turn offers Jackson a chance to see the TARDIS, to which he accepts. He is overwhelmed and scampers out. However, he also notes that the Doctor is alone, despite all the memories of companions. Jackson insists that the Doctor come to dinner as a memory of those whom he has said goodbye to and the Doctor accepts.
Analysis
The Next Doctor is probably a story best described as a tale of two halves. The first half of the story where the mystery of the other Doctor is engaging with a lot of run around and also some nice back and forth between the Doctor and Jackson Lake. The second half though, once Jackson Lake remembers who he is, loses steam and descends a bit too much into the hero worship of the Tenth Doctor that marked the year of the specials. The second half isn't bad but it just doesn't hold the interest in the same way the first half does.
The Doctor is fun in this story. It's amusing to see his vanity stroked a bit when he thinks Jackson is a future version of him. But you can see the wheels turning swiftly and as he goes into investigative mode, the cracks and interaction with Jackson become even more interesting. Once the mystery is solved, it's back to action Doctor and that is still entertaining, even if it something we're overly used to by now.
Jackson Lake is also interesting in his two halves. He doesn't actually change his performance much between when he thinks he's the Doctor and when he's back in his right mind but I think that's a bit to his detriment. Impulsiveness and brashness work well with the Doctor as it usually is done for comedic effect. Having two Doctor personalities bounce and interact with each other makes for a great deal of fun. But once Jackson gets his memory back, his brashness seems oddly forced and makes him less likable. It also doesn't help that he oscillates between this brash action-hero type and someone frozen by fear and indecision. I especially didn't like the leading the crowd in praise of the Doctor after defeating the Cyber-King as it crossed the line into just too much schmaltz for my taste. But I did like his reaction to the TARDIS and his actual convincing of the Doctor to stay for dinner. So he's just a mixed bag all around.
There's not much to say on Rosita except that she was at least consistent through the whole story. I liked her given that nice mix of sass, adventurousness and caring. I actually wish she could have gotten a bit more screen time, although I'm sure that would have detracted from the time between the Doctor and Jackson. I also wished Jackson had not been so quick to talk about her being a governess and not add anything after the Doctor gave him a bit of a look. I'm sure the line was probably more written as a class joke but with her being black it took a slightly different tone with me. Probably not how it was intended but still it did hit that note.
Up until the launch of the Cyber-King, I rather enjoyed the Cybermen in this story. They were quite menacing and their attack on the funeral through the fog was a nice touch on top of their normal menace. I also liked the fact that the Cyberleader, despite all other intentions, still seemed to have traces of emotion and wit. His manipulation of Miss Hartigan was rather amusing in that dry way.
Miss Hartigan herself wasn't too bad except for the total lack of development she gets. She has that scene by the graveside and her moment of bossing the four cybernized men around but almost nothing else prior to her conversion. Obviously she harbors great hatred for those who have overlooked her and dismissed her powerful mind and wants revenge on society, but how she came to be in league with the Cybermen, understood them and convinced herself that she would not be cybernized is left in the dark. It makes her feel mostly like wasted potential.
Then there is the Cyber-King. That is the point where you knew this story crossed over from being a regular Doctor Who and officially became a Christmas special because it had to have something overly silly as the climax of the story. The Doctor tries to pass it off as an actual ship with a conversion factory in the belly but you can't deny that it's a giant metal robot wandering around 19th century London like Steampunk anime. There is also that fact that it is another example of Cybermen technology being overpowered by emotion; twice in this case. You have Miss Hartigan's mind and the combination of hatred and pleasure at the power she has been grated take over a rewrite the Cyber-King's software and then the whole thing is defeated when the Doctor overrides the fear suppression, allowing that emotion to override everything and destroy both herself and the Cybermen. It is both simplistic and a bit too pat for my taste.
My personal preference would have been for the Cyber-King to just be a conventional Cyber warship that was damaged and that the children were being collected for conversion. This is similar to other plots and I'm sure RTD wanted to avoid something that would have been seen as too close to Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, but something grounded in a bit more reality would have been nice. A Cyberman version of Godzilla is just a bit too much for me to swallow.
I also think it very strange for the Cybermen to expend so much effort on getting all the children only to work for just enough time to get the Cyber-King powered to maximum. Why not use Cybermen or even the Cyber-shades for that? What's more, why talk of killing the children if you have a conversion factory in the belly of the beast? They went through all that effort to get all those children, why not convert them and suddenly there are hundreds of Cybermen and not just the six to ten that seem to be in the facility. It's one of those plot points that just seem a bit too poorly thought out for my taste.
So I guess it comes down to your tolerance for silliness. If you're in the mood for a fun romp with slightly dark undertones, this will do. But with the dark and slightly comic set up in the first thirty to forty minutes, I felt that the ending was just too sharp of a turn for my taste. The set up was good, the acting also pretty good (save perhaps Jackson's son who looked dead inside) and even the direction was pretty nice. But the tone of the writing just took too much of a hard turn for my taste. Enjoyable, especially at Christmas, but nothing to give much overall thought to.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
The Next Doctor is a story that suffered from a bit too much hype when it first went out. David Tennant had announced that he would be leaving at the end of the following year, where the only episodes would be a set of specials. Then it was announced that David Morrissey would be playing "the other Doctor" and the rumor mill went wild with speculation about whether Morrissey was actually going to be the Eleventh Doctor, an iteration beyond that or some other explanation. All this led to high viewing figures but the resolution gave some fans a feeling of being cheated. So I think a fair evaluation of this story can only be done in a context far removed from all the hype of that particular Christmas.
Plot Summary
The Doctor lands in London on Christmas Eve, 1851. While wandering around, he hears a woman call for the Doctor. He rushes over but she continues to call. Another man in Victorian dress arrives and calls for the woman to give him his sonic screwdriver. Amazed, the Doctor steps in as the door bursts open to reveal a animal with a copper Cyberman faceplate.
The other man lassos the creature but it pulls him along as it climbs the building. The Doctor also grabs the rope but both men are pulled along up the side and into the building. The Cyber-shade pulls the two men and jumps out the window on the opposite side. The woman, named Rosita, cuts the rope with an axe just before they are pulled out with it.
The other man, calling himself the Doctor, sends Rosita back to his TARDIS and asks the Doctor about himself. The Doctor initially believes he might be a future version of himself but is wary given the man's memory loss, due to an incident with the Cybermen, and gives his name as John Smith. The other Doctor is aware that the Doctor is a different man given his lack of astonishment at the talk of Cybermen but runs off to check out a funeral. Curious, the Doctor follows at a distance.
The funeral is for a prominent reverend and as the carriage leaves, the other Doctor tries to break into the man's house. The Doctor opens the door from the inside, having gone in through the front. He notes that the other Doctor's sonic screwdriver is an actual screwdriver. As they look through the study, the other Doctor tells the Doctor that the reverend was murdered by the Cybermen and that he is investigating other murders and disappearances. He states that it began several weeks ago with the murder and disappearance of a teacher called Jackson Lake and has continued with the disappearance of a large number of children.
The Doctor unlocks the roll top desk and finds two info-stamps. The sight of the stamps cause the other Doctor to fall into a jumble of memories. He recalls their presence at his regeneration and that the Doctor was also there. The Doctor reassures him that he will help him but uncovers a Cyberman waiting in a closet. They run upstairs, pursued by two Cybermen. The Doctor tries to fend them off with a sword but they advance on them. The other Doctor releases the core of the stamp which overloads the brains of the two Cybermen and causes both their heads to explode. The other Doctor collapses, recalling he did something similar the first time. Curious, the Doctor pulls out a stethoscope and checks the other Doctor's heartbeat, promising that they will find what was lost.
At the gravesite for the murdered reverend, a woman, Miss Hartigan, matron of one of the workhouses, approaches, disrupting the service. She notes that killing the reverend was the only way to get so many men belonging to charitable organizations in one place. Cybermen appear out of the fog and attack the men, killing all but the four who run the largest children's homes in London. They are partially cybernized and sent to bring all their children to a central location.
The two Doctors meet Rosita at a stable nearby where the other Doctor has set up headquarters. He has held Jackson Lake's luggage which the Doctor takes a quick rustle through and finds another info stamp. He has the other Doctor show him the TARDIS, which it turns out is a hot air balloon. After that, the Doctor takes the other Doctor and Rosita, sits them down and explains what happened.
Pulling out the fob watch, the Doctor shows the other Doctor that he is in fact Jackson Lake. He was attacked by the Cybermen and defended himself with the info stamp. But that info stamp was the Cybermen's record of the Doctor and that information was downloaded into his head. The Doctor also tells Jackson that his brain accepted the information because he was retreating from trauma. Jackson Lake then remembers that his wife was killed by the Cybermen.
They are distracted by a mechanical beeping and the Doctor finds a belt of info stamps in Jackon's luggage. He also sees a group of children being escorted by a man with cyber plants in his ears. The Doctor tries to remove them but spots a Cyber-shade and opts to just watch. Rosita comes with the Doctor while Jackson tries to sort through his grief. They spot the children entering a building where the sewers connect but are confronted by Miss Hartigan and two Cybermen. The Cybermen take the info stamp and recognize the Doctor. They advance on him but Jackson surprises them with another info stamp and kills them. Rosita knocks Miss Hartigan down and the three escape.
Jackson shows the Doctor a deed to a property nearby which is the house he had bought. Realizing that the Cybermen attacked him in the basement of that house, they suspect there is an entrance from the house to the building where the Cybermen are preparing. Jackson also tells the Doctor that he is sure there was something else in the basement that was taken but he can't remember what. They head to the house, destroying one Cyberman guard. The Doctor finds a dimensional machine, explaining how the Cybermen escaped the void and a passage into the sewer.
Inside the main building, the Cybermen put the children to work at the machinery. Miss Hartigan kills the four cybernized men but she herself is taken by the Cyberleader and placed in the command chair of the Cyber-King. Rather than completely taking over her, her mind begins to rewrite the software of the Cyber-King, harnessing the emotions of hate and rage. She kills the Cyberleader when he attempts to disconnect her, taking command of all other Cybermen. She orders the killing of the children when the power has reached 100% capacity and prepares to launch the Cyber-King.
At the other end of the sewer tunnel, the Doctor, Jackson and Rosita find the children working. They also discover the power rise and see Miss Hartigan overwriting the programing. The three storm into the factory using the info stamp to kill the Cybermen guards. The Doctor orders all the children to flee with Rosita leading them to safety. Jackson hesitates and remembers that his son was stolen when he was attacked. He sees his son trapped on a platform above. The Doctor rescues the boy and both of them flee the area as it destroys itself.
They emerge outside to see a large robot, the Cyber-King - a dreadnaught with internal Cyber factory - rising from the Thames. The Doctor orders Jackson to take his son and find cover while the Doctor runs to the TARDIS balloon. He launches it after having grabbed another belt of info stamps and the dimensional control from the machine that brought the Cybermen to London. He launches the balloon and offers Miss Hartigan a chance to surrender where he will take them to an empty world to live on.
Miss Hartigan scoffs and orders an attack. He then fires a group of info stamps, disrupting her connection to the Cyber-King. The disruption allows her emotions of horror and fear to manifest. They create a feedback loop as the Cyber-King program tries to reestablish itself and both she and the Cybermen are destroyed. The Cyber-King prepares to fall but the Doctor uses the dimensional control to teleport it back into the void. From the ground, Jackson sees the Doctor and proclaims cheers of thanks from the crowd.
Afterward, Jackson offers the Doctor a chance to come to Christmas dinner but he declines. The Doctor in turn offers Jackson a chance to see the TARDIS, to which he accepts. He is overwhelmed and scampers out. However, he also notes that the Doctor is alone, despite all the memories of companions. Jackson insists that the Doctor come to dinner as a memory of those whom he has said goodbye to and the Doctor accepts.
Analysis
The Next Doctor is probably a story best described as a tale of two halves. The first half of the story where the mystery of the other Doctor is engaging with a lot of run around and also some nice back and forth between the Doctor and Jackson Lake. The second half though, once Jackson Lake remembers who he is, loses steam and descends a bit too much into the hero worship of the Tenth Doctor that marked the year of the specials. The second half isn't bad but it just doesn't hold the interest in the same way the first half does.
