Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor WHO?
The Wedding of River Song is the final episode of the Series Six arc regarding the murder of the Doctor at Lake Silencio. Reaction to the resolution seemed to be rather mixed from a fan point of view as it didn't provide a lot of answers to the overarching questions, though it did address the immediate points of the series arc. I recall not having too many problems with it but still thought it a less than satisfying ending to a pretty good set up.
Plot Summary
In a reality where all time has merged into a single moment, Caesar Winston Churchill summons the soothsayer from prison to explain the lack of movement of time. The Soothsayer is the Doctor and he tells Churchill of how things happened.
After his adventure with Craig in Closing Time, the Doctor pursues various leads to help him track why the Silence are so intent on killing him. The trail leads him to the head of Dorium Maldovar, stored in the vaults of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that a prophecy was given regarding the oldest question in the universe and the fields of Trenzalore. Upon learning both the prophecy and the question, the Doctor takes Dorium in the TARDIS and begins to set a plan in motion.
The Doctor contacts the team of the Teselecta (Let's Kill Hitler) and has them send the four invitations to his death as seen in The Impossible Astronaut. All things proceed as expected until he meets River in the space suit coming out of the lake. She resists and discharges her weapon without killing the Doctor. However, as this is a fixed point in time, all things are enveloped in white.
The Doctor ends his tale to Churchill as they have come out of his office and into the main hall. They discover they have been fighting off the Silence, who are hanging from the ceiling in large numbers. The Silence are neutralized by a group of soldiers, led by Amy who is wearing an eye patch identical to that of Madame Kovarian. She stuns the Doctor and takes him to a private train for transport to Cairo.
On the train, Amy demonstrates that she remembers the Doctor but not Rory. Rory is serving as an Army Captain in her personal guard. The Doctor tries to make small jogs to her memory regarding Rory but nothing comes of it. Upon arriving at the pyramids in Cairo, they are taken into an American base where the Silence have been stored upon capture in tanks of fluid, though still sentient. Amy also reveals that the eye patches are actually computer drives that store the image of the Silence, allowing people to remember they are there.
At the base, the Doctor finds River with a captured Madame Kovarian. The two flirt a little while the Doctor tries to touch her and resume time. River resists, knowing that she would be forced to kill him if time resumed. They are interrupted by the Silence breaking out of their tanks and attacking the force. In addition to front attacks, they send pulses through the eye drives either killing the wearers or inflicting them with sharp pain.
River takes the Doctor to the roof, beckoning Amy to follow. Rory opts to stay behind but as the Silence break through, Amy returns and gun down those that attack him. She removes his eye drive but reattaches Madame Kovarian's, killing her.
They meet River and the Doctor on the roof where River shows the Doctor a distress signal asking for help for the Doctor throughout time and space. Embarrassed, the Doctor still insists that they must restart time but River still refuses. With no alternative, the Doctor performs a quick marriage ceremony between himself and River. He whispers into River's ear and then they kiss. The contact reestablishes the flow of time and everyone is transported back to Lake Silencio as in The Impossible Astronaut.
Afterwards River, fresh from teleporting from the Byzantium, meets Amy in her back yard. Amy is mourning the Doctor but River tells Amy that when the Doctor whispered in her ear, she looked into his eye and saw that the body of the Doctor was in fact the teselecta and that the Doctor was inside. Thus the "body" that was killed on the lakeshore was not the true Doctor and he has slipped away.
A disguised Doctor returns the head of Dorium to the vault, revealing himself to him. Dorium promises to keep the Doctor's secret but warns him that both the prophecy and the initial question are waiting for him.
Analysis
As a series ending story, this one is only okay. As an episode in and of itself, it's a bit better but still has it's flaws. Of course, it is nearly impossible to watch this one without having familiarity with at least the Eleventh Doctor era. There are all the points of Series Six that are addressed but there are also several other callbacks to prior stories which make the story flow a bit better if you know them.
In a way, I was reminded of Victory of the Daleks in this story in that it started well and was pretty engaging but then it lagged and resolved in an unsatisfying way. River refusing to shoot the Doctor and setting up the fusion of time into a single moment was interesting and gave some rather nice visuals, as well as some amusing throwbacks. Winston Churchill talking about downloads and Charles Dickens doing a modern media tour were particularly amusing. Where it started to go downhill for me is about the time they got to the pyramid. Not only did the narrative bog down but the circumstances of the Doctor's plan just seemed slapped together. Why have the marriage ceremony? The Doctor could have had a quiet moment with River and ordered her to look into his eye at any time without going through the ceremony. I don't mind that he married River but the circumstances of it seemed very forced.
I also didn't care for the slapdash nature of the Doctor's plan. He goes through this elaborate set up of saying goodbye to people he cares about, goes on a long chase to get answers, gets them, seems to resign himself to his fate but then changes his mind at the last minute at a chance offer of the captain of the teselecta. I think it would have worked better if they didn't include that quick seen where the Doctor comes back into the bar after the captain made his offer. If it had just shown the Doctor in the teselecta that would have been enough and we would have known that he took it from the captain eventually but would have been left to ourselves to determine when he entered and when he devised the plan to trick everyone. This is just a bit too much for me.
For the most part all the actors did well. The dialogue for River at the end got a bit saccharine and that led to some melodrama in the delivery but it wasn't too bad. Madame Kovarian's plea for mercy at the end was also a bit melodramatic for my taste but I think that was to be expected. What probably increased the melodrama was that the end felt a bit rushed. The Doctor's tale to Churchill was well paced and built the interest in what was happening. But the scenes at the pyramid took on a feel of hurry up and get this done which meant that the emotional resonance both between the Doctor and River and between Amy and Rory had to be crammed into about fifteen minutes. Emotional development usually takes a bit more time and while this was building on existing canon, it still felt rushed and undeserved. Especially as it did not require River and the Doctor to get married just for her to look into his eye. For the marriage, there should have been a deeper and less melodramatic scene between them so that the marriage was a natural outgrowth and letting River in on the Doctor's secret was secondary.
Even the scenery had it's let downs at points. The team travelled to Utah to film the lake scenes there but apparently the close ups between the Doctor and River didn't come out so they reshot them with a rather poor looking blue screen behind them. It was a decent effort but the contrast was just so sharp as to be very noticeable. Similarly, while the scenes in the pyramid worked well with that claustrophobic sense, the scene at the top looked like a basic set with a blue screen in the background. It was just another little addition that made the final scene between River and the Doctor feel rushed and somewhat poorly prepared. Other direction, such as in the great hall with the Silence by contrast, was quite well done and set up the scenes quite well.
Overall I'd say the fundamental story is sound and the actors did reasonable jobs, but there were little misses here and there. The ending needed either a couple more rewrites or another couple of minutes to breathe. There needed to be extra motivation to drive the conclusion as it felt unearned. Good performances from earlier in the story were undercut by lesser performances much as with shortfalls in the production. It is not bad, but it does feel like a truly satisfying conclusion that one might have hoped for given the scope of the series arc.
Overall personal score: 3 out of 5
Showing posts with label River Song. Show all posts
Showing posts with label River Song. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Friday, July 14, 2017
The Name of the Doctor
Doctor, what is your name?
The Name of the Doctor was the big lead in for the 50th anniversary special. It also was looking to reveal the mystery behind Clara as well as start to peel back the onion on a number of mysteries that swirled through the Eleventh Doctor's tenure. This gave the story a fairly tall order to fill and it was debuted with much hype. It also was the first of four straight stories to go with the "... of the Doctor." naming convention. I remembered enjoying this one the first time through but does it stand when the hype has faded?
Plot Summary
Madame Vastra goes to see a condemned murder who offers information about the Doctor in exchange for his life. She evaluates his information and decides to hold a discussion with other parties about it. She puts herself and Jenny to sleep and sends notices to have Strax and Clara put to sleep as well (Clara by means of a sleeping agent in the paper of the letter she sent).
Clara wakes to see the three Paternosters around a table in a dream world where they are joined by the River Song impression from the Library, whom Clara has never met and had only occasional references by the Doctor. Vastra relays the information along with a set of space-time coordinates. River realizes something about the message but before she can relate it, Jenny is attacked in her real body by creatures called the Whisper-Men. River forces everyone to wake up but Jenny, Vastra and Strax are all captured.
Clara wakes to find the Doctor duped by her charges into playing blind-man's bluff while they slipped out to a movie. She tells him what happened and the Doctor rushes off to the TARDIS. He realizes that the message meant that his grave has been found on the planet Trenzalore. He takes the coordinates from Clara's memory and they head off there, though the TARDIS resists them the whole way. The Doctor is forced to forcibly land on the planet and they walk through a graveyard toward the dead Doctor's TARDIS, which has grown to enormous size.
As they walk, Clara sees and hears River, who kept the line open from their earlier chat. Clara and the Doctor find a tomb with River's name on it and she prompts Clara that it might be a passage to the Doctor's tomb. They open it as a group of Whisper-Men appear and rush at them. They are chased through the tunnel until they come to the TARDIS and lock the Whisper-Men out. As they walk through the TARDIS, Clara begins to remember what the Doctor revealed about her during Journey to the Center of the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Clara meet the Paternosters who are being held by the Whisper-Men and the Great Intelligence, taking the form of Dr. Simeon. The Great Intelligence threatens to kill the four friends unless the Doctor opens his tomb by stating his real name. The Doctor begs him not to but River, unseen to all, states his name and opens the doors. The Great Intelligence enters and they find a glowing rip in the fabric of space-time, which gives access to the entirety of the Doctor's timeline.
The Great Intelligence enters the timeline, destroying the Doctor's past and future. As he does, the Doctor loses strength and begins to die. Vastra notes stars going out as the Doctor's victories are reversed. Jenny disappears as she was saved by the Doctor. Strax also becomes hostile and Vastra is forced to kill him. Realizing that the only way to save the Doctor is to restore the Doctor's timeline, and knowing she has already done it before, Clara steps into the Doctor's timeline. Thousands of replicas of her are made across time and space (including those seen in Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen) but the prime version of Clara falls into a rocky space surrounded by echos of the Doctor's past.
Clara's entry saves the Doctor and restores his previous victories, including Jenny and Strax. He then elects to go after Clara. River appeals to him not to and he acknowledges that he was able to see her the whole time. They have a last kiss and finally say their goodbyes as he enters his time stream. He finds Clara confused and offers her a copy of her parents' leaf to ground her. He then grabs hold of her. Before they can leave though, a new figure emerges from the shadows. Clara faints from the stress and the Doctor backs out of his time stream as the War Doctor comes into focus.
Analysis
I think we can call this one a fairly good episode, although like a number of the Steven Moffat stories in this era, it loses a little bit when watched out of context of the rest of the series. I had actually forgotten that it makes a heavy reference to the events of Journey to the Center of the TARDIS since that is where the Doctor told Clara about her other iterations. But it still flows fairly well, although I noticed my appreciation of the Paternoster Gang was a bit diminished this time around.
The Doctor was enjoyable as always here but he was not the real driver of the plot. Nearly all the action was centered around the various companions so that the Doctor seemed fairly ineffectual up until the end. He also seemed a bit weak when directly confronting the Great Intelligence, needing River to give the Intelligence what it wanted and then having Clara do the actual saving. Of course, since they'd already run across evidence of what Clara had done, the whole thing was inevitable so his weakness could be somewhat excused. But it was still a little disappointing.
The Doctor's best scenes were actually with River and her performance in general was quite enjoyable. In many ways, her and Strax were the only source of levity and her humor always seems more witty and enjoyable than the slapstick that Strax indulges in. But when she goes for the more serious moment of actually giving him hope that Clara is alive and that he has to say goodbye, it works really well and has a poignancy to it. I also like it that they didn't expand on the cheap gag of showing the view from the Paternoster Gang and showing the Doctor holding air when he is holding River. That would have ruined the mood and I thought that scene in particular was quite well done.
I must also say that I actually like Clara in this story. Overall, I think my enjoyment of Clara is greater in Series 7B when she is still the Impossible Girl. Less of her personality is developed because the quest narrative takes precedence and that makes her more enjoyable overall, at least to me, as I find her regular personality somewhat annoying. But she did well here, being on her heels most of the time and acting as River's puppet for a short while. I can find no fault with her here.
The Paternoster Gang was okay but they were a bit disappointing to me. Strax was his normal self so that was par for the course, but both Jenny and Vastra seemed less than themselves here. That's less of a leap for Jenny given that she is often portrayed as the lesser of the two and it seems she was attacked first so a more diminished presence should be expected. But Vastra seems nearly helpless through most of the story and that just doesn't suit her. A mind as developed as she has should be always in motion and prepared to make plans. Having her stand and fret while waiting for someone else to figure out what to do just doesn't suit her and lessened the overall character. They were still enjoyable, but less than they should have been.
The villains were a bit wasted in this I thought. The Whisper-Men were quite scary in appearance and their existence as manifestations of thought made them particularly creepy. But they don't do much aside from menace and act as the slow-moving soldiers for the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence himself is also underutilized as doesn't even appear until nearly the halfway point of the episode and then is torn apart by the time winds after entering the Doctor's time stream. It also seems rather weak that he kills himself to destroy the Doctor and doesn't think of doing anything to the other people who might come in after him and thwart his plans.
To cover a point raised by HISHE, how exactly does Clara's thousands of fragments overcome the fragments of the Great Intelligence? Is she stronger than he and just overwrites him or does she actually have to fight him (and if necessary die) as her two previously shown iterations do? Also, why is the Great Intelligence destroyed but Clara not upon entering the time stream? Is it because he exists as thought while she still has a flesh and blood body that holds up better in the time winds? Of course, she would have died soon enough due to the mental damage done in the time stream, but it's still a bit of an unresolved point that bugs me.
The story also suffers a little bit from aging in the way that it introduces the War Doctor. The Doctor notes that the War persona is his secret and his actions were not in the name of the Doctor. He then leaves and the War Doctor turns around to then have words on the screen saying "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor." At the time I'm sure this was a huge squee moment but with the 50th anniversary long over, it's a break in the narrative flow and upsets the mood. I think there was enough clarity from Clara and the Doctor's conversation to denote that John Hurt is a previous iteration of the Doctor and having the credits roll after he turns around with nothing more than a steel gaze would have been sufficient. The moment could have been done in the closing credits with a solo credit line saying the same thing on the closing credit background. I'ts a pretty small nit but it does bug me a bit.
The overall direction was pretty good and the effects weren't completely terrible either given how much old footage Clara had to be spliced into. Clearly the worst insert was with the Second Doctor. The green screen was painfully obvious and I can't understand why the Second Doctor was running around in his fur coat in Southern California. If it had been a scene on a mountain and they were clearly attempting to recreate The Abominable Snowmen, I would have understood and the green screen would have been easier to forgive, given the very limited amount of footage there. But the setting made no sense to me and that just stuck out. Clara falling into the time stream also looked pretty fake. Falling just seems to be something that television can't quite get right.
As for the story itself, it works fairly well, even if you need to rewatch other stories in the Series to get all the nuances. That's not abnormal for modern Doctor Who and even the classic series would have stories make notes to past stories so that doesn't bother me. I think the it would have been a little better served to have been longer as some of it seemed a bit rushed and underdeveloped. Yet there was no real point of padding so it's just a case of cramming so much into a show that other details get dropped. That feeds into the rushed feeling in certain scenes but I'd rather have a story where a little bit of trim was made than to have a story that has been padded up.
Overall, this was a pretty good lead in to the anniversary special. Was it perfect; no. But it had a good overall feel and pace and it was engaging the whole way through, even if it went overboard on the melodrama at times. It was a good story and an easy one to rewatch, but also clearly not a story to lead a new fan into. But that's not going to stop me from pulling out now and again to watch on it's own.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
The Name of the Doctor was the big lead in for the 50th anniversary special. It also was looking to reveal the mystery behind Clara as well as start to peel back the onion on a number of mysteries that swirled through the Eleventh Doctor's tenure. This gave the story a fairly tall order to fill and it was debuted with much hype. It also was the first of four straight stories to go with the "... of the Doctor." naming convention. I remembered enjoying this one the first time through but does it stand when the hype has faded?