The Doctor is fun in this story. It's amusing to see his vanity stroked a bit when he thinks Jackson is a future version of him. But you can see the wheels turning swiftly and as he goes into investigative mode, the cracks and interaction with Jackson become even more interesting. Once the mystery is solved, it's back to action Doctor and that is still entertaining, even if it something we're overly used to by now.
Jackson Lake is also interesting in his two halves. He doesn't actually change his performance much between when he thinks he's the Doctor and when he's back in his right mind but I think that's a bit to his detriment. Impulsiveness and brashness work well with the Doctor as it usually is done for comedic effect. Having two Doctor personalities bounce and interact with each other makes for a great deal of fun. But once Jackson gets his memory back, his brashness seems oddly forced and makes him less likable. It also doesn't help that he oscillates between this brash action-hero type and someone frozen by fear and indecision. I especially didn't like the leading the crowd in praise of the Doctor after defeating the Cyber-King as it crossed the line into just too much schmaltz for my taste. But I did like his reaction to the TARDIS and his actual convincing of the Doctor to stay for dinner. So he's just a mixed bag all around.
There's not much to say on Rosita except that she was at least consistent through the whole story. I liked her given that nice mix of sass, adventurousness and caring. I actually wish she could have gotten a bit more screen time, although I'm sure that would have detracted from the time between the Doctor and Jackson. I also wished Jackson had not been so quick to talk about her being a governess and not add anything after the Doctor gave him a bit of a look. I'm sure the line was probably more written as a class joke but with her being black it took a slightly different tone with me. Probably not how it was intended but still it did hit that note.
Up until the launch of the Cyber-King, I rather enjoyed the Cybermen in this story. They were quite menacing and their attack on the funeral through the fog was a nice touch on top of their normal menace. I also liked the fact that the Cyberleader, despite all other intentions, still seemed to have traces of emotion and wit. His manipulation of Miss Hartigan was rather amusing in that dry way.
Miss Hartigan herself wasn't too bad except for the total lack of development she gets. She has that scene by the graveside and her moment of bossing the four cybernized men around but almost nothing else prior to her conversion. Obviously she harbors great hatred for those who have overlooked her and dismissed her powerful mind and wants revenge on society, but how she came to be in league with the Cybermen, understood them and convinced herself that she would not be cybernized is left in the dark. It makes her feel mostly like wasted potential.
Then there is the Cyber-King. That is the point where you knew this story crossed over from being a regular Doctor Who and officially became a Christmas special because it had to have something overly silly as the climax of the story. The Doctor tries to pass it off as an actual ship with a conversion factory in the belly but you can't deny that it's a giant metal robot wandering around 19th century London like Steampunk anime. There is also that fact that it is another example of Cybermen technology being overpowered by emotion; twice in this case. You have Miss Hartigan's mind and the combination of hatred and pleasure at the power she has been grated take over a rewrite the Cyber-King's software and then the whole thing is defeated when the Doctor overrides the fear suppression, allowing that emotion to override everything and destroy both herself and the Cybermen. It is both simplistic and a bit too pat for my taste.
My personal preference would have been for the Cyber-King to just be a conventional Cyber warship that was damaged and that the children were being collected for conversion. This is similar to other plots and I'm sure RTD wanted to avoid something that would have been seen as too close to Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, but something grounded in a bit more reality would have been nice. A Cyberman version of Godzilla is just a bit too much for me to swallow.
I also think it very strange for the Cybermen to expend so much effort on getting all the children only to work for just enough time to get the Cyber-King powered to maximum. Why not use Cybermen or even the Cyber-shades for that? What's more, why talk of killing the children if you have a conversion factory in the belly of the beast? They went through all that effort to get all those children, why not convert them and suddenly there are hundreds of Cybermen and not just the six to ten that seem to be in the facility. It's one of those plot points that just seem a bit too poorly thought out for my taste.
So I guess it comes down to your tolerance for silliness. If you're in the mood for a fun romp with slightly dark undertones, this will do. But with the dark and slightly comic set up in the first thirty to forty minutes, I felt that the ending was just too sharp of a turn for my taste. The set up was good, the acting also pretty good (save perhaps Jackson's son who looked dead inside) and even the direction was pretty nice. But the tone of the writing just took too much of a hard turn for my taste. Enjoyable, especially at Christmas, but nothing to give much overall thought to.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
Monday, November 20, 2017
Vampires of Venice
Most people just nip stationary from work.
I'm not that big into vampire stories. In fact, I'm not that big into much of any kind of horror monster so a sci-fi twist on historic vampires is not necessarily going to grab me. But I do like Rory and Amy and the Eleventh Doctor so I'm trying to go into this one with a more open mind. I recall it not grabbing me with any great gusto the first time but it's also sandwiched between two stories that I really, really like (Angel two-parter and Amy's Choice) so it may be more of a case of being lost in the shuffle.
Plot Summary
A man named Guido petitions the patron of the city of Venice, Rosanna Cavlierri, to accept his daughter Isabella into her school. Rosanna accepts and Guido is promptly thrown out while Isabella is sequestered with the other girls. Guido later tries to see her but he is rejected from entering and Isabella reacts with no recognition when he approaches her on the street.
Meanwhile, the Doctor crashes Rory's bachelor party, concerned when Amy tried to kiss him. He takes the two of them to Venice in 1580 for a romantic getaway. The Doctor is immediately put on his guard when the city magister informs them that the city is in quarantine due to plague outside the city, despite the Doctor knowing that the plague has receded in Italy by this time. He is even more intrigued when he sees Guido being rejected by the passing mass of girls coming from the school. He approaches Guido to learn his story.
Rory and Amy begin to walk through the streets and enjoy themselves when they hear a woman screaming. They rush to the scene and chase off Francesco, son of Rosanna who had attacked and bitten the neck of a flower selling girl. Rory gives chase but Francesco dives into the canals and Rory loses him. The two then go looking for the Doctor.
The Doctor has Guido distract the front gate guards while he slips in via a side gate. The Doctor makes his way down to a chamber where he becomes distracted by a fancy mirror. He is approached by several girls who do not reflect into the mirror. They are puzzled by him but give him the chance to flee as they have no orders concerning him, though they do bare long teeth at him as he lingers.
The Doctor reunites with Rory, Amy and Guido where Amy is excited about the possibility of vampires. They return to Guido's house and devise a plan where Rory will pretend Amy is his sister and he is asking for her to be admitted. Once she is in, she will let the Doctor and Guido in. Guido also notes his stockpile of gunpowder that he had amassed in order to blast his way in if left to no alternative.
Rory takes Amy in and she is accepted due to the psychic paper giving her reference from the King of Sweden. Rory is thrown out while Francesco takes Amy away. She is taken to the girl's room. Most of them slip out when called but Isabella hesitates, allowing Amy to talk to her and tell her about getting her out. Amy then slips down to the ground floor and unbolts the door leading to the cistern from which the Doctor and Rory are climbing.
Amy is grabbed by one of the servants and taken to a chamber. Rosanna was not fooled by the psychic paper and has Amy tied to a chair. She bites Amy's neck and drinks fluid from her. She tells her that others will do the same and her blood will be replaced by that of their kind, transforming her body into them. Amy angrily kicks Rosanna, hitting a perception filter on her body. Rosanna's form transforms briefly into a large fish creature before going back.
Before they can suck Amy again, they are alerted to the Doctor and Rory's presence. The Doctor and Rory work their way through, holding off the vampires with a large UV light. As they are chased, Isabella frees Amy and escorts all of them to an exit. Rosanna orders Francesco to seal the building. The Doctor, Amy and Rory rush through the door to Guido's waiting boat. Isabella comes to but shrinks away from the rising sunlight. This allows the others to grab her and drag her back in. The Doctor tries to follow and grab her but he is electrocuted and knocked out by the door security.
For refusing to fully obey, Isabella is knocked into the pool internal to the building where she is eaten by the brothers of Francesco, too immature to be brought and hidden by perception filters. Rosanna heads back to the throne room to find the Doctor. They interrogate each other and the Doctor learns not only that Isabella has been killed but that the aliens are from the planet Saturnyne and escaped through a crack, similar to that in Amy's bedroom, when their planet was destroyed. With no female survivors, she has transformed girls to repopulate the race after sinking Venice.
The Doctor vows to stop her but she sends the girls to kill him in Guido's house. The Doctor, Rory and Amy escape but Guido kills the lot by luring them in and exploding his store of gunpowder. Unaware of the girls' death, Rosanna activates a weather augmentation machine, designed to sink Venice. The Doctor sends Rory and Amy back to the TARDIS while he tries to stop the machine.
As Rory and Amy run past the Cavlierri palace, Francesco sees them and decides to finish them. He corners Amy but is lured into attacking Rory instead. Rory tries to hold him off but is eventually knocked down. As Francesco leaps on Rory, Amy catches a ray of sunlight in a mirror and shines it directly into Francesco's face. The concentrated sunlight causes his entire body to burst into flame, killing him. Amy and Rory then run back to the palace to help the Doctor.
The Doctor meets Rosanna where she gloats at him until he informs her that her girls are dead. She flees below to the pool where her other children are, leaving the Doctor alone. He uncovers the control mechanism in her throne. Rory and Amy enter and he tells them to destroy the chair, which will send control back to the generator. The Doctor follows the signal of the generator to a ball ornament on top of the bell tower. He deactivates it, causing the storms to stop immediately.
The Doctor finds Rosanna standing near the edge of the pool, having stripped down to her undergarment but also stuck showing her human form due to the damage done to the filer by Amy's kick. With no hope of continuing her race, she jumps into the water where she is eaten by her own children. The Doctor then recollects Amy and Rory where Amy insists that Rory travel with them for a few more adventures. Rory agrees and they depart in the TARDIS.
Analysis
Typically when I find a story that I give middling to low scores for, I can usually cite a number of things that just bothered me or mistakes that were made. In this particular case, I can't really do that except for a few minor niggles. However, this story just doesn't do much for me. I don't think it's the fault of anything particular with the story as much as it is that I'm really not into the gothic vampire genre. Aspects of it worked for me in State of Decay, but here it just came across as more boring than anything else.
What really annoys me about not being engaged with this story is that it's the start of the dynamic between Rory and the Doctor. I'm not much into the whole "Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor" dynamic but it is a simple fact that the interaction between Rory and the Doctor was very funny and had a smoothness that I just loved in later stories. You can see it already forming in the quiet moments between the two, but the rest of the story just doesn't engage me and I found myself wishing they would ignore Amy and just go back to Rory and the Doctor.
As is the case for most of Series 5, the Eleventh Doctor is in top zany form. He is a nice mix of excitable and happy but also attentive to detail. You can also see a trace of that dark detail that was more prominent with the Tenth Doctor in that he opts to fully deal with Rosanna when she confirms that she didn't know Isabella's name, even after having her killed. He also offers little help when Rosanna opts to let herself be consumed by her children. Though the tone shifts here and there, he shifts and sways with it.
Rory and Amy are also quite good in this story. Rory does the man caught on his heels very well along with the jealous and slightly jilted lover. It gets a touch overplayed in other stories but given that this is his first exposure to it, it's understandable that this would be the driving emotion for him. He is bumbling but also fully committed, the way someone who is trying beyond his means would be.
Amy, by contrast, is acting more in the role of the established veteran. She is seasoned but still impressed by each new situation. She is also confident but still lets the Doctor drive nearly all the decisions. She did not set herself as bait until the Doctor agreed nor did she fight the Doctor about going back to the TARDIS, though she and Rory did go back to the citadel after the fight with Francesco. It's a nice balance for a companion who can be bold but also deferential to the experience of the Doctor.