Plot Summary
Madame Vastra goes to see a condemned murder who offers information about the Doctor in exchange for his life. She evaluates his information and decides to hold a discussion with other parties about it. She puts herself and Jenny to sleep and sends notices to have Strax and Clara put to sleep as well (Clara by means of a sleeping agent in the paper of the letter she sent).
Clara wakes to see the three Paternosters around a table in a dream world where they are joined by the River Song impression from the Library, whom Clara has never met and had only occasional references by the Doctor. Vastra relays the information along with a set of space-time coordinates. River realizes something about the message but before she can relate it, Jenny is attacked in her real body by creatures called the Whisper-Men. River forces everyone to wake up but Jenny, Vastra and Strax are all captured.
Clara wakes to find the Doctor duped by her charges into playing blind-man's bluff while they slipped out to a movie. She tells him what happened and the Doctor rushes off to the TARDIS. He realizes that the message meant that his grave has been found on the planet Trenzalore. He takes the coordinates from Clara's memory and they head off there, though the TARDIS resists them the whole way. The Doctor is forced to forcibly land on the planet and they walk through a graveyard toward the dead Doctor's TARDIS, which has grown to enormous size.
As they walk, Clara sees and hears River, who kept the line open from their earlier chat. Clara and the Doctor find a tomb with River's name on it and she prompts Clara that it might be a passage to the Doctor's tomb. They open it as a group of Whisper-Men appear and rush at them. They are chased through the tunnel until they come to the TARDIS and lock the Whisper-Men out. As they walk through the TARDIS, Clara begins to remember what the Doctor revealed about her during Journey to the Center of the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Clara meet the Paternosters who are being held by the Whisper-Men and the Great Intelligence, taking the form of Dr. Simeon. The Great Intelligence threatens to kill the four friends unless the Doctor opens his tomb by stating his real name. The Doctor begs him not to but River, unseen to all, states his name and opens the doors. The Great Intelligence enters and they find a glowing rip in the fabric of space-time, which gives access to the entirety of the Doctor's timeline.
The Great Intelligence enters the timeline, destroying the Doctor's past and future. As he does, the Doctor loses strength and begins to die. Vastra notes stars going out as the Doctor's victories are reversed. Jenny disappears as she was saved by the Doctor. Strax also becomes hostile and Vastra is forced to kill him. Realizing that the only way to save the Doctor is to restore the Doctor's timeline, and knowing she has already done it before, Clara steps into the Doctor's timeline. Thousands of replicas of her are made across time and space (including those seen in Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen) but the prime version of Clara falls into a rocky space surrounded by echos of the Doctor's past.
Clara's entry saves the Doctor and restores his previous victories, including Jenny and Strax. He then elects to go after Clara. River appeals to him not to and he acknowledges that he was able to see her the whole time. They have a last kiss and finally say their goodbyes as he enters his time stream. He finds Clara confused and offers her a copy of her parents' leaf to ground her. He then grabs hold of her. Before they can leave though, a new figure emerges from the shadows. Clara faints from the stress and the Doctor backs out of his time stream as the War Doctor comes into focus.
Analysis
I think we can call this one a fairly good episode, although like a number of the Steven Moffat stories in this era, it loses a little bit when watched out of context of the rest of the series. I had actually forgotten that it makes a heavy reference to the events of Journey to the Center of the TARDIS since that is where the Doctor told Clara about her other iterations. But it still flows fairly well, although I noticed my appreciation of the Paternoster Gang was a bit diminished this time around.
The Doctor was enjoyable as always here but he was not the real driver of the plot. Nearly all the action was centered around the various companions so that the Doctor seemed fairly ineffectual up until the end. He also seemed a bit weak when directly confronting the Great Intelligence, needing River to give the Intelligence what it wanted and then having Clara do the actual saving. Of course, since they'd already run across evidence of what Clara had done, the whole thing was inevitable so his weakness could be somewhat excused. But it was still a little disappointing.
The Doctor's best scenes were actually with River and her performance in general was quite enjoyable. In many ways, her and Strax were the only source of levity and her humor always seems more witty and enjoyable than the slapstick that Strax indulges in. But when she goes for the more serious moment of actually giving him hope that Clara is alive and that he has to say goodbye, it works really well and has a poignancy to it. I also like it that they didn't expand on the cheap gag of showing the view from the Paternoster Gang and showing the Doctor holding air when he is holding River. That would have ruined the mood and I thought that scene in particular was quite well done.
I must also say that I actually like Clara in this story. Overall, I think my enjoyment of Clara is greater in Series 7B when she is still the Impossible Girl. Less of her personality is developed because the quest narrative takes precedence and that makes her more enjoyable overall, at least to me, as I find her regular personality somewhat annoying. But she did well here, being on her heels most of the time and acting as River's puppet for a short while. I can find no fault with her here.
The Paternoster Gang was okay but they were a bit disappointing to me. Strax was his normal self so that was par for the course, but both Jenny and Vastra seemed less than themselves here. That's less of a leap for Jenny given that she is often portrayed as the lesser of the two and it seems she was attacked first so a more diminished presence should be expected. But Vastra seems nearly helpless through most of the story and that just doesn't suit her. A mind as developed as she has should be always in motion and prepared to make plans. Having her stand and fret while waiting for someone else to figure out what to do just doesn't suit her and lessened the overall character. They were still enjoyable, but less than they should have been.
The villains were a bit wasted in this I thought. The Whisper-Men were quite scary in appearance and their existence as manifestations of thought made them particularly creepy. But they don't do much aside from menace and act as the slow-moving soldiers for the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence himself is also underutilized as doesn't even appear until nearly the halfway point of the episode and then is torn apart by the time winds after entering the Doctor's time stream. It also seems rather weak that he kills himself to destroy the Doctor and doesn't think of doing anything to the other people who might come in after him and thwart his plans.
To cover a point raised by HISHE, how exactly does Clara's thousands of fragments overcome the fragments of the Great Intelligence? Is she stronger than he and just overwrites him or does she actually have to fight him (and if necessary die) as her two previously shown iterations do? Also, why is the Great Intelligence destroyed but Clara not upon entering the time stream? Is it because he exists as thought while she still has a flesh and blood body that holds up better in the time winds? Of course, she would have died soon enough due to the mental damage done in the time stream, but it's still a bit of an unresolved point that bugs me.
The story also suffers a little bit from aging in the way that it introduces the War Doctor. The Doctor notes that the War persona is his secret and his actions were not in the name of the Doctor. He then leaves and the War Doctor turns around to then have words on the screen saying "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor." At the time I'm sure this was a huge squee moment but with the 50th anniversary long over, it's a break in the narrative flow and upsets the mood. I think there was enough clarity from Clara and the Doctor's conversation to denote that John Hurt is a previous iteration of the Doctor and having the credits roll after he turns around with nothing more than a steel gaze would have been sufficient. The moment could have been done in the closing credits with a solo credit line saying the same thing on the closing credit background. I'ts a pretty small nit but it does bug me a bit.
The overall direction was pretty good and the effects weren't completely terrible either given how much old footage Clara had to be spliced into. Clearly the worst insert was with the Second Doctor. The green screen was painfully obvious and I can't understand why the Second Doctor was running around in his fur coat in Southern California. If it had been a scene on a mountain and they were clearly attempting to recreate The Abominable Snowmen, I would have understood and the green screen would have been easier to forgive, given the very limited amount of footage there. But the setting made no sense to me and that just stuck out. Clara falling into the time stream also looked pretty fake. Falling just seems to be something that television can't quite get right.
As for the story itself, it works fairly well, even if you need to rewatch other stories in the Series to get all the nuances. That's not abnormal for modern Doctor Who and even the classic series would have stories make notes to past stories so that doesn't bother me. I think the it would have been a little better served to have been longer as some of it seemed a bit rushed and underdeveloped. Yet there was no real point of padding so it's just a case of cramming so much into a show that other details get dropped. That feeds into the rushed feeling in certain scenes but I'd rather have a story where a little bit of trim was made than to have a story that has been padded up.
Overall, this was a pretty good lead in to the anniversary special. Was it perfect; no. But it had a good overall feel and pace and it was engaging the whole way through, even if it went overboard on the melodrama at times. It was a good story and an easy one to rewatch, but also clearly not a story to lead a new fan into. But that's not going to stop me from pulling out now and again to watch on it's own.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Angels Take Manhattan
Melody... you look after him; and you be a good girl and you look after him.
The Angels Take Manhattan is the much hyped dismissal of Rory and Amy. I say much hyped because all of Season 7A was a very drawn out notice on the fact that they were leaving. This story hits you pretty well in all the right emotional points but there are elements where plot and emotional convenience cause things to fall by the wayside.
Plot Summary
A detective named Sam Garner is engaged by a rich mobster named Mr. Grayle. He is given an address to a building called Winter Quay and makes his way there, warned to beware of moving statues. Garner enters the building and finds an old version of himself lying in a bed. He runs but is blocked by a group of Weeping Angels. He runs to the roof where he is captured by an angel in the form of the Statue of Liberty.
In 2012, the Doctor, Rory and Amy are relaxing in Central Park, the Doctor reading a book he found in his pocket about a detective named Melody Malone. He rips out the last page and places it in their picnic basket, not wanting the story to end. Rory decides to go out and get coffee. He does but on his way back, he hears a strange noise. In a darkened portion of the park, he is attacked and transported back to 1938 where he comes face to face with River Song.
As he reads, the Doctor sees his, Amy and Rory's name in the book and how Rory disappeared while getting coffee. They go to search for him but find nothing. They then run to the TARDIS with Amy peeking ahead to get a date. The Doctor tries to land in 1938 but the angels have made so many manipulations of the time stream that the TARDIS is bounced out and they land in a graveyard outside the city back in 2012.
A confused Rory and River are taken by gunmen to the home of Mr. Grayle. Grayle, not interested in Rory, orders him locked in the basement. River is brought to the study where she finds a chained angel. Noting an odd translation on a piece of Chinese porcelain, she transmits the word through her vortex manipulator. Grayle flicks the lights, allowing the angel to grab River by the wrist. Grayle then demands to know everything about the angels.
Amy reads a bit more in the book, revealing that Grayle's house has several examples of Chin Dynasty. The two of them travel back to a porcelain house in the Chin dynasty to send the message. The Doctor also chastises Amy as she reads further along, noting that if she reads it, it will become a fixed point in time. They then receive the word signal from River that he had the painters put on several pieces in Chinese. He follows the signal, creating a large disturbance as he rips through the time distortions surrounding the period.
In the basement, Rory is in the dark and hears skittering around. He lights a match, given by one of the gunmen and sees small stone cherubs looking at him. He lights another match and notes that they have moved closer to him. He tries to back away but is trapped against a wall. He lights another match, only to have it blown out by a cherub next to him. He then vanishes from the dark basement.
As the TARDIS arrives in Grayle's home, there is an electrical discharge which knocks Grayle out. The Doctor finds River while Amy searches for Rory. He is dismayed to learn that he must either break River's wrist or the Angel's just as Amy read. Amy proposes reading the chapter titles of the book to learn things without risking spoilers. However, the Doctor becomes enraged when he reads the title of the last chapter "Amelia's Farewell" and angrily orders River to think of another way to escape the Angel's grasp.
The Doctor follows Amy and pulls her back from the basement, seeing a dropped book of matches and stone cherubs around. River emerges, trying to disguise the fact that she broke her own wrist to escape. They figure they can track Rory's signal as he has been transported in space but not time. Learning that River did break her wrist, the Doctor becomes angry but is chastised by Amy.
Amy waits for the tracker to narrow Rory's location while a chagrined Doctor apologizes to River and spends regeneration energy healing her wrist. This angers her as she sees it as a waste but their renewed spat is cut short by the tracker targeting Winter Quay. They steal a car and drive to the Battery while two angels, posing as statues outside, walk in the left open door to attack the waking Grayle.
The group arrives at Winter Quay and find Rory entering a room with his name on it. An old man calls to Amy from the bed. She goes over to find an old Rory who dies in her arms. The Doctor realizes that the Angels have created a farm, sending anyone who tries to escape back into the past of the building and continuously feeding on that energy. Amy proposes that they run for if Rory dies someplace else, it'll create a paradox and undo what the Angels have done, killing all of them.
Rory and Amy manage to run to the stairs but are cut off from the exit and run towards the roof. The Doctor and River are slightly behind and get attacked by a pack of Angels. They dash out the window and begin climbing up the fire escape.
On the roof, Rory and Amy are trapped by the Angel Statue of Liberty. Keeping their eyes on it, Rory climbs to the edge of the roof and urges Amy to push him off. He figures that if he dies now, it'll undo everything and he'll be fine but can't bring himself to actually jump. Amy, unwilling to lose him, climbs up with him and they fall together as the Doctor and River climb up. As they fall, the paradox manifests and the whole region collapses.
All four reappear in the graveyard where the TARDIS landed earlier. The Doctor proposes they go find a pub but as Amy and Rory walk towards the TARDIS, Rory stops to notice his name on a headstone. As he does, an Angel attacks him from behind, causing him to vanish. Devistated, Amy begs the Doctor to go get Rory in the TARDIS but he can't due to the paradox keeping all time travelers out. Amy then says her goodbyes and turns her back on the Angel, allowing it to send her back to Rory.
The Doctor and River leave in the TARDIS with River going over what she has to do to ensure the Doctor gets the book. She tells him that she will suggest that Amy include an afterward when she has the book published in the past. The Doctor directs the TARDIS back to Central Park and finds the basket with the last page in it. On it, Amy tells the Doctor that she and Rory are fine and charges him not to travel alone. He then travels in the TARDIS to give young Amelia a quick flyby for hope.
Analysis
The Angels Take Manhattan is a good story and resolves one of the main conflicts during the whole of Amy's travels with the Doctor: Rory or the Doctor. Now, I thought it was rather clear for the duration of her time that it was always Rory (which was what made The Asylum of the Daleks so odd) but others felt that needed to be a bit more spelled out so I can understand Steven Moffat being so explicit. It is not without it's flaws though.
The Doctor is fairly good here but he's also a bit overemotional. This is the first manifestation of the "hating goodbyes" and one of the only ones that I can recall. Obviously each personality of the Doctor takes on new characteristics but he seems so hamstrung on the can't say goodbye to Amy that it seems to weaken him to the point of not being able to function. Granted, the Eleventh Doctor has made a special bond with Amy but he should still be better than a gibbering wreck when it comes to losing her.
I do like his interaction with River and this is one of the few episodes where they function on the same plane of knowledge. Usually it's one of them having a leg up on the other in terms of knowledge. Here, they are both working towards the solution with the same info and it makes them function more as a team or even as a married couple. River helps make up for some of the shortfalls in the Doctor's emotional make up and it's a nice balance. I also happen to think that River looks very nice in the detective noir outfit.
Amy and Rory are pretty good although Rory doesn't get much. He gets the nice emotional scene on the rooftop with Amy but he's the damsel in most of this story, but that is where he did tend to be more often than not so it's fitting. Amy is also good as she is a bit more grounded in her reactions. She plays the adult more often than not between the Doctor and River and gives a certain amount of gravity to some scenes that might go awry. She also has two very nice emotional scenes with her commitment to die with Rory in the fall and then in the decision to let the Angel take her to Rory rather than stay with the Doctor. Overall a very strong story for her.
The Angels were pretty good in this. The scene with the cherubs in the basement was properly unnerving with all the various "monster in the dark" tropes you could want. The idea of an Angel farm actually makes a lot of sense, although I'm not sure how well the people could be contained within the building in the past unless it was of tighter security then. Yes the Angels could zap someone into the past but unless there was something in the past to hold them there, they could just escape and be running around turn of the century New York. I can also understand the desire for the visual of the Statue of Liberty as an Angel, but when you but any thought into it, it's really rather stupid, especially in the second scene where it just has to stand there while Amy and Rory decide whether or not to fall off the roof.
That scene is actually one that contains one of the problems with the Angels in this story: inconsistency. It's well known that an Angel moves when you don't look at it. While Rory is climbing on the ledge, Amy locks eyes on the Angel and allows him to look away. However, when Rory is talking to Amy and she is deciding to jump with him, he looks down at her and she looks up at him. At that moment, the Angel should have taken them both. It's dramatic license but if you make such a big deal about your enemy in such a fashion, you shouldn't draw such attention to when you don't do it, especially with such a big Angel hovering in the background.