The villains were very generic in terms of the vampire tropes and the only one I found even partially interesting was Rosanna. She at least had a planning mind and seemed like she could match wits with the Doctor for a time. But even she gave into trope after a while. It made no sense to send all of the girls after the Doctor, knowing there would be a risk of loss in the attack. Likewise, where did Rosanna go after the Doctor told her all the girls were dead and he made to stop the submersion of the city. She could have tried to stop him and nothing was preventing her from starting over once the Doctor had been dealt with. Of course, it made it easy for him to stop the thing without being attacked.
Speaking of attacks, I also didn't like the cop out fight between Francesco and Rory/Amy. It had it's funny moments, especially the makeshift cross of Rory's, but it had too simple a conclusion. We had been shown that the aliens, while they did not like sunlight, could shield themselves from it pretty much through veils and hats. The reflection of a mirror does not intensify sunlight into a concentrated beam but would just reflect the same light that they would have been exposed to if there were no clouds or Francesco was not wearing a hat. It could have easily driven him off but it should have not have caused him to burst into flames. It was a point that gave into the vampire lore a bit too much and was done for a cheap thrill.
The direction was fairly nice, especially with the use of a historical city to stand in for Venice. There was some unfortunately obvious blue screen work but it's at a moment of high action and doesn't detract too much. What detracts more is how it gets prolonged and the lack of other obsticles. Rather than have the Doctor fumble about because of the wind or the height, have him deal with an attack from one of the aliens. That would have probably required a bit too much CGI and been out of budget but it would have been an improvement.
This is not a bad story but if you're not a fan of gothic vampire stories it's not going to do too much for you as that is the only real hook. There is no real twist or surprise save the reality of what the "vampires" actually are. It has action and adventure as well as some comedy but it's pretty rote and can get boring in the middle. Even the ending is something of a let down as Amy and Guido are the only ones who take active steps to actually kill the aliens. It's fine for a mindless watch but the two stories on either side of this one are far better in my opinion.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
I'm not that big into vampire stories. In fact, I'm not that big into much of any kind of horror monster so a sci-fi twist on historic vampires is not necessarily going to grab me. But I do like Rory and Amy and the Eleventh Doctor so I'm trying to go into this one with a more open mind. I recall it not grabbing me with any great gusto the first time but it's also sandwiched between two stories that I really, really like (Angel two-parter and Amy's Choice) so it may be more of a case of being lost in the shuffle.
Plot Summary
A man named Guido petitions the patron of the city of Venice, Rosanna Cavlierri, to accept his daughter Isabella into her school. Rosanna accepts and Guido is promptly thrown out while Isabella is sequestered with the other girls. Guido later tries to see her but he is rejected from entering and Isabella reacts with no recognition when he approaches her on the street.
Meanwhile, the Doctor crashes Rory's bachelor party, concerned when Amy tried to kiss him. He takes the two of them to Venice in 1580 for a romantic getaway. The Doctor is immediately put on his guard when the city magister informs them that the city is in quarantine due to plague outside the city, despite the Doctor knowing that the plague has receded in Italy by this time. He is even more intrigued when he sees Guido being rejected by the passing mass of girls coming from the school. He approaches Guido to learn his story.
Rory and Amy begin to walk through the streets and enjoy themselves when they hear a woman screaming. They rush to the scene and chase off Francesco, son of Rosanna who had attacked and bitten the neck of a flower selling girl. Rory gives chase but Francesco dives into the canals and Rory loses him. The two then go looking for the Doctor.
The Doctor has Guido distract the front gate guards while he slips in via a side gate. The Doctor makes his way down to a chamber where he becomes distracted by a fancy mirror. He is approached by several girls who do not reflect into the mirror. They are puzzled by him but give him the chance to flee as they have no orders concerning him, though they do bare long teeth at him as he lingers.
The Doctor reunites with Rory, Amy and Guido where Amy is excited about the possibility of vampires. They return to Guido's house and devise a plan where Rory will pretend Amy is his sister and he is asking for her to be admitted. Once she is in, she will let the Doctor and Guido in. Guido also notes his stockpile of gunpowder that he had amassed in order to blast his way in if left to no alternative.
Rory takes Amy in and she is accepted due to the psychic paper giving her reference from the King of Sweden. Rory is thrown out while Francesco takes Amy away. She is taken to the girl's room. Most of them slip out when called but Isabella hesitates, allowing Amy to talk to her and tell her about getting her out. Amy then slips down to the ground floor and unbolts the door leading to the cistern from which the Doctor and Rory are climbing.
Amy is grabbed by one of the servants and taken to a chamber. Rosanna was not fooled by the psychic paper and has Amy tied to a chair. She bites Amy's neck and drinks fluid from her. She tells her that others will do the same and her blood will be replaced by that of their kind, transforming her body into them. Amy angrily kicks Rosanna, hitting a perception filter on her body. Rosanna's form transforms briefly into a large fish creature before going back.
Before they can suck Amy again, they are alerted to the Doctor and Rory's presence. The Doctor and Rory work their way through, holding off the vampires with a large UV light. As they are chased, Isabella frees Amy and escorts all of them to an exit. Rosanna orders Francesco to seal the building. The Doctor, Amy and Rory rush through the door to Guido's waiting boat. Isabella comes to but shrinks away from the rising sunlight. This allows the others to grab her and drag her back in. The Doctor tries to follow and grab her but he is electrocuted and knocked out by the door security.
For refusing to fully obey, Isabella is knocked into the pool internal to the building where she is eaten by the brothers of Francesco, too immature to be brought and hidden by perception filters. Rosanna heads back to the throne room to find the Doctor. They interrogate each other and the Doctor learns not only that Isabella has been killed but that the aliens are from the planet Saturnyne and escaped through a crack, similar to that in Amy's bedroom, when their planet was destroyed. With no female survivors, she has transformed girls to repopulate the race after sinking Venice.
The Doctor vows to stop her but she sends the girls to kill him in Guido's house. The Doctor, Rory and Amy escape but Guido kills the lot by luring them in and exploding his store of gunpowder. Unaware of the girls' death, Rosanna activates a weather augmentation machine, designed to sink Venice. The Doctor sends Rory and Amy back to the TARDIS while he tries to stop the machine.
As Rory and Amy run past the Cavlierri palace, Francesco sees them and decides to finish them. He corners Amy but is lured into attacking Rory instead. Rory tries to hold him off but is eventually knocked down. As Francesco leaps on Rory, Amy catches a ray of sunlight in a mirror and shines it directly into Francesco's face. The concentrated sunlight causes his entire body to burst into flame, killing him. Amy and Rory then run back to the palace to help the Doctor.
The Doctor meets Rosanna where she gloats at him until he informs her that her girls are dead. She flees below to the pool where her other children are, leaving the Doctor alone. He uncovers the control mechanism in her throne. Rory and Amy enter and he tells them to destroy the chair, which will send control back to the generator. The Doctor follows the signal of the generator to a ball ornament on top of the bell tower. He deactivates it, causing the storms to stop immediately.
The Doctor finds Rosanna standing near the edge of the pool, having stripped down to her undergarment but also stuck showing her human form due to the damage done to the filer by Amy's kick. With no hope of continuing her race, she jumps into the water where she is eaten by her own children. The Doctor then recollects Amy and Rory where Amy insists that Rory travel with them for a few more adventures. Rory agrees and they depart in the TARDIS.
Analysis
Typically when I find a story that I give middling to low scores for, I can usually cite a number of things that just bothered me or mistakes that were made. In this particular case, I can't really do that except for a few minor niggles. However, this story just doesn't do much for me. I don't think it's the fault of anything particular with the story as much as it is that I'm really not into the gothic vampire genre. Aspects of it worked for me in State of Decay, but here it just came across as more boring than anything else.
What really annoys me about not being engaged with this story is that it's the start of the dynamic between Rory and the Doctor. I'm not much into the whole "Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor" dynamic but it is a simple fact that the interaction between Rory and the Doctor was very funny and had a smoothness that I just loved in later stories. You can see it already forming in the quiet moments between the two, but the rest of the story just doesn't engage me and I found myself wishing they would ignore Amy and just go back to Rory and the Doctor.
As is the case for most of Series 5, the Eleventh Doctor is in top zany form. He is a nice mix of excitable and happy but also attentive to detail. You can also see a trace of that dark detail that was more prominent with the Tenth Doctor in that he opts to fully deal with Rosanna when she confirms that she didn't know Isabella's name, even after having her killed. He also offers little help when Rosanna opts to let herself be consumed by her children. Though the tone shifts here and there, he shifts and sways with it.
Rory and Amy are also quite good in this story. Rory does the man caught on his heels very well along with the jealous and slightly jilted lover. It gets a touch overplayed in other stories but given that this is his first exposure to it, it's understandable that this would be the driving emotion for him. He is bumbling but also fully committed, the way someone who is trying beyond his means would be.
Amy, by contrast, is acting more in the role of the established veteran. She is seasoned but still impressed by each new situation. She is also confident but still lets the Doctor drive nearly all the decisions. She did not set herself as bait until the Doctor agreed nor did she fight the Doctor about going back to the TARDIS, though she and Rory did go back to the citadel after the fight with Francesco. It's a nice balance for a companion who can be bold but also deferential to the experience of the Doctor.
The villains were very generic in terms of the vampire tropes and the only one I found even partially interesting was Rosanna. She at least had a planning mind and seemed like she could match wits with the Doctor for a time. But even she gave into trope after a while. It made no sense to send all of the girls after the Doctor, knowing there would be a risk of loss in the attack. Likewise, where did Rosanna go after the Doctor told her all the girls were dead and he made to stop the submersion of the city. She could have tried to stop him and nothing was preventing her from starting over once the Doctor had been dealt with. Of course, it made it easy for him to stop the thing without being attacked.
Speaking of attacks, I also didn't like the cop out fight between Francesco and Rory/Amy. It had it's funny moments, especially the makeshift cross of Rory's, but it had too simple a conclusion. We had been shown that the aliens, while they did not like sunlight, could shield themselves from it pretty much through veils and hats. The reflection of a mirror does not intensify sunlight into a concentrated beam but would just reflect the same light that they would have been exposed to if there were no clouds or Francesco was not wearing a hat. It could have easily driven him off but it should have not have caused him to burst into flames. It was a point that gave into the vampire lore a bit too much and was done for a cheap thrill.
The direction was fairly nice, especially with the use of a historical city to stand in for Venice. There was some unfortunately obvious blue screen work but it's at a moment of high action and doesn't detract too much. What detracts more is how it gets prolonged and the lack of other obsticles. Rather than have the Doctor fumble about because of the wind or the height, have him deal with an attack from one of the aliens. That would have probably required a bit too much CGI and been out of budget but it would have been an improvement.
This is not a bad story but if you're not a fan of gothic vampire stories it's not going to do too much for you as that is the only real hook. There is no real twist or surprise save the reality of what the "vampires" actually are. It has action and adventure as well as some comedy but it's pretty rote and can get boring in the middle. Even the ending is something of a let down as Amy and Guido are the only ones who take active steps to actually kill the aliens. It's fine for a mindless watch but the two stories on either side of this one are far better in my opinion.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
Thursday, November 16, 2017
The Crimson Horror
I'm going to go play with my grenades.
There was a great deal of talk in Series Six and Seven about a possible Paternoster Gang spin-off show. The Crimson Horror was in many ways, a closet pilot for this thought. I don't know how serious the idea was but the format of this particular episode is so markedly different than others in the series that I can't imagine that Mark Gatiss didn't write this up with an eye towards how the public would react to a story that featured the gang more front and center than had ever been seen before.
Plot Summary
A man named Edmund is fished out of a river in Yorkshire, his skin stained red. His brother collects his body and takes photographs of it to Madame Vastra, whom he hires to investigate his brother's death. Madame Vastra is especially intrigued when photographs of the eye of the dead man show an image of the Doctor.
The Paternoster Gang travel north and have Jenny slip enter a meeting hosted by a Mrs. Gillyflower. Mrs. Gillyflower rails against the evils of modern society and predicts its collapse. She offers sanctuary to the best people at a factory commune called Sweetwater, near where Edmund's body was fished out. Jenny travels with a group of new recruits to Sweetwater while Vastra examines a sample of the red coating recovered from the bodies fished out of the river. She recognizes it from something from the prehistoric era.