Everything else about the story worked pretty well. I liked the fact that it was very obviously the actual Central Park they were filming in at the beginning and the end. Most everything else had a nice moody feel to it and I liked the fact that Steven Moffat came as close as he's ever done to indulging in the no-win scenario. He almost never does it so it feels good when he does.
That being said, there is no good reason why the Doctor couldn't travel to New York in the 1940's, several years after Amy and Rory arrived and see them. Perhaps he makes the decision to not let them travel because of the dangers to the time line and I can buy that. But there is no reason he can't at least visit. River certainly makes it clear that she will be traveling to them to ensure the manuscript gets published by Amy so a certain amount of travel to them is not impossible.
My head cannon guess would be that with their deaths fixed in the past (70s-80s), he refuses to visit them for fear that he will take them back into the TARDIS and disrupt the timeline further. That's the only reason I can think of but it also makes the Doctor something of an emotional twat for being so dramatic. He can't trust himself so he has to act as though they've died. Again, Steven Moffat doesn't indulge in the no-win scenario much so his natural habit of trying to find a loophole to ensure a happy ending for all does create some rather nasty plot holes.
Still, especially if you lose yourself in it, the story makes a strong emotional impact and is very easy to enjoy. The good highly outweighs the bad and the bad really only kicks in if you're of the more pedantic nature, which I can be now and again. It's easily the best story of Season 7A and a good send off for Rory and Amy. I'd happily sit down with anyone to watch it, although I clearly wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their first story. There's far too much backstory and emotion required to initiate someone with a story like this.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
The Angels Take Manhattan is the much hyped dismissal of Rory and Amy. I say much hyped because all of Season 7A was a very drawn out notice on the fact that they were leaving. This story hits you pretty well in all the right emotional points but there are elements where plot and emotional convenience cause things to fall by the wayside.
Plot Summary
A detective named Sam Garner is engaged by a rich mobster named Mr. Grayle. He is given an address to a building called Winter Quay and makes his way there, warned to beware of moving statues. Garner enters the building and finds an old version of himself lying in a bed. He runs but is blocked by a group of Weeping Angels. He runs to the roof where he is captured by an angel in the form of the Statue of Liberty.
In 2012, the Doctor, Rory and Amy are relaxing in Central Park, the Doctor reading a book he found in his pocket about a detective named Melody Malone. He rips out the last page and places it in their picnic basket, not wanting the story to end. Rory decides to go out and get coffee. He does but on his way back, he hears a strange noise. In a darkened portion of the park, he is attacked and transported back to 1938 where he comes face to face with River Song.
As he reads, the Doctor sees his, Amy and Rory's name in the book and how Rory disappeared while getting coffee. They go to search for him but find nothing. They then run to the TARDIS with Amy peeking ahead to get a date. The Doctor tries to land in 1938 but the angels have made so many manipulations of the time stream that the TARDIS is bounced out and they land in a graveyard outside the city back in 2012.
A confused Rory and River are taken by gunmen to the home of Mr. Grayle. Grayle, not interested in Rory, orders him locked in the basement. River is brought to the study where she finds a chained angel. Noting an odd translation on a piece of Chinese porcelain, she transmits the word through her vortex manipulator. Grayle flicks the lights, allowing the angel to grab River by the wrist. Grayle then demands to know everything about the angels.
Amy reads a bit more in the book, revealing that Grayle's house has several examples of Chin Dynasty. The two of them travel back to a porcelain house in the Chin dynasty to send the message. The Doctor also chastises Amy as she reads further along, noting that if she reads it, it will become a fixed point in time. They then receive the word signal from River that he had the painters put on several pieces in Chinese. He follows the signal, creating a large disturbance as he rips through the time distortions surrounding the period.
In the basement, Rory is in the dark and hears skittering around. He lights a match, given by one of the gunmen and sees small stone cherubs looking at him. He lights another match and notes that they have moved closer to him. He tries to back away but is trapped against a wall. He lights another match, only to have it blown out by a cherub next to him. He then vanishes from the dark basement.
As the TARDIS arrives in Grayle's home, there is an electrical discharge which knocks Grayle out. The Doctor finds River while Amy searches for Rory. He is dismayed to learn that he must either break River's wrist or the Angel's just as Amy read. Amy proposes reading the chapter titles of the book to learn things without risking spoilers. However, the Doctor becomes enraged when he reads the title of the last chapter "Amelia's Farewell" and angrily orders River to think of another way to escape the Angel's grasp.
The Doctor follows Amy and pulls her back from the basement, seeing a dropped book of matches and stone cherubs around. River emerges, trying to disguise the fact that she broke her own wrist to escape. They figure they can track Rory's signal as he has been transported in space but not time. Learning that River did break her wrist, the Doctor becomes angry but is chastised by Amy.
Amy waits for the tracker to narrow Rory's location while a chagrined Doctor apologizes to River and spends regeneration energy healing her wrist. This angers her as she sees it as a waste but their renewed spat is cut short by the tracker targeting Winter Quay. They steal a car and drive to the Battery while two angels, posing as statues outside, walk in the left open door to attack the waking Grayle.
The group arrives at Winter Quay and find Rory entering a room with his name on it. An old man calls to Amy from the bed. She goes over to find an old Rory who dies in her arms. The Doctor realizes that the Angels have created a farm, sending anyone who tries to escape back into the past of the building and continuously feeding on that energy. Amy proposes that they run for if Rory dies someplace else, it'll create a paradox and undo what the Angels have done, killing all of them.
Rory and Amy manage to run to the stairs but are cut off from the exit and run towards the roof. The Doctor and River are slightly behind and get attacked by a pack of Angels. They dash out the window and begin climbing up the fire escape.
On the roof, Rory and Amy are trapped by the Angel Statue of Liberty. Keeping their eyes on it, Rory climbs to the edge of the roof and urges Amy to push him off. He figures that if he dies now, it'll undo everything and he'll be fine but can't bring himself to actually jump. Amy, unwilling to lose him, climbs up with him and they fall together as the Doctor and River climb up. As they fall, the paradox manifests and the whole region collapses.
All four reappear in the graveyard where the TARDIS landed earlier. The Doctor proposes they go find a pub but as Amy and Rory walk towards the TARDIS, Rory stops to notice his name on a headstone. As he does, an Angel attacks him from behind, causing him to vanish. Devistated, Amy begs the Doctor to go get Rory in the TARDIS but he can't due to the paradox keeping all time travelers out. Amy then says her goodbyes and turns her back on the Angel, allowing it to send her back to Rory.
The Doctor and River leave in the TARDIS with River going over what she has to do to ensure the Doctor gets the book. She tells him that she will suggest that Amy include an afterward when she has the book published in the past. The Doctor directs the TARDIS back to Central Park and finds the basket with the last page in it. On it, Amy tells the Doctor that she and Rory are fine and charges him not to travel alone. He then travels in the TARDIS to give young Amelia a quick flyby for hope.
Analysis
The Angels Take Manhattan is a good story and resolves one of the main conflicts during the whole of Amy's travels with the Doctor: Rory or the Doctor. Now, I thought it was rather clear for the duration of her time that it was always Rory (which was what made The Asylum of the Daleks so odd) but others felt that needed to be a bit more spelled out so I can understand Steven Moffat being so explicit. It is not without it's flaws though.
The Doctor is fairly good here but he's also a bit overemotional. This is the first manifestation of the "hating goodbyes" and one of the only ones that I can recall. Obviously each personality of the Doctor takes on new characteristics but he seems so hamstrung on the can't say goodbye to Amy that it seems to weaken him to the point of not being able to function. Granted, the Eleventh Doctor has made a special bond with Amy but he should still be better than a gibbering wreck when it comes to losing her.
I do like his interaction with River and this is one of the few episodes where they function on the same plane of knowledge. Usually it's one of them having a leg up on the other in terms of knowledge. Here, they are both working towards the solution with the same info and it makes them function more as a team or even as a married couple. River helps make up for some of the shortfalls in the Doctor's emotional make up and it's a nice balance. I also happen to think that River looks very nice in the detective noir outfit.