Once in the commune, Jenny slips away and discovers that the factory is an illusion. People are collected and dipped in vats of a red fluid which puts them in stasis. Any that don't adapt are killed by the fluid. Jenny further investigates and discovers the Doctor, having survived a dip into fluid, kept locked in a room by Mrs. Gillyflower's blind daughter Ada. The Doctor guides Jenny to a steam vent and puts himself inside. This washes the poison out of him and he returns to his normal self.
The Doctor and Clara had landed outside Sweetwater when another body was fished out. They met Edmund who was trying to investigate the factory and decided to help him. Posing as a married couple, they were accepted by Mrs. Gillyflower into the commune. They observed preserved people in giant bell jars, are grabbed and dipped into the same red liquid. Clara was put in stasis but the Doctor, not being human, rejected it and survived. Ada, recognizing that the Doctor was different, spirited him to a cell rather than throwing him in the river and kept him. Edmund eventually broke in to look for the Doctor when he failed to return and fell or was pushed into a concentrated form of the poison. He crawled out and made to the Doctor's cell before dying, hence the image of the Doctor on his eye.
Meanwhile, Ada discovers the Doctor's escape. While she is crying over his disappearance, Mrs. Gillyflower finds her and learns of what she has done. Fearful, she orders the acceleration of the plan. Ada appeals to her to let her come as well but Mrs. Gillyflower kicks her away, noting that only the perfect specimens will be taken.
The Doctor and Jenny discover Clara in a bell jar and break her out. They take her to the same steam vent as the Doctor for detox. While they are waiting, they are discovered by a group of Mrs. Gillyflower's attendants who are preparing the final plan. Jenny attacks them and knocks several of them out. They are joined by Vastra and Strax who disable or drive off the others. Clara comes to and is introduced to the group, much to their curiosity as the last time they had seen Clara (The Snowmen) she had died.
The group discovers that Mrs. Gillyflower is loading a rocket in the smokestack with a pure form of the venom. Vastra informs the Doctor that the venom comes from a creature called a red leech that was a plague to the Silurians back in the Mesozoic era. The Doctor leaves Jenny and Vastra to deal with the rocket while he and Clara go to take care of Mrs. Gillyflower. On their way, they discover Ada weeping in the hallway. The Doctor reveals himself to her and encourages her to come with them.
Mrs. Gillyflower uncovers a secret control panel and prepares to launch the rocket. The Doctor and Clara confront her and discover the red leech (Mr. Sweet) attached to her chest. She feeds him and he secrets the poison for her. The Doctor accuses her of blinding Ada with the leech's venom and she acknowledges that as true. She has preserved perfect specimens of humanity and will launch the rocket with the pure form of the venom. The explosion will spray it over the whole area, killing the townsfolk and letting her create a new "golden age" for her purified humans. Ada overhears all of this and attacks her mother in a rage. Clara, taking advantage of the opening, picks up a chair and smashes the rocket launch controls.
Mrs. Gillyflower grabs Ada, holds her hostage with a gun and slips through a door. They run back to the silo and find the two climbing the stairs. Mrs. Gillyflower shoves Ada down the stairs at the Doctor and launches the rocket with a secondary control panel. After it passes, Jenny and Vastra reveal themselves having removed the jug of venom from the rocket. Mrs. Gillyflower tuns the gun on them but Strax fires at her from the top of the silo, knocking her off the stairs to the floor below.
Mr. Sweet detaches himself from Mrs. Gillyflower and begins to crawl away. Ada approaches her mother and refuses to forgive her mother, much to Mrs. Gillyflower's amusement. She then dies and Ada uses her stick to smash the leech, killing it. Afterwards, Clara and the Doctor depart, the Doctor refusing to reveal the mystery of Clara to the Paternoster Gang. He drops her off at the house where she is confronted by Angie and Artie, who have discovered her time travelling antics, wanting to tag along on her next adventure.
Analysis
This is a story that benefits highly of either watching it a second time or going into it with the foreknowledge that it is meant to be an action-comedy in the vein of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Knowing that greatly increases the enjoyment of the episode rather than leaving folks annoyed as was the general case the first time around. In fact, isolating it and treating it like the pilot for a spin-off series does put it in a rather unique category for viewing and the viewer in a different mindset about it.
Because of the nature of the story and it's focus on the Paternoster Gang, the story is something of a Doctor-lite story. It's certainly a Clara-lite story. But even in that limited capacity, the Doctor is still very entertaining. He is manic and energetic but also still takes those moments of tenderness with Ada. He also has the good grace and sense to stand aside and let others take point, even if it means open killing. He does not reprimand Strax at any point, it is Vastra that calls him off from killing the people who attacked the Doctor and Jenny. Similarly, the Doctor offers no objection or remorse when both Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr. Sweet are killed. It's just something that happened and will stop things from continuing.
All the gang is enjoyable in this story with an interesting balance between Jenny and Strax. Strax gets all the full blown jokes, even the groaners like the bit with Thomas Thomas, while Jenny takes point in all the proper investigating and most of the action. Vastra only has a couple of scenes where she is figuring things out but most of her work is done off-screen. I don't have a problem with this, although I would have liked Jenny to have a bit more personality. Whenever she was on-screen, it was too easy for another character to steal the scene. Even the scene where she was in line and talking with the woman with the bad teeth, Jenny is the straight woman while the other infuses all the comedy.
I liked Ada a great deal with her blend of loyalty, desperation for love and eventual anger at those who wronged her. Mrs. Gillyflower on the other hand, I thought was a bit overplayed. I enjoy Diana Rigg as an actress but she works best in a more subdued manner. The manic and hammy villain she played here got a bit grating in large doses. She worked best as more of a background presence of evil but when in the foreground, the role got a bit mustache twirl-y. That might have been somewhat unavoidable as she was clearly supposed to be insane, but I still found her grating and a little too cartoonish for my taste. I also think the Mr. Sweet puppet was a bit silly, but again, closet pilot for a younger audience show.
One small thing that I wish they had found a way to do away with was the launching of the rocket from inside the silo. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way that everything inside that silo would not have been instantly incinerated when that rocket was launched. The story was written with Mrs. Gillyflower on the tower so that the heroes could avoid the liability of actually killing her (Disney style) but it should have been done on a platform outside the silo because it's just dumb to have them all watch as a plume of rocket exhaust goes by.
I did enjoy the very stylized set, direction and camera work used here. There was a near constant state of mist that lended to the heavy Victorian vibe of the story. I know some fans didn't care for the old film style of the Doctor's flashback but I thought it worked within the playful context of the story. The whole thing just had a playful tone, even while being set in a Victorian thriller novel with a heavy dose of comedy.
Overall, I liked this story. You do have to go into it with a certain mindset, much as you do with something like The Chase. If you can start with that and let it play out as the comedy it was meant to be, it is a fun ride. There are some bumps within that fun ride that would probably be overlooked by the true target demographic of the story but take an older person like myself out of the story just a bit. Still, it's an easy one to go back to just to have some fun.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
There was a great deal of talk in Series Six and Seven about a possible Paternoster Gang spin-off show. The Crimson Horror was in many ways, a closet pilot for this thought. I don't know how serious the idea was but the format of this particular episode is so markedly different than others in the series that I can't imagine that Mark Gatiss didn't write this up with an eye towards how the public would react to a story that featured the gang more front and center than had ever been seen before.
Plot Summary
A man named Edmund is fished out of a river in Yorkshire, his skin stained red. His brother collects his body and takes photographs of it to Madame Vastra, whom he hires to investigate his brother's death. Madame Vastra is especially intrigued when photographs of the eye of the dead man show an image of the Doctor.
The Paternoster Gang travel north and have Jenny slip enter a meeting hosted by a Mrs. Gillyflower. Mrs. Gillyflower rails against the evils of modern society and predicts its collapse. She offers sanctuary to the best people at a factory commune called Sweetwater, near where Edmund's body was fished out. Jenny travels with a group of new recruits to Sweetwater while Vastra examines a sample of the red coating recovered from the bodies fished out of the river. She recognizes it from something from the prehistoric era.
Once in the commune, Jenny slips away and discovers that the factory is an illusion. People are collected and dipped in vats of a red fluid which puts them in stasis. Any that don't adapt are killed by the fluid. Jenny further investigates and discovers the Doctor, having survived a dip into fluid, kept locked in a room by Mrs. Gillyflower's blind daughter Ada. The Doctor guides Jenny to a steam vent and puts himself inside. This washes the poison out of him and he returns to his normal self.
The Doctor and Clara had landed outside Sweetwater when another body was fished out. They met Edmund who was trying to investigate the factory and decided to help him. Posing as a married couple, they were accepted by Mrs. Gillyflower into the commune. They observed preserved people in giant bell jars, are grabbed and dipped into the same red liquid. Clara was put in stasis but the Doctor, not being human, rejected it and survived. Ada, recognizing that the Doctor was different, spirited him to a cell rather than throwing him in the river and kept him. Edmund eventually broke in to look for the Doctor when he failed to return and fell or was pushed into a concentrated form of the poison. He crawled out and made to the Doctor's cell before dying, hence the image of the Doctor on his eye.
Meanwhile, Ada discovers the Doctor's escape. While she is crying over his disappearance, Mrs. Gillyflower finds her and learns of what she has done. Fearful, she orders the acceleration of the plan. Ada appeals to her to let her come as well but Mrs. Gillyflower kicks her away, noting that only the perfect specimens will be taken.
The Doctor and Jenny discover Clara in a bell jar and break her out. They take her to the same steam vent as the Doctor for detox. While they are waiting, they are discovered by a group of Mrs. Gillyflower's attendants who are preparing the final plan. Jenny attacks them and knocks several of them out. They are joined by Vastra and Strax who disable or drive off the others. Clara comes to and is introduced to the group, much to their curiosity as the last time they had seen Clara (The Snowmen) she had died.
The group discovers that Mrs. Gillyflower is loading a rocket in the smokestack with a pure form of the venom. Vastra informs the Doctor that the venom comes from a creature called a red leech that was a plague to the Silurians back in the Mesozoic era. The Doctor leaves Jenny and Vastra to deal with the rocket while he and Clara go to take care of Mrs. Gillyflower. On their way, they discover Ada weeping in the hallway. The Doctor reveals himself to her and encourages her to come with them.
Mrs. Gillyflower uncovers a secret control panel and prepares to launch the rocket. The Doctor and Clara confront her and discover the red leech (Mr. Sweet) attached to her chest. She feeds him and he secrets the poison for her. The Doctor accuses her of blinding Ada with the leech's venom and she acknowledges that as true. She has preserved perfect specimens of humanity and will launch the rocket with the pure form of the venom. The explosion will spray it over the whole area, killing the townsfolk and letting her create a new "golden age" for her purified humans. Ada overhears all of this and attacks her mother in a rage. Clara, taking advantage of the opening, picks up a chair and smashes the rocket launch controls.
Mrs. Gillyflower grabs Ada, holds her hostage with a gun and slips through a door. They run back to the silo and find the two climbing the stairs. Mrs. Gillyflower shoves Ada down the stairs at the Doctor and launches the rocket with a secondary control panel. After it passes, Jenny and Vastra reveal themselves having removed the jug of venom from the rocket. Mrs. Gillyflower tuns the gun on them but Strax fires at her from the top of the silo, knocking her off the stairs to the floor below.
Mr. Sweet detaches himself from Mrs. Gillyflower and begins to crawl away. Ada approaches her mother and refuses to forgive her mother, much to Mrs. Gillyflower's amusement. She then dies and Ada uses her stick to smash the leech, killing it. Afterwards, Clara and the Doctor depart, the Doctor refusing to reveal the mystery of Clara to the Paternoster Gang. He drops her off at the house where she is confronted by Angie and Artie, who have discovered her time travelling antics, wanting to tag along on her next adventure.
Analysis
This is a story that benefits highly of either watching it a second time or going into it with the foreknowledge that it is meant to be an action-comedy in the vein of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Knowing that greatly increases the enjoyment of the episode rather than leaving folks annoyed as was the general case the first time around. In fact, isolating it and treating it like the pilot for a spin-off series does put it in a rather unique category for viewing and the viewer in a different mindset about it.
Because of the nature of the story and it's focus on the Paternoster Gang, the story is something of a Doctor-lite story. It's certainly a Clara-lite story. But even in that limited capacity, the Doctor is still very entertaining. He is manic and energetic but also still takes those moments of tenderness with Ada. He also has the good grace and sense to stand aside and let others take point, even if it means open killing. He does not reprimand Strax at any point, it is Vastra that calls him off from killing the people who attacked the Doctor and Jenny. Similarly, the Doctor offers no objection or remorse when both Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr. Sweet are killed. It's just something that happened and will stop things from continuing.
All the gang is enjoyable in this story with an interesting balance between Jenny and Strax. Strax gets all the full blown jokes, even the groaners like the bit with Thomas Thomas, while Jenny takes point in all the proper investigating and most of the action. Vastra only has a couple of scenes where she is figuring things out but most of her work is done off-screen. I don't have a problem with this, although I would have liked Jenny to have a bit more personality. Whenever she was on-screen, it was too easy for another character to steal the scene. Even the scene where she was in line and talking with the woman with the bad teeth, Jenny is the straight woman while the other infuses all the comedy.
I liked Ada a great deal with her blend of loyalty, desperation for love and eventual anger at those who wronged her. Mrs. Gillyflower on the other hand, I thought was a bit overplayed. I enjoy Diana Rigg as an actress but she works best in a more subdued manner. The manic and hammy villain she played here got a bit grating in large doses. She worked best as more of a background presence of evil but when in the foreground, the role got a bit mustache twirl-y. That might have been somewhat unavoidable as she was clearly supposed to be insane, but I still found her grating and a little too cartoonish for my taste. I also think the Mr. Sweet puppet was a bit silly, but again, closet pilot for a younger audience show.
One small thing that I wish they had found a way to do away with was the launching of the rocket from inside the silo. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way that everything inside that silo would not have been instantly incinerated when that rocket was launched. The story was written with Mrs. Gillyflower on the tower so that the heroes could avoid the liability of actually killing her (Disney style) but it should have been done on a platform outside the silo because it's just dumb to have them all watch as a plume of rocket exhaust goes by.
I did enjoy the very stylized set, direction and camera work used here. There was a near constant state of mist that lended to the heavy Victorian vibe of the story. I know some fans didn't care for the old film style of the Doctor's flashback but I thought it worked within the playful context of the story. The whole thing just had a playful tone, even while being set in a Victorian thriller novel with a heavy dose of comedy.
Overall, I liked this story. You do have to go into it with a certain mindset, much as you do with something like The Chase. If you can start with that and let it play out as the comedy it was meant to be, it is a fun ride. There are some bumps within that fun ride that would probably be overlooked by the true target demographic of the story but take an older person like myself out of the story just a bit. Still, it's an easy one to go back to just to have some fun.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion
I'm Doctor Funkenstein
Before Heaven Sent aired, The Zygon Inversion was probably one the highest regarded episode in terms of Peter Capaldi's performance. Just about everything else that happened both in that episode and part one became completely secondary to that scene. I include myself in remembering what a great scene that was, though I don't recall it clouding my judgment regarding the rest of the story which had it's ups and downs.
Plot Summary
Following events from The Day of the Doctor, 20 million Zygons were allowed to settle on Earth, dispersed around the globe and blending in like any other human. However, a splinter group has emerged, desiring to take over and live in their natural form. This group kidnaps Osgood, the scientist assistant at UNIT who had developed a bond with a Zygon double of hers, causing them to lose track of which one was which. One was killed by Missy in Death in Heaven but the other manages to get a distress signal to the Doctor before being taken.
The Doctor receives the message and returns to Earth. He meets with Kate Stewart to learn about the situation. He also tries to contact Clara but keeps getting her answering machine. The Doctor seeks out the Zygon high command, disguised as two small girls. They dismiss the splinter group as something they can handle but the group attacks, kidnaping the high command and later executing them.
Clara arrives back at home having been out most of the day. She starts listening to her messages but is distracted by a neighbor boy crying about his parents being missing. Clara heads into their apartment to look for them. She is surprised as they suddenly appear and then drag the boy in, who is resisting. Clara emerges from the apartment and calls the Doctor back who summons her to UNIT HQ.
Reviewing all the information they have and gleaning a little more at the Zygon high command center, the group splits into threes. Kate Stewart heads to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where they believe was Osgood's location when kidnaped, the Doctor heads to Turkmezistan where they believe the Zygon splinter group has set up headquarters and Clara stays in England with the rest of UNIT to monitor the situation there. As the first two depart, Clara tells Jac, Stewart's assistant, that she needs to pick up some things from her apartment.
As the two leave Clara's flat, they observe the two parents from earlier carrying a bundle into the elevator. After taking a little longer than normal, it opens and is empty. The two enter the elevator where they find a Zygon control mechanism behind the panel. Activating it, they descend to an underground lair where the Zygons have set up a control center with a number of pods. The two retreat back to UNIT HQ to get backup.
In New Mexico, Kate arrives to find the town nearly deserted but with the splinter group's symbols scattered about. She is confronted by Sherriff Norlander who tells her of this group of British people the tried to integrate but were so strange that things got out of hand. She shows Kate bins where the remains of the Zygon victims are being held. She also verifies that Osgood was here and was likely kidnaped from there. While going over records, Norlander confirms that Kate is alone, transforms into a Zygon and attacks her.
In Turkmezistan, UNIT is prepared to destroy the town where the Zygons are training. The Doctor tries to order the bombing to stop but Colonel Walsh ignores him. However, the drone commander refuses to fire as the Zygons take the form of her family, forcing Walsh to go in with ground troops. Learning that the church is their headquarters, Walsh and the Doctor head to the rear to sneak in while her squad lures the Zygons out the front. As they call for the Zygons to surrender, they emerge as members of their family. Manipulating the soldiers into thinking they are hostages, they lure them into the church. Furious, Walsh storms in the back to find her men all killed and the Zygons gone.
Furious, Walsh leaves and orders an airstrike on the town. The Doctor stays, desperately looking for Osgood. He finds a trap door in the floor and finds her tied up below. A Zygon guard attacks them but the airstrike begins and there is a partial cave in, knocking the Zygon out. The Doctor and Osgood pull him out and take him back to the Doctor's plane for interrogation.
Clara and Jac check elevator security footage and discover the Zygons have been smuggling things into the underground caves all over London. They gather a security force and head down into the caves to confront them. They discover a series of pods containing people, including Clara. Jac realizes that Clara was actually captured when she entered the boy's apartment and that the Clara she knows is an imposter. The fake Clara, calling herself Bonnie, springs the trap and a group of Zygons emerge, killing Jac and the other soldiers.
Bonnie heads back to UNIT HQ and calls New Mexico. Kate picks up the communicator and reports that UNIT has been neutralized there. Satisfied, Bonnie takes a rocket launcher and charts the progress of the Doctor's plane. She then drives out to Dover where she calls the Doctor. The Doctor and Osgood were interrogating the captured Zygon, who taunted them with the information that London had already been infiltrated and that they would be killed. Reaching the Doctor, Bonnie informs him that his compatriots are all dead and that he is next. She then fires the shoulder rocket at the plane.
Just prior to Bonnie firing the rocket, the real Clara stirs in her pod and her mind becomes active. Aware of Bonnie's activities through the mental link, Clara deflects Bonnie's arm just enough that the first rocket misses. She tries to stop her firing a second but Bonnie does manage to get it off and destroy the play. However, the delay bought the Doctor and Osgood enough time to parachute out before it exploded.
Bonnie heads to a nearby center where she corners a disguised Zygon and causes him to revert back into his normal Zygon shape. He stumbles away while she records a video and posts it on-line. Bonnie then heads back to UNIT HQ to find the Osgood box but only finds a recorded message from the Osgoods. But while Bonnie was walking, Clara tapped into her mind just enough to send a text message to the Doctor informing him that she was awake.
Noticing activity on her phone, Bonnie calls the Doctor, demanding to know where the Osgood box is. While she was talking, Bonnie begins winking involuntarily, another signal from Clara. The Doctor manages to finagle out of Bonnie/Clara the location of her recent attack and possible location of Clara's pod. He also implants the idea to Bonnie that the connection is a two-way street with Bonnie being able to tap into Clara's mind as well.
Bonnie heads to pod storage area and engages Clara. Clara pushes back against Bonnie's mind but Bonnie is able to figure a way to discern if Clara is lying. From her she learns that the Osgood box is located in the Black Archive and that in addition to the Osgoods, both the Doctor and Clara have access. Bonnie prepares to leave but Clara warns her that something will come up that will cause her to come back.
The Doctor and Osgood arrive at the location of Bonnie's attack and where the video she posted was shot. They enter the center and find the remains of several Zygon attacks. The Zygon who was forcibly changed is discovered trying to hide and unable to control his discharges of energy. He didn't want any of this but when he accidently attacks the Doctor, he turns his energy on himself and kills himself.
As the Doctor and Osgood examine things, Kate arrives with two troopers having been sent by Bonnie. She offers to take them to the cavern where Clara is. They agree but once there, the two soldiers morph into Zygons and advance on the Doctor and Clara. Bonnie meanwhile arrives at the Black Archive and finds two boxes. One will force every Zygon out of hiding, the other will kill all the Zygons. Bonnie threatens to kill Clara, whom she has brought with her, if the Doctor doesn't tell her which box. He tells her the blue one but when she opens it, there are two buttons.
Kate, who is actually the real Kate, pulls her gun and kills both Zygons. The three of them head to the Black Archive where they find Bonnie, her two Zygon guards and Clara. Kate prepares to activate the red box while the Doctor appeals to Bonnie, using his own war experience and logic to appeal to her. Slowly she comes around until finally agreeing to stand down. The Doctor then wipes the memories of Kate and the two Zygon guards, leaving Bonnie's memory but also letting on that this was the sixteenth iteration of their negotiation.
Bonnie leaves the Black Archive and orders all rebels to stand down. High command is transferred back to other Zygons and things resume as they were. Bonnie then takes the form of Osgood, reestablishing the join of two Osgoods to oversee the peace. This does force the first Osgood to turn down the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS. He and Clara then depart for a new adventure.
Analysis
I think I have been well on record on how a memorable scene towards the end of a story can strongly influence my overall feelings towards that story, whether for good or for ill. This two-parter actually has it both ways as a rather stupid scene clouds my feelings towards The Zygon Invasion while the great Doctor speech consumes all other feelings about The Zygon Inversion. It makes it rather difficult to give these stories a fair score given that they should be looked at as a whole.
I think I'm more annoyed by the scene in The Zygon Invasion because the set up for this story is pretty well balanced the whole way through. You have Bonnie's take-over of Clara which is a nifty little secret until the end, you have three-way division of the team, each with a story that could have been expanded upon and made more compelling if time had allowed and you have the amusing performance of the Doctor who is still trying to use humor to put on bravado. But the flaws cannot be ignored.
The two little ones are fairly easy to let go of in that I didn't care much for the performances of Jac or Sherriff Norlander. Norlander was a bit stiff and I think, much like Peri, was focusing too hard on trying to maintain an American sounding accent. Jac was of a similar vein but unlike an accent problem, hers was more of an emoting problem. She was trying to be nervous and concerned while also a bit scared and the whole thing just made her feel a bit stiff. Her limited dialogue didn't help either as it felt she was being set up from the get go to be a red shirt (which she was).
But the real garbage moment was the soldiers preparing to storm the church. Someone comes out as the platoon leader's mom and fails to answer any personal questions. Not only is the acting melodramatic and rather poorly delivered but there is no reason why the whole squad would have dropped their weapons and walked into such an obvious trap. Even if the squad commander hesitated, his deputy should have dropped her in two seconds. What's more, the commander should have known that even a scared mother could have offered a string of information to convince her son of her identity. As soon as she claimed that she couldn't remember things, that should have been enough. It's a dumb scene to just wipe out the squad.