Amy and Rory are pretty good although Rory doesn't get much. He gets the nice emotional scene on the rooftop with Amy but he's the damsel in most of this story, but that is where he did tend to be more often than not so it's fitting. Amy is also good as she is a bit more grounded in her reactions. She plays the adult more often than not between the Doctor and River and gives a certain amount of gravity to some scenes that might go awry. She also has two very nice emotional scenes with her commitment to die with Rory in the fall and then in the decision to let the Angel take her to Rory rather than stay with the Doctor. Overall a very strong story for her.
The Angels were pretty good in this. The scene with the cherubs in the basement was properly unnerving with all the various "monster in the dark" tropes you could want. The idea of an Angel farm actually makes a lot of sense, although I'm not sure how well the people could be contained within the building in the past unless it was of tighter security then. Yes the Angels could zap someone into the past but unless there was something in the past to hold them there, they could just escape and be running around turn of the century New York. I can also understand the desire for the visual of the Statue of Liberty as an Angel, but when you but any thought into it, it's really rather stupid, especially in the second scene where it just has to stand there while Amy and Rory decide whether or not to fall off the roof.
That scene is actually one that contains one of the problems with the Angels in this story: inconsistency. It's well known that an Angel moves when you don't look at it. While Rory is climbing on the ledge, Amy locks eyes on the Angel and allows him to look away. However, when Rory is talking to Amy and she is deciding to jump with him, he looks down at her and she looks up at him. At that moment, the Angel should have taken them both. It's dramatic license but if you make such a big deal about your enemy in such a fashion, you shouldn't draw such attention to when you don't do it, especially with such a big Angel hovering in the background.
Everything else about the story worked pretty well. I liked the fact that it was very obviously the actual Central Park they were filming in at the beginning and the end. Most everything else had a nice moody feel to it and I liked the fact that Steven Moffat came as close as he's ever done to indulging in the no-win scenario. He almost never does it so it feels good when he does.
That being said, there is no good reason why the Doctor couldn't travel to New York in the 1940's, several years after Amy and Rory arrived and see them. Perhaps he makes the decision to not let them travel because of the dangers to the time line and I can buy that. But there is no reason he can't at least visit. River certainly makes it clear that she will be traveling to them to ensure the manuscript gets published by Amy so a certain amount of travel to them is not impossible.
My head cannon guess would be that with their deaths fixed in the past (70s-80s), he refuses to visit them for fear that he will take them back into the TARDIS and disrupt the timeline further. That's the only reason I can think of but it also makes the Doctor something of an emotional twat for being so dramatic. He can't trust himself so he has to act as though they've died. Again, Steven Moffat doesn't indulge in the no-win scenario much so his natural habit of trying to find a loophole to ensure a happy ending for all does create some rather nasty plot holes.
Still, especially if you lose yourself in it, the story makes a strong emotional impact and is very easy to enjoy. The good highly outweighs the bad and the bad really only kicks in if you're of the more pedantic nature, which I can be now and again. It's easily the best story of Season 7A and a good send off for Rory and Amy. I'd happily sit down with anyone to watch it, although I clearly wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their first story. There's far too much backstory and emotion required to initiate someone with a story like this.
Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Let's Kill Hitler
Welcome. You will feel a tingling sensation; then death.
An advantage to being somewhat late to the party of Doctor Who fandom is to have avoided some of the frustrations of the past. Let's Kill Hitler brought Series Six back from a summer hiatus and for many folks it was a bit of a disappointment. The episode is an out and out, slightly bawdy comedy that tries to get a little poignancy in the end. If it had aired immediately after A Good Man Goes to War, it might have been received a bit better as it's lighter tone does provide a bit of a lift after the darker ending in the prior story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor arrives at a crop circle created by Amy and Rory to summon him. They are hoping to get an update on the Doctor's quest for Melody when their old friend Mels arrives in a stolen car. Mels had grown up as Amy's best friend and was privy to all the tales about the Doctor. She then pulls a gun on the Doctor and demands a getaway in the TARDIS.
Mels fires the gun, whilst taking off causing the TARDIS to spin out of control. They crash land into Adolf Hitler's office in 1938, inadvertently saving his life from the Teselecta, a justice machine run by a miniaturized crew. The Teselecta had been commissioned to kill Hitler shortly before his death in 1945 but had gotten the year wrong. Emerging from the TARDIS, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Mels realize where they are when Hitler thanks them for saving his life.
Seeing the Teselecta, still disguised as a German officer, rise, Hitler pulls a gun and shoot at it. The Doctor disarms him and has Rory lock him in the closet. The Teselecta is undamaged but pretends to faint to go into observation mode. Mels on the other hand is hit. Knowing that she is dying, she reveals that she is actually Melody Pond, having escaped and regenerated in 1970. She then regenerates into River Song, although she is unaware of that name yet. Her regeneration confirms her identity to the Teselecta crew who shift priorities to capture and kill River for the murder of the Doctor.
River's conditioning by the Silence kicks in and she makes several attempts to shoot the Doctor before kissing him with a poisoned lipstick. Realizing the problem, he sends Rory and Amy after her while he crawls into the TARDIS. River steals a motorcycle and several guns and heads into downtown Berlin to grab some new clothing. Amy and Rory follow her as does the Teselecta. They catch up to River in a restaurant where she has stolen the cloths of all the patrons and is now trying them on. The Teselecta transforms into Amy and then miniaturizes Amy and Rory, placing them inside the machine.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor activates the visual interface in the form of Amelia Pond. He gains enough pain relief to be able to transport the TARDIS to River's location. Upon arriving, he finds the Teselecta having frozen River and preparing to execute her. He tries to stop them but the poison saps his strength. He urges Amy to stop them as they begin to kill River though maximum application of pain.
Amy uses the sonic screwdriver, which the Doctor had given her before chasing River to begin with, to deactivate the safety devices for the crew. The Teselecta's antibody probes then move to attack the crew, forcing the captain to order the immediate beam out of the crew to the mother ship in orbit. However, this leaves Amy and Rory at the antibodies mercy.
Amy calls out for the Doctor's help but he is too weak to do anything. He begs River to help them and moved by his compassion to keep helping others as he dies, she takes the TARDIS and the TARDIS walks her through how to fly it. She materializes the TARDIS around Amy and Rory in the Teselecta and then back outside.
As the Doctor's life ebbs away, he calls for River and asks her to deliver a message to River Song. She is moved by his words and asks Amy who River is. Amy orders the Teselecta to show River Song and River sees her own face mirrored by the machine. Realizing what she means to the Doctor and vice versa, River uses her remaining regenerations to heal the Doctor from the poison.
The Doctor delivers a weakened River to a hospital in the future, leaving her an empty diary. He, Amy and Rory then leave knowing that it is too dangerous to have her come with them as they know too much about her future. They set off for new adventures while the Doctor buries the fact that he accessed the Teselecta database to learn of his own death at Lake Silencio. River meanwhile, recovers and enrolls in a university program to become an archeologist.
Analysis
In addition to the overall tone of the story, I think a lot of people's animosity towards this story stemmed from the retconing of Mel as a friend so significant that Melody was named after her and yet had never been seen or mentioned before. The retconing is a bit ham handed and given the way Steven Moffat had fairly deftly included references to future events in past stories, it seemed even more hackneyed.
There is also the small matter of discontinuity in that Melody is last shown regenerating in 1970 New York, yet is shown growing up in Leadworth in the mid-90's, nearly unaged. This is rather sloppy writing and requires the use of individual head cannon (such as an older River transporting her younger self across time and space using the vortex manipulator) to solve such a major plot hole.
But, aside from that, it's not a bad episode. It's funny in it's casual undercutting of Adolf Hitler and reducing him to an ineffective clown that is dispensed with in the first ten minutes. There is also nice bit-play between the Doctor and the psychotic River as she tries to kill him.
I also enjoyed the Teselecta and the concept of dispensing vengeance just before the natural end of a person. The somewhat sloppy controls of the Teselecta and the problems the crew seem to have with piloting the machine give an extra semblance of realism to it.
All that being said, the episode also pours on the treacle at the end. It's a little hard to believe that the somewhat psychotic River would be moved enough by the Doctor's words and attempts at action to use regeneration energy to save him. It's moving, but it clashes somewhat with the tone established by the beginning of the episode of a comedy romp. It doesn't bother me in the same way that The Romans' attempt to do it did, but I could see how this could irritate a person.