What's more, it was unnecessary. Storming the church and killing the Zygon rebels would have consolidated power with Bonnie as she would have been the primary leader left. The Doctor could have still found Osgood and one Zygon could have been taken alive to give the exposition on the plane. It just made no sense from any perspective and I find it annoying that while the Zygons kill multiple people, the only person who kills a Zygon is Kate Stewart. I think the Doctor's scene in pat two would have been even more impactful if both sides came in with blood on their hands and Kate's killing of three Zygons is not enough to counter Bonnie's.
In The Zygon Inversion we run into the reverse situation. The first half is a bit of a cop out. Rather than dealing with a splinter group with many viewpoints and jockeying for position, all power and decision making is concentrated with Bonnie. She starts this random plan of unveiling one Zygon but then does nothing else except post a video (which would probably be decried as a fake by most people). She then goes after the doomsday weapon but with all the rebels concentrated around London, what good will that do? Are they going to take command of millions of scared Zygons and thousands of heavily armed humans who will attack them? This gets into the Doctor's point in his speech but it allows for an easy set up to victory by concentrating power in one individual as opposed to multiple members of leadership. This is where actually killing all the Zygons in the church would have allowed this scenario to flow a bit more naturally.
Also, was all of UNIT killed in that one tunnel attack at the end of The Zygon Invasion? Bonnie seems to have complete run of all UNIT buildings and no trouble bring the Zygon pod containing Clara into the Black Archive, which you would think would be better protected. I also question how Kate Stewart so easily pulled the magic words to fool Bonnie into thinking she was the Zygon agent in New Mexico. It's not like that Zygon tapped into her mind and gave her information. It's an exceptional bluff on Kate's part and bit too informed to be fully believed.
But despite all those problems, the episode takes a huge leap forward with the scene of the boxes and the Doctor. I've never actually watched Let's Make a Deal but I assume that the Doctor's over-the-top American moments was him doing a Monty Hall impression and despite it's wackiness, it was a good draw as it got deeper. What you get overall out of that scene is the depth of feeling from the Doctor. There are times where the show has tried to push away the atrocities that the Doctor did during the Time War and even if he didn't use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, he did commit other actions which resulted in the deaths of presumably millions. To have Capaldi channel that is just compelling to watch. Bonnie interjects now and again but her arguments are rational and the type you might expect from a terrorist.
I also deeply appreciate that as well as things wrapped up at the end, the Doctor acknowledged that his arguments didn't work the first fifteen times. Bonnie or Kate pushed the button to initiate the war and found out that the boxes were empty, forcing a restart each time. What I like most about this is that it makes sense that someone that committed to a cause would not be persuaded that easily, even as compelling as the arguments of the Doctor are. You can almost imagine that each time the Doctor had to reset the argument, a small piece of what he previously said stayed with Bonnie and Kate so as to allow him to get that much further in his convincing. But it still took that many iterations just to take the veil from her eyes and see the reality and pointlessness of dying for a stupid gripe.
I also like to imagine that Bonnie took up the position of the new second Osgood not just to ensure the peace but as a means of protecting herself from anyone in the splinter group that might come after her for a perceived betrayal of the cause.
I think it goes without saying that the Doctor's performance is impeccable in this story so I'll focus on Clara instead. Clara herself doesn't do much since Bonnie takes over fairly early in The Zygon Invasion aside from the interaction in her suspended state. But Jenna Coleman does do quite a lot and I enjoyed her performance. I actually liked her better when the mask was dropped and she was allowed to be Bonnie fully. Her threats could have had some more menace to them but it was still a fairly good act. My only real complaint is nothing against the actress but against the make-up team. Her make-up was on way too thick and it had that trowel look of a woman trying to hide something rather than a more natural look. It was a bit off-putting and I wish had been toned down a touch.
I always enjoy Kate Stewart and although I griped about the holes in the storytelling for her in The Zygon Inversion, I still enjoyed her performance. I'm sure the die-hard fans got a kick out of her "five rounds rapid" line as that was oft used by the Brigadier, though I think the director made too hard a push on that line. Something a bit more subtle would have worked better than the dramatic zoom on her face. I also enjoyed Osgood who did a good stand-in job for the companion in these two episodes. It was a good way to bring back a character, even if it made the loss of Missy killing Osgood feel like a little bit of a cheat.
I don't recall feeling that there was much special about the direction. It was more serviceable but nothing that overly caught the eye. It had the look of someone trying to give a sweeping scale (such as seen in The Day of the Doctor) but with a more limited scope. What I wish had been done more was the horror movie feel. The points of quiet and intimate shots that reminded you of a horror movie such as Kate arriving in New Mexico or the Doctor and Osgood walking through the red-lit halls looking for the forcibly converted Zygon were some of the best in terms of mood and direction. I think if things were kept more like that, it would have improved the feel of both the direction in general and the overall story as a whole.
Despite my griping, this really is a decent story. I just think that there are some holes in the overall story done for writing convenience mostly. I also think that both episodes are heavily defined by scenes towards the end that stand in contrast to the rest of the episode. In Invasion, that pulls it down but in Inversion it pulls it up. I think both stories still stand above middling but on Capaldi's performance alone, the second half is discernibly better, even if the set up for first half is better thought out.
Overall personal score: The Zygon Invasion - 3 out of 5; The Zygon Inversion - 4 out of 5
Before Heaven Sent aired, The Zygon Inversion was probably one the highest regarded episode in terms of Peter Capaldi's performance. Just about everything else that happened both in that episode and part one became completely secondary to that scene. I include myself in remembering what a great scene that was, though I don't recall it clouding my judgment regarding the rest of the story which had it's ups and downs.
Plot Summary
Following events from The Day of the Doctor, 20 million Zygons were allowed to settle on Earth, dispersed around the globe and blending in like any other human. However, a splinter group has emerged, desiring to take over and live in their natural form. This group kidnaps Osgood, the scientist assistant at UNIT who had developed a bond with a Zygon double of hers, causing them to lose track of which one was which. One was killed by Missy in Death in Heaven but the other manages to get a distress signal to the Doctor before being taken.
The Doctor receives the message and returns to Earth. He meets with Kate Stewart to learn about the situation. He also tries to contact Clara but keeps getting her answering machine. The Doctor seeks out the Zygon high command, disguised as two small girls. They dismiss the splinter group as something they can handle but the group attacks, kidnaping the high command and later executing them.
Clara arrives back at home having been out most of the day. She starts listening to her messages but is distracted by a neighbor boy crying about his parents being missing. Clara heads into their apartment to look for them. She is surprised as they suddenly appear and then drag the boy in, who is resisting. Clara emerges from the apartment and calls the Doctor back who summons her to UNIT HQ.
Reviewing all the information they have and gleaning a little more at the Zygon high command center, the group splits into threes. Kate Stewart heads to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where they believe was Osgood's location when kidnaped, the Doctor heads to Turkmezistan where they believe the Zygon splinter group has set up headquarters and Clara stays in England with the rest of UNIT to monitor the situation there. As the first two depart, Clara tells Jac, Stewart's assistant, that she needs to pick up some things from her apartment.
As the two leave Clara's flat, they observe the two parents from earlier carrying a bundle into the elevator. After taking a little longer than normal, it opens and is empty. The two enter the elevator where they find a Zygon control mechanism behind the panel. Activating it, they descend to an underground lair where the Zygons have set up a control center with a number of pods. The two retreat back to UNIT HQ to get backup.
In New Mexico, Kate arrives to find the town nearly deserted but with the splinter group's symbols scattered about. She is confronted by Sherriff Norlander who tells her of this group of British people the tried to integrate but were so strange that things got out of hand. She shows Kate bins where the remains of the Zygon victims are being held. She also verifies that Osgood was here and was likely kidnaped from there. While going over records, Norlander confirms that Kate is alone, transforms into a Zygon and attacks her.
In Turkmezistan, UNIT is prepared to destroy the town where the Zygons are training. The Doctor tries to order the bombing to stop but Colonel Walsh ignores him. However, the drone commander refuses to fire as the Zygons take the form of her family, forcing Walsh to go in with ground troops. Learning that the church is their headquarters, Walsh and the Doctor head to the rear to sneak in while her squad lures the Zygons out the front. As they call for the Zygons to surrender, they emerge as members of their family. Manipulating the soldiers into thinking they are hostages, they lure them into the church. Furious, Walsh storms in the back to find her men all killed and the Zygons gone.
Furious, Walsh leaves and orders an airstrike on the town. The Doctor stays, desperately looking for Osgood. He finds a trap door in the floor and finds her tied up below. A Zygon guard attacks them but the airstrike begins and there is a partial cave in, knocking the Zygon out. The Doctor and Osgood pull him out and take him back to the Doctor's plane for interrogation.
Clara and Jac check elevator security footage and discover the Zygons have been smuggling things into the underground caves all over London. They gather a security force and head down into the caves to confront them. They discover a series of pods containing people, including Clara. Jac realizes that Clara was actually captured when she entered the boy's apartment and that the Clara she knows is an imposter. The fake Clara, calling herself Bonnie, springs the trap and a group of Zygons emerge, killing Jac and the other soldiers.
Bonnie heads back to UNIT HQ and calls New Mexico. Kate picks up the communicator and reports that UNIT has been neutralized there. Satisfied, Bonnie takes a rocket launcher and charts the progress of the Doctor's plane. She then drives out to Dover where she calls the Doctor. The Doctor and Osgood were interrogating the captured Zygon, who taunted them with the information that London had already been infiltrated and that they would be killed. Reaching the Doctor, Bonnie informs him that his compatriots are all dead and that he is next. She then fires the shoulder rocket at the plane.
Just prior to Bonnie firing the rocket, the real Clara stirs in her pod and her mind becomes active. Aware of Bonnie's activities through the mental link, Clara deflects Bonnie's arm just enough that the first rocket misses. She tries to stop her firing a second but Bonnie does manage to get it off and destroy the play. However, the delay bought the Doctor and Osgood enough time to parachute out before it exploded.
Bonnie heads to a nearby center where she corners a disguised Zygon and causes him to revert back into his normal Zygon shape. He stumbles away while she records a video and posts it on-line. Bonnie then heads back to UNIT HQ to find the Osgood box but only finds a recorded message from the Osgoods. But while Bonnie was walking, Clara tapped into her mind just enough to send a text message to the Doctor informing him that she was awake.
Noticing activity on her phone, Bonnie calls the Doctor, demanding to know where the Osgood box is. While she was talking, Bonnie begins winking involuntarily, another signal from Clara. The Doctor manages to finagle out of Bonnie/Clara the location of her recent attack and possible location of Clara's pod. He also implants the idea to Bonnie that the connection is a two-way street with Bonnie being able to tap into Clara's mind as well.
Bonnie heads to pod storage area and engages Clara. Clara pushes back against Bonnie's mind but Bonnie is able to figure a way to discern if Clara is lying. From her she learns that the Osgood box is located in the Black Archive and that in addition to the Osgoods, both the Doctor and Clara have access. Bonnie prepares to leave but Clara warns her that something will come up that will cause her to come back.
The Doctor and Osgood arrive at the location of Bonnie's attack and where the video she posted was shot. They enter the center and find the remains of several Zygon attacks. The Zygon who was forcibly changed is discovered trying to hide and unable to control his discharges of energy. He didn't want any of this but when he accidently attacks the Doctor, he turns his energy on himself and kills himself.
As the Doctor and Osgood examine things, Kate arrives with two troopers having been sent by Bonnie. She offers to take them to the cavern where Clara is. They agree but once there, the two soldiers morph into Zygons and advance on the Doctor and Clara. Bonnie meanwhile arrives at the Black Archive and finds two boxes. One will force every Zygon out of hiding, the other will kill all the Zygons. Bonnie threatens to kill Clara, whom she has brought with her, if the Doctor doesn't tell her which box. He tells her the blue one but when she opens it, there are two buttons.
Kate, who is actually the real Kate, pulls her gun and kills both Zygons. The three of them head to the Black Archive where they find Bonnie, her two Zygon guards and Clara. Kate prepares to activate the red box while the Doctor appeals to Bonnie, using his own war experience and logic to appeal to her. Slowly she comes around until finally agreeing to stand down. The Doctor then wipes the memories of Kate and the two Zygon guards, leaving Bonnie's memory but also letting on that this was the sixteenth iteration of their negotiation.
Bonnie leaves the Black Archive and orders all rebels to stand down. High command is transferred back to other Zygons and things resume as they were. Bonnie then takes the form of Osgood, reestablishing the join of two Osgoods to oversee the peace. This does force the first Osgood to turn down the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS. He and Clara then depart for a new adventure.
Analysis
I think I have been well on record on how a memorable scene towards the end of a story can strongly influence my overall feelings towards that story, whether for good or for ill. This two-parter actually has it both ways as a rather stupid scene clouds my feelings towards The Zygon Invasion while the great Doctor speech consumes all other feelings about The Zygon Inversion. It makes it rather difficult to give these stories a fair score given that they should be looked at as a whole.
I think I'm more annoyed by the scene in The Zygon Invasion because the set up for this story is pretty well balanced the whole way through. You have Bonnie's take-over of Clara which is a nifty little secret until the end, you have three-way division of the team, each with a story that could have been expanded upon and made more compelling if time had allowed and you have the amusing performance of the Doctor who is still trying to use humor to put on bravado. But the flaws cannot be ignored.
The two little ones are fairly easy to let go of in that I didn't care much for the performances of Jac or Sherriff Norlander. Norlander was a bit stiff and I think, much like Peri, was focusing too hard on trying to maintain an American sounding accent. Jac was of a similar vein but unlike an accent problem, hers was more of an emoting problem. She was trying to be nervous and concerned while also a bit scared and the whole thing just made her feel a bit stiff. Her limited dialogue didn't help either as it felt she was being set up from the get go to be a red shirt (which she was).
But the real garbage moment was the soldiers preparing to storm the church. Someone comes out as the platoon leader's mom and fails to answer any personal questions. Not only is the acting melodramatic and rather poorly delivered but there is no reason why the whole squad would have dropped their weapons and walked into such an obvious trap. Even if the squad commander hesitated, his deputy should have dropped her in two seconds. What's more, the commander should have known that even a scared mother could have offered a string of information to convince her son of her identity. As soon as she claimed that she couldn't remember things, that should have been enough. It's a dumb scene to just wipe out the squad.
What's more, it was unnecessary. Storming the church and killing the Zygon rebels would have consolidated power with Bonnie as she would have been the primary leader left. The Doctor could have still found Osgood and one Zygon could have been taken alive to give the exposition on the plane. It just made no sense from any perspective and I find it annoying that while the Zygons kill multiple people, the only person who kills a Zygon is Kate Stewart. I think the Doctor's scene in pat two would have been even more impactful if both sides came in with blood on their hands and Kate's killing of three Zygons is not enough to counter Bonnie's.
In The Zygon Inversion we run into the reverse situation. The first half is a bit of a cop out. Rather than dealing with a splinter group with many viewpoints and jockeying for position, all power and decision making is concentrated with Bonnie. She starts this random plan of unveiling one Zygon but then does nothing else except post a video (which would probably be decried as a fake by most people). She then goes after the doomsday weapon but with all the rebels concentrated around London, what good will that do? Are they going to take command of millions of scared Zygons and thousands of heavily armed humans who will attack them? This gets into the Doctor's point in his speech but it allows for an easy set up to victory by concentrating power in one individual as opposed to multiple members of leadership. This is where actually killing all the Zygons in the church would have allowed this scenario to flow a bit more naturally.
Also, was all of UNIT killed in that one tunnel attack at the end of The Zygon Invasion? Bonnie seems to have complete run of all UNIT buildings and no trouble bring the Zygon pod containing Clara into the Black Archive, which you would think would be better protected. I also question how Kate Stewart so easily pulled the magic words to fool Bonnie into thinking she was the Zygon agent in New Mexico. It's not like that Zygon tapped into her mind and gave her information. It's an exceptional bluff on Kate's part and bit too informed to be fully believed.
But despite all those problems, the episode takes a huge leap forward with the scene of the boxes and the Doctor. I've never actually watched Let's Make a Deal but I assume that the Doctor's over-the-top American moments was him doing a Monty Hall impression and despite it's wackiness, it was a good draw as it got deeper. What you get overall out of that scene is the depth of feeling from the Doctor. There are times where the show has tried to push away the atrocities that the Doctor did during the Time War and even if he didn't use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, he did commit other actions which resulted in the deaths of presumably millions. To have Capaldi channel that is just compelling to watch. Bonnie interjects now and again but her arguments are rational and the type you might expect from a terrorist.
I also deeply appreciate that as well as things wrapped up at the end, the Doctor acknowledged that his arguments didn't work the first fifteen times. Bonnie or Kate pushed the button to initiate the war and found out that the boxes were empty, forcing a restart each time. What I like most about this is that it makes sense that someone that committed to a cause would not be persuaded that easily, even as compelling as the arguments of the Doctor are. You can almost imagine that each time the Doctor had to reset the argument, a small piece of what he previously said stayed with Bonnie and Kate so as to allow him to get that much further in his convincing. But it still took that many iterations just to take the veil from her eyes and see the reality and pointlessness of dying for a stupid gripe.
I also like to imagine that Bonnie took up the position of the new second Osgood not just to ensure the peace but as a means of protecting herself from anyone in the splinter group that might come after her for a perceived betrayal of the cause.
I think it goes without saying that the Doctor's performance is impeccable in this story so I'll focus on Clara instead. Clara herself doesn't do much since Bonnie takes over fairly early in The Zygon Invasion aside from the interaction in her suspended state. But Jenna Coleman does do quite a lot and I enjoyed her performance. I actually liked her better when the mask was dropped and she was allowed to be Bonnie fully. Her threats could have had some more menace to them but it was still a fairly good act. My only real complaint is nothing against the actress but against the make-up team. Her make-up was on way too thick and it had that trowel look of a woman trying to hide something rather than a more natural look. It was a bit off-putting and I wish had been toned down a touch.
I always enjoy Kate Stewart and although I griped about the holes in the storytelling for her in The Zygon Inversion, I still enjoyed her performance. I'm sure the die-hard fans got a kick out of her "five rounds rapid" line as that was oft used by the Brigadier, though I think the director made too hard a push on that line. Something a bit more subtle would have worked better than the dramatic zoom on her face. I also enjoyed Osgood who did a good stand-in job for the companion in these two episodes. It was a good way to bring back a character, even if it made the loss of Missy killing Osgood feel like a little bit of a cheat.
I don't recall feeling that there was much special about the direction. It was more serviceable but nothing that overly caught the eye. It had the look of someone trying to give a sweeping scale (such as seen in The Day of the Doctor) but with a more limited scope. What I wish had been done more was the horror movie feel. The points of quiet and intimate shots that reminded you of a horror movie such as Kate arriving in New Mexico or the Doctor and Osgood walking through the red-lit halls looking for the forcibly converted Zygon were some of the best in terms of mood and direction. I think if things were kept more like that, it would have improved the feel of both the direction in general and the overall story as a whole.
Despite my griping, this really is a decent story. I just think that there are some holes in the overall story done for writing convenience mostly. I also think that both episodes are heavily defined by scenes towards the end that stand in contrast to the rest of the episode. In Invasion, that pulls it down but in Inversion it pulls it up. I think both stories still stand above middling but on Capaldi's performance alone, the second half is discernibly better, even if the set up for first half is better thought out.
Overall personal score: The Zygon Invasion - 3 out of 5; The Zygon Inversion - 4 out of 5
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
New Earth
I'm a Chav!
The true kick-off story for the Tenth Doctor and Rose as the Doctor was out for so much of The Christmas Invasion. I recall this one not sitting well with me and I think it was more than just my general distaste for Rose in her early adventures with the Tenth Doctor. But when I went back and rewatched Tooth and Claw, it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered so maybe this one won't be as bad either.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Rose land on New Earth, a colony planet established after Earth is destroyed. The Doctor has received a note via his psychic paper requesting his presence at a nearby hospital. As they walk there, they are spotted by a probe operated by Cassandra, the woman who was seemingly killed after the destruction of the original Earth. She orders her cloned servant Chip to bring Rose to her.
When they arrive at the hospital, Rose and the Doctor are split into separate elevators. The Doctor is taken up to the ward where he finds the Face of Bo who is dying. Rose on the other hand is taken under the hospital where she is lured into Cassandra's hideout by Chip. Rose is trapped and Cassandra transfers her mind into Rose's body, destroying her own body in the process. Summoned by the Doctor, she heads up to the ward.
As Cassandra arrives, the Doctor is confused by the fact that the sisterhood who runs the hospital has been able to supply cures to diseases that shouldn't be cured for centuries. Cassandra had observed the same thing and works with the Doctor to uncover a secret storage facility where thousands of cloned humans are infected with all known diseases to work out cures. The Doctor is outraged and confronts Novice Hame who had followed them while looking after the Face of Bo. Hame runs off to alert her superiors and Cassandra knocks the Doctor out when he notes that he knows that she is not Rose.
Cassandra places the Doctor in a spare cell, intending him to be infected by the various diseases pumped in to the cells. She is interrupted by Matron Casp and Sister Jatt. Cassandra attempts to blackmail them to keep their secret but when they refuse, she opens the cell doors on that block, allowing the people out. This inadvertently lets the Doctor out as well. One of the freed humans short circuits a control mechanism, killing himself but opening all the doors, freeing everyone. The Doctor, Cassandra and Chip all flee as the horde, begging for help, overrun and infect Sister Jatt, killing her.
The trio runs and hides in Cassandra's lair, although Chip is separated and forced to barricade himself in one of the cells. Most of the horde burst into the hospital, infecting visitors and patients alike. Matron Casp does manage to initiate quarantine, sealing the hospital. In the lair, the Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose, which she does by taking over his mind.
They find a ladder leading up the elevator shaft and begin to climb it. They are pursued both by the horde and by Matron Casp. Casp catches up to them but she is caught by the horde and infected. She loses her grip on the ladder and plunges to her death. Cassandra and Rose reach the top of the shaft and Rose orders Cassandra to leave the Doctor so he can get them out using the sonic screwdriver. Cassandra jumps into Rose but the Doctor refuses to open the door as long as Cassandra is in Rose. She jumps back to the Doctor but is in the same predicament. With no other choice, Cassandra jumps into the lead infected person. The Doctor then opens the door and he and Rose hop through it. He closes it behind them but not before Cassandra jumps back into Rose.
Cassandra is momentarily overwhelmed by the loneliness she experienced in the infected woman's body, but the Doctor drags her into the main ward, which is where the high priority patients are. The Doctor has everyone grab the IV cocktails used to cure them while he rigs a repelling device. Gathering all the cocktails on his body, the Doctor reopens the elevator shaft. Convincing Cassandra to help him, they slide down to the stalled elevator on the ground floor.
The Doctor pours all the IVs into the decontamination bath tank on the roof of the elevator and orders Cassandra to hold elevator lever to keep it in place. He then jumps into the elevator and invites the infected horde in with him. As they enter, he activates the decontamination system and the horde in bathed in the curing cocktail. They begin to heal from their diseases and walk out of the elevator. The Doctor orders them to touch the others, passing the cure on to others. Deprived of human contact in their cells, the cured people eagerly hug and touch the others, spreading the cure throughout the hospital.
The quarantine is lifted and the authorities come and arrest most of the staff. The cured are gathered up to be integrated into society while the Doctor heads back up to see the Face of Bo. The Face of Bo tells the Doctor that he has a message for him but will wait until their third and final meeting to impart it. He then teleports elsewhere.