On the whole, I have no major objections to this story. Is it great? No. Is it a colossal raging disappointment? Also no. It's a good little story, it just doesn't have the depth that people wanted for what should have been such a large payoff. But if you can get past that, it works well as an overall story and I have no problem revisiting it now and again.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
An advantage to being somewhat late to the party of Doctor Who fandom is to have avoided some of the frustrations of the past. Let's Kill Hitler brought Series Six back from a summer hiatus and for many folks it was a bit of a disappointment. The episode is an out and out, slightly bawdy comedy that tries to get a little poignancy in the end. If it had aired immediately after A Good Man Goes to War, it might have been received a bit better as it's lighter tone does provide a bit of a lift after the darker ending in the prior story.
Plot Summary
The Doctor arrives at a crop circle created by Amy and Rory to summon him. They are hoping to get an update on the Doctor's quest for Melody when their old friend Mels arrives in a stolen car. Mels had grown up as Amy's best friend and was privy to all the tales about the Doctor. She then pulls a gun on the Doctor and demands a getaway in the TARDIS.
Mels fires the gun, whilst taking off causing the TARDIS to spin out of control. They crash land into Adolf Hitler's office in 1938, inadvertently saving his life from the Teselecta, a justice machine run by a miniaturized crew. The Teselecta had been commissioned to kill Hitler shortly before his death in 1945 but had gotten the year wrong. Emerging from the TARDIS, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Mels realize where they are when Hitler thanks them for saving his life.
Seeing the Teselecta, still disguised as a German officer, rise, Hitler pulls a gun and shoot at it. The Doctor disarms him and has Rory lock him in the closet. The Teselecta is undamaged but pretends to faint to go into observation mode. Mels on the other hand is hit. Knowing that she is dying, she reveals that she is actually Melody Pond, having escaped and regenerated in 1970. She then regenerates into River Song, although she is unaware of that name yet. Her regeneration confirms her identity to the Teselecta crew who shift priorities to capture and kill River for the murder of the Doctor.
River's conditioning by the Silence kicks in and she makes several attempts to shoot the Doctor before kissing him with a poisoned lipstick. Realizing the problem, he sends Rory and Amy after her while he crawls into the TARDIS. River steals a motorcycle and several guns and heads into downtown Berlin to grab some new clothing. Amy and Rory follow her as does the Teselecta. They catch up to River in a restaurant where she has stolen the cloths of all the patrons and is now trying them on. The Teselecta transforms into Amy and then miniaturizes Amy and Rory, placing them inside the machine.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor activates the visual interface in the form of Amelia Pond. He gains enough pain relief to be able to transport the TARDIS to River's location. Upon arriving, he finds the Teselecta having frozen River and preparing to execute her. He tries to stop them but the poison saps his strength. He urges Amy to stop them as they begin to kill River though maximum application of pain.
Amy uses the sonic screwdriver, which the Doctor had given her before chasing River to begin with, to deactivate the safety devices for the crew. The Teselecta's antibody probes then move to attack the crew, forcing the captain to order the immediate beam out of the crew to the mother ship in orbit. However, this leaves Amy and Rory at the antibodies mercy.
Amy calls out for the Doctor's help but he is too weak to do anything. He begs River to help them and moved by his compassion to keep helping others as he dies, she takes the TARDIS and the TARDIS walks her through how to fly it. She materializes the TARDIS around Amy and Rory in the Teselecta and then back outside.
As the Doctor's life ebbs away, he calls for River and asks her to deliver a message to River Song. She is moved by his words and asks Amy who River is. Amy orders the Teselecta to show River Song and River sees her own face mirrored by the machine. Realizing what she means to the Doctor and vice versa, River uses her remaining regenerations to heal the Doctor from the poison.
The Doctor delivers a weakened River to a hospital in the future, leaving her an empty diary. He, Amy and Rory then leave knowing that it is too dangerous to have her come with them as they know too much about her future. They set off for new adventures while the Doctor buries the fact that he accessed the Teselecta database to learn of his own death at Lake Silencio. River meanwhile, recovers and enrolls in a university program to become an archeologist.
Analysis
In addition to the overall tone of the story, I think a lot of people's animosity towards this story stemmed from the retconing of Mel as a friend so significant that Melody was named after her and yet had never been seen or mentioned before. The retconing is a bit ham handed and given the way Steven Moffat had fairly deftly included references to future events in past stories, it seemed even more hackneyed.
There is also the small matter of discontinuity in that Melody is last shown regenerating in 1970 New York, yet is shown growing up in Leadworth in the mid-90's, nearly unaged. This is rather sloppy writing and requires the use of individual head cannon (such as an older River transporting her younger self across time and space using the vortex manipulator) to solve such a major plot hole.
But, aside from that, it's not a bad episode. It's funny in it's casual undercutting of Adolf Hitler and reducing him to an ineffective clown that is dispensed with in the first ten minutes. There is also nice bit-play between the Doctor and the psychotic River as she tries to kill him.
I also enjoyed the Teselecta and the concept of dispensing vengeance just before the natural end of a person. The somewhat sloppy controls of the Teselecta and the problems the crew seem to have with piloting the machine give an extra semblance of realism to it.
All that being said, the episode also pours on the treacle at the end. It's a little hard to believe that the somewhat psychotic River would be moved enough by the Doctor's words and attempts at action to use regeneration energy to save him. It's moving, but it clashes somewhat with the tone established by the beginning of the episode of a comedy romp. It doesn't bother me in the same way that The Romans' attempt to do it did, but I could see how this could irritate a person.
On the whole, I have no major objections to this story. Is it great? No. Is it a colossal raging disappointment? Also no. It's a good little story, it just doesn't have the depth that people wanted for what should have been such a large payoff. But if you can get past that, it works well as an overall story and I have no problem revisiting it now and again.
Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
A Good Man Goes to War
Do you need me to repeat the question?
A Good Man Goes to War was the big mid-series finale that wrapped up most of the loose ends with Amy and Rory's baby and revealed who River was. It is also one of the few stories to actually show the Doctor actually using the fighting fear that he supposedly commanded.
Plot Summary
Amy has given birth to a girl that she has named Melody in her prison on an asteroid called Demons Run. Melody is going to be taken by a woman with an eye patch named Madame Kovarian. She has assembled an army of church soldiers (The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone) and allied them with the headless monks. They are waiting for the Doctor to attack with the intention of destroying him.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is assembling allies. Notable are the members of what will become the Paternoster Gang and Dorium Maldovar. Rory is sent to find out where Amy is being held and to get River. River however refuses to come, knowing that the Doctor must face this event without her.
The Doctor sneaks aboard Demons Run and instigates a fight between the church soldiers and the headless monks. The colonel manages to stop the fight but in doing so, disarms his soldiers who are then surrounded by a combined army of Silurians and Judoon. The Doctor and Rory free Amy and reunite her with Melody and Madame Kovarian is captured. The Judoon escort the surrendered church troops out of the quadrent but the headless monks hide in the station.
The Doctor, Madame Vastra and Dorium hack the computers and discover that Melody's DNA has been altered by exposure to the time vortex which could give her the power to regenerate. The headless monks regroup and prepare to attack while Madame Kovarian escapes. One of the church soldiers (Bucket) who stayed loyal to the Doctor warns the group of Kovarian's trap. The group is attacked by the headless monks and the Doctor is distracted by Madame Kovarian appearing on a screen and mocking the Doctor for being fooled again. Kovarian then awakens the real Melody on her ship and the one Amy is holding melts as it was a flesh avatar.
The Doctor runs down to find that his allies have defeated the headless monks, although soldier Bucket and Dorium are killed and Strax is heavily wounded. Amy is in shock and angry at the Doctor. In midst of this, River arrives. The Doctor angrily confronts her about not being there while she tries to calm him by noting that it couldn't have been stopped. She then subtly reveals who she is to him. Astounded, the Doctor then leaves in the TARDIS, vowing to find Melody. Confused, Amy and Rory ask her what is going on. She gives them the baby leaf that soldier Bucket sewed of Melody's name, noting that her people had no word for pond. The writing translates to River Song and River reveals that she is Melody.
Analysis
Like The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, this episode takes on a totally different tone once you know the big twist regarding Melody and River. That obviously was designed to floor the audience going into the time off before Let's Kill Hitler. For the most part, I think it holds up rather well even when you know what is coming.
It is rather interesting that the Eleventh Doctor is painted as much more of a fighting Doctor, or at least one who cultivates the fighting legend; and yet the Eleventh Doctor never really pulls off the dark Doctor persona that you would expect would be necessary for this like both the Ninth and Tenth Doctor did. The Eleventh Doctor is a master of talking and letting others do the fighting for him. The Tenth Doctor did also but there were moments where you saw him get his hands dirty.
Obviously the avoidance of any real bloodshed is always a plus (especially in a family program) but it is nice to see that accomplished though overwhelming force rather than just "look at me and how scary I am" such as was done in The Pandorica Opens. My own personal favorite scene is the opening where Rory walks on to the Cybermen's ship and demands to know where his wife is. The Cyber leader asks what the message from the Doctor is and half the Cyberfleet explodes. That is a level of bad ass-ery that is lacking sometimes and I genuinely appreciate it when it does show up. Now, it's rarity does also invoke that when it does happen, the Doctor isn't screwing around so I would not advocate seeing it all that much more. But I did appreciate it this time around.
At the same time, the first half of the story is also very funny as well. The introduction of Strax is very funny and Dorium's protests against being selected are also very funny. Even after the surrender, the Doctor has some nice banter both with Amy and Rory and with the others. The Doctor's awkward conversation with Madame Vastra about Amy and Rory's sex life is quite amusing, especially with Dorium giving silent commentary with his eyebrows. Quite funny.
Where I felt the episode dipped a little bit south was after the initial engagement. I didn't really care for soldier Bucket who was just a little too bland and plot convenient for my taste. I'm also not sure I fully understood what the point was of Madame Kovarian's trap. Yes, she managed to get away with Melody, but her forces were defeated and no characters of significance were killed by the headless monks. The Doctor had already discovered the success of Madame Kovarian's scheme and assisted in Melody's escape, although unless the flesh avatar Amy was relaying information, Madame Kovarian would not have known that at this time. But it still seems like an overly complicated plan just to make sure you get away with a baby.
I also didn't really care for the ending scene that much. Soldier Bucket's death scene seemed a little forced. Likewise, I wasn't really buying the interaction between River and the Doctor in the confrontation. It's hard to put my finger on, but I think there is something in Alex Kingston's acting at that time that just didn't seem right. I think it was trying a little too hard to sound poignant and touching and just came across as soppy. I'm not sure of the best way to improve it, but the way that scene flowed just didn't quite work for me.
I liked this one overall but was somewhat surprised to remember during the rewatch of just how down a note it ends on. Again, with the minor plot holes and the somewhat subpar acting near the end, it falls off a little bit but it's still an enjoyable story. I'd happily watch it again, but it's not the best of the series.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
A Good Man Goes to War was the big mid-series finale that wrapped up most of the loose ends with Amy and Rory's baby and revealed who River was. It is also one of the few stories to actually show the Doctor actually using the fighting fear that he supposedly commanded.
Plot Summary
Amy has given birth to a girl that she has named Melody in her prison on an asteroid called Demons Run. Melody is going to be taken by a woman with an eye patch named Madame Kovarian. She has assembled an army of church soldiers (The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone) and allied them with the headless monks. They are waiting for the Doctor to attack with the intention of destroying him.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is assembling allies. Notable are the members of what will become the Paternoster Gang and Dorium Maldovar. Rory is sent to find out where Amy is being held and to get River. River however refuses to come, knowing that the Doctor must face this event without her.
The Doctor sneaks aboard Demons Run and instigates a fight between the church soldiers and the headless monks. The colonel manages to stop the fight but in doing so, disarms his soldiers who are then surrounded by a combined army of Silurians and Judoon. The Doctor and Rory free Amy and reunite her with Melody and Madame Kovarian is captured. The Judoon escort the surrendered church troops out of the quadrent but the headless monks hide in the station.
The Doctor, Madame Vastra and Dorium hack the computers and discover that Melody's DNA has been altered by exposure to the time vortex which could give her the power to regenerate. The headless monks regroup and prepare to attack while Madame Kovarian escapes. One of the church soldiers (Bucket) who stayed loyal to the Doctor warns the group of Kovarian's trap. The group is attacked by the headless monks and the Doctor is distracted by Madame Kovarian appearing on a screen and mocking the Doctor for being fooled again. Kovarian then awakens the real Melody on her ship and the one Amy is holding melts as it was a flesh avatar.
The Doctor runs down to find that his allies have defeated the headless monks, although soldier Bucket and Dorium are killed and Strax is heavily wounded. Amy is in shock and angry at the Doctor. In midst of this, River arrives. The Doctor angrily confronts her about not being there while she tries to calm him by noting that it couldn't have been stopped. She then subtly reveals who she is to him. Astounded, the Doctor then leaves in the TARDIS, vowing to find Melody. Confused, Amy and Rory ask her what is going on. She gives them the baby leaf that soldier Bucket sewed of Melody's name, noting that her people had no word for pond. The writing translates to River Song and River reveals that she is Melody.
Analysis
Like The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, this episode takes on a totally different tone once you know the big twist regarding Melody and River. That obviously was designed to floor the audience going into the time off before Let's Kill Hitler. For the most part, I think it holds up rather well even when you know what is coming.
It is rather interesting that the Eleventh Doctor is painted as much more of a fighting Doctor, or at least one who cultivates the fighting legend; and yet the Eleventh Doctor never really pulls off the dark Doctor persona that you would expect would be necessary for this like both the Ninth and Tenth Doctor did. The Eleventh Doctor is a master of talking and letting others do the fighting for him. The Tenth Doctor did also but there were moments where you saw him get his hands dirty.
Obviously the avoidance of any real bloodshed is always a plus (especially in a family program) but it is nice to see that accomplished though overwhelming force rather than just "look at me and how scary I am" such as was done in The Pandorica Opens. My own personal favorite scene is the opening where Rory walks on to the Cybermen's ship and demands to know where his wife is. The Cyber leader asks what the message from the Doctor is and half the Cyberfleet explodes. That is a level of bad ass-ery that is lacking sometimes and I genuinely appreciate it when it does show up. Now, it's rarity does also invoke that when it does happen, the Doctor isn't screwing around so I would not advocate seeing it all that much more. But I did appreciate it this time around.
At the same time, the first half of the story is also very funny as well. The introduction of Strax is very funny and Dorium's protests against being selected are also very funny. Even after the surrender, the Doctor has some nice banter both with Amy and Rory and with the others. The Doctor's awkward conversation with Madame Vastra about Amy and Rory's sex life is quite amusing, especially with Dorium giving silent commentary with his eyebrows. Quite funny.
Where I felt the episode dipped a little bit south was after the initial engagement. I didn't really care for soldier Bucket who was just a little too bland and plot convenient for my taste. I'm also not sure I fully understood what the point was of Madame Kovarian's trap. Yes, she managed to get away with Melody, but her forces were defeated and no characters of significance were killed by the headless monks. The Doctor had already discovered the success of Madame Kovarian's scheme and assisted in Melody's escape, although unless the flesh avatar Amy was relaying information, Madame Kovarian would not have known that at this time. But it still seems like an overly complicated plan just to make sure you get away with a baby.
I also didn't really care for the ending scene that much. Soldier Bucket's death scene seemed a little forced. Likewise, I wasn't really buying the interaction between River and the Doctor in the confrontation. It's hard to put my finger on, but I think there is something in Alex Kingston's acting at that time that just didn't seem right. I think it was trying a little too hard to sound poignant and touching and just came across as soppy. I'm not sure of the best way to improve it, but the way that scene flowed just didn't quite work for me.
I liked this one overall but was somewhat surprised to remember during the rewatch of just how down a note it ends on. Again, with the minor plot holes and the somewhat subpar acting near the end, it falls off a little bit but it's still an enjoyable story. I'd happily watch it again, but it's not the best of the series.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Thursday, March 10, 2016
The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon
These are my top operatives: The Legs, the Nose and Mrs. Robinson
The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon are difficult stories to judge