The Doctor then orders Cassandra to exit Rose's body for either trial by the authorities or death. Cassandra balks but goes into Chip's body when he is revealed to have survived. However, Chip, as a half clone is already dying. But Cassandra decides to accept death in exchange for one favor. The Doctor and Rose take her into the TARDIS and transport her back to a party she mentioned earlier. Cassandra comes up to herself, cloaked to hide the clone markers, and tells herself how beautiful she is. The past Cassandra is touched and calls for help as the future Cassandra collapses and dies. The Doctor and Rose quietly slip away in the TARDIS.
Analysis
I can see why I didn't care for this one the first time around, yet my memory was cheating on me a bit as again, it was not as bad as I remembered. There are a number of flaws in this story and if you are not quite into zombie stories, the action will not excite you. But to say that it is actively bad would be an exaggeration.
First, let's hit some of the positives. Most of the acting was pretty good in this. It is rather funny to watch this story with the whole rest of his run to see how many of the Tenth Doctor tropes formulated in this story. His "I'm so, so sorry" line, the exuberance at the mundane, the fundamental pleasure of seeing people delivered from certain death scenarios and the almost instantaneous rage at enforced suffering. If you want the Tenth Doctor in a nearly pure form, you will get it here. Of course, that includes some of his more annoying traits as well but we'll get to those.
Probably more than any other story in her regular run, this was the story that Billie Piper got to show herself as a decent actress. The distance between Rose and Cassandra was probably not that big but there was a change in how the characters carried themselves and I could appreciate the effort there. It probably speaks more to my opinion of Rose that I preferred the Cassandra personification more than the Rose. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good sarcastic wit as well as a bit of rogue demeanor so I thought she simply sparked more when she was Cassandra rather than Rose.
You wouldn't have thought that Cassandra would be a repeat villain but she is and she makes for a rather decent one. In The End of the World, she is just the annoying socialite who happens to be the dinner guest that ends up being the murderer (very Agatha Christie). Here she has a bit more depth and personality. She also gets to add nuances that come from being in different bodies and given a different spin by the actors. Though her motivation is still just money and youth, there is a brief moment where you get caught up in her helping the Doctor with his investigations and rather enjoying her extra take on things.
The sets and direction were also nice. You could tell that the budget was a concern due both to the tightness of a number of shots as well as the fact that only three of the cat nurses showed their faces. All others wore full veils, eliminating the need for the expensive and time consuming makeup. But for what it was, I thought it was a decent job in trying to convey a sense of largeness while also trying to get that sense of intimacy.
Now on to the less than stellar bits. I mentioned the good things and the tropes of the Tenth Doctor that cropped up. But that also includes some over-the-top moments. His celebration at having cured the people was a bit much. I can understand joy at the situation but there was an excessiveness that seemed unbecoming of the Doctor. I thought his instantaneous anger at the cat nurses was also a bit much. There should have been a slightly slower build to his rage. It wasn't bad but I thought it was too quick a turn into making the nurses the villains of the story.
Staying with the solution, I thought the fix for this was a bit too pat. Yes the cat nurses had developed cures to various diseases using these people as lab rats but if a cure had been developed, why keep the rat that still has that disease? Were they keeping them for synthesis purposes? Also, didn't some of these people have diseases for which a cure had not yet been developed? Those would have been unaffected by the cocktail and they still would have infectious. Also, if the cures were delivered intravenously, why does mixing them in a steam bath produce a cure and how is that cure able to be transmitted simply by surface contact? It is a very slap dash solution and it seems hokey even while watching.
Another small problem with this story is that the special effects look a bit cheap. Of course we're not expecting absolute magic, but usually there's a bit better work done rather than just a straight CGI effect that cannot possibly compete with Hollywood effects. But in this case, there were several shots where the camera just trained on the person and CGI was expected to tell the tale. It just had the unfortunate effect of making the story look cheap.
So overall, there is a bit to like in this story but it does fail on a number of levels as well. Yet the parts that don't work aren't so bad to cause the story to completely fall apart and they never detract from the fun ride. It feels more like what it is: an early story where kinks are being worked out. It can be fun and if you don't think about it too hard, it is serviceable enough. Decidedly middling seems about right.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
The true kick-off story for the Tenth Doctor and Rose as the Doctor was out for so much of The Christmas Invasion. I recall this one not sitting well with me and I think it was more than just my general distaste for Rose in her early adventures with the Tenth Doctor. But when I went back and rewatched Tooth and Claw, it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered so maybe this one won't be as bad either.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Rose land on New Earth, a colony planet established after Earth is destroyed. The Doctor has received a note via his psychic paper requesting his presence at a nearby hospital. As they walk there, they are spotted by a probe operated by Cassandra, the woman who was seemingly killed after the destruction of the original Earth. She orders her cloned servant Chip to bring Rose to her.
When they arrive at the hospital, Rose and the Doctor are split into separate elevators. The Doctor is taken up to the ward where he finds the Face of Bo who is dying. Rose on the other hand is taken under the hospital where she is lured into Cassandra's hideout by Chip. Rose is trapped and Cassandra transfers her mind into Rose's body, destroying her own body in the process. Summoned by the Doctor, she heads up to the ward.
As Cassandra arrives, the Doctor is confused by the fact that the sisterhood who runs the hospital has been able to supply cures to diseases that shouldn't be cured for centuries. Cassandra had observed the same thing and works with the Doctor to uncover a secret storage facility where thousands of cloned humans are infected with all known diseases to work out cures. The Doctor is outraged and confronts Novice Hame who had followed them while looking after the Face of Bo. Hame runs off to alert her superiors and Cassandra knocks the Doctor out when he notes that he knows that she is not Rose.
Cassandra places the Doctor in a spare cell, intending him to be infected by the various diseases pumped in to the cells. She is interrupted by Matron Casp and Sister Jatt. Cassandra attempts to blackmail them to keep their secret but when they refuse, she opens the cell doors on that block, allowing the people out. This inadvertently lets the Doctor out as well. One of the freed humans short circuits a control mechanism, killing himself but opening all the doors, freeing everyone. The Doctor, Cassandra and Chip all flee as the horde, begging for help, overrun and infect Sister Jatt, killing her.
The trio runs and hides in Cassandra's lair, although Chip is separated and forced to barricade himself in one of the cells. Most of the horde burst into the hospital, infecting visitors and patients alike. Matron Casp does manage to initiate quarantine, sealing the hospital. In the lair, the Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose, which she does by taking over his mind.
They find a ladder leading up the elevator shaft and begin to climb it. They are pursued both by the horde and by Matron Casp. Casp catches up to them but she is caught by the horde and infected. She loses her grip on the ladder and plunges to her death. Cassandra and Rose reach the top of the shaft and Rose orders Cassandra to leave the Doctor so he can get them out using the sonic screwdriver. Cassandra jumps into Rose but the Doctor refuses to open the door as long as Cassandra is in Rose. She jumps back to the Doctor but is in the same predicament. With no other choice, Cassandra jumps into the lead infected person. The Doctor then opens the door and he and Rose hop through it. He closes it behind them but not before Cassandra jumps back into Rose.
Cassandra is momentarily overwhelmed by the loneliness she experienced in the infected woman's body, but the Doctor drags her into the main ward, which is where the high priority patients are. The Doctor has everyone grab the IV cocktails used to cure them while he rigs a repelling device. Gathering all the cocktails on his body, the Doctor reopens the elevator shaft. Convincing Cassandra to help him, they slide down to the stalled elevator on the ground floor.
The Doctor pours all the IVs into the decontamination bath tank on the roof of the elevator and orders Cassandra to hold elevator lever to keep it in place. He then jumps into the elevator and invites the infected horde in with him. As they enter, he activates the decontamination system and the horde in bathed in the curing cocktail. They begin to heal from their diseases and walk out of the elevator. The Doctor orders them to touch the others, passing the cure on to others. Deprived of human contact in their cells, the cured people eagerly hug and touch the others, spreading the cure throughout the hospital.
The quarantine is lifted and the authorities come and arrest most of the staff. The cured are gathered up to be integrated into society while the Doctor heads back up to see the Face of Bo. The Face of Bo tells the Doctor that he has a message for him but will wait until their third and final meeting to impart it. He then teleports elsewhere.
The Doctor then orders Cassandra to exit Rose's body for either trial by the authorities or death. Cassandra balks but goes into Chip's body when he is revealed to have survived. However, Chip, as a half clone is already dying. But Cassandra decides to accept death in exchange for one favor. The Doctor and Rose take her into the TARDIS and transport her back to a party she mentioned earlier. Cassandra comes up to herself, cloaked to hide the clone markers, and tells herself how beautiful she is. The past Cassandra is touched and calls for help as the future Cassandra collapses and dies. The Doctor and Rose quietly slip away in the TARDIS.
Analysis
I can see why I didn't care for this one the first time around, yet my memory was cheating on me a bit as again, it was not as bad as I remembered. There are a number of flaws in this story and if you are not quite into zombie stories, the action will not excite you. But to say that it is actively bad would be an exaggeration.
First, let's hit some of the positives. Most of the acting was pretty good in this. It is rather funny to watch this story with the whole rest of his run to see how many of the Tenth Doctor tropes formulated in this story. His "I'm so, so sorry" line, the exuberance at the mundane, the fundamental pleasure of seeing people delivered from certain death scenarios and the almost instantaneous rage at enforced suffering. If you want the Tenth Doctor in a nearly pure form, you will get it here. Of course, that includes some of his more annoying traits as well but we'll get to those.
Probably more than any other story in her regular run, this was the story that Billie Piper got to show herself as a decent actress. The distance between Rose and Cassandra was probably not that big but there was a change in how the characters carried themselves and I could appreciate the effort there. It probably speaks more to my opinion of Rose that I preferred the Cassandra personification more than the Rose. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good sarcastic wit as well as a bit of rogue demeanor so I thought she simply sparked more when she was Cassandra rather than Rose.
You wouldn't have thought that Cassandra would be a repeat villain but she is and she makes for a rather decent one. In The End of the World, she is just the annoying socialite who happens to be the dinner guest that ends up being the murderer (very Agatha Christie). Here she has a bit more depth and personality. She also gets to add nuances that come from being in different bodies and given a different spin by the actors. Though her motivation is still just money and youth, there is a brief moment where you get caught up in her helping the Doctor with his investigations and rather enjoying her extra take on things.
The sets and direction were also nice. You could tell that the budget was a concern due both to the tightness of a number of shots as well as the fact that only three of the cat nurses showed their faces. All others wore full veils, eliminating the need for the expensive and time consuming makeup. But for what it was, I thought it was a decent job in trying to convey a sense of largeness while also trying to get that sense of intimacy.
Now on to the less than stellar bits. I mentioned the good things and the tropes of the Tenth Doctor that cropped up. But that also includes some over-the-top moments. His celebration at having cured the people was a bit much. I can understand joy at the situation but there was an excessiveness that seemed unbecoming of the Doctor. I thought his instantaneous anger at the cat nurses was also a bit much. There should have been a slightly slower build to his rage. It wasn't bad but I thought it was too quick a turn into making the nurses the villains of the story.
Staying with the solution, I thought the fix for this was a bit too pat. Yes the cat nurses had developed cures to various diseases using these people as lab rats but if a cure had been developed, why keep the rat that still has that disease? Were they keeping them for synthesis purposes? Also, didn't some of these people have diseases for which a cure had not yet been developed? Those would have been unaffected by the cocktail and they still would have infectious. Also, if the cures were delivered intravenously, why does mixing them in a steam bath produce a cure and how is that cure able to be transmitted simply by surface contact? It is a very slap dash solution and it seems hokey even while watching.
Another small problem with this story is that the special effects look a bit cheap. Of course we're not expecting absolute magic, but usually there's a bit better work done rather than just a straight CGI effect that cannot possibly compete with Hollywood effects. But in this case, there were several shots where the camera just trained on the person and CGI was expected to tell the tale. It just had the unfortunate effect of making the story look cheap.
So overall, there is a bit to like in this story but it does fail on a number of levels as well. Yet the parts that don't work aren't so bad to cause the story to completely fall apart and they never detract from the fun ride. It feels more like what it is: an early story where kinks are being worked out. It can be fun and if you don't think about it too hard, it is serviceable enough. Decidedly middling seems about right.
Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5
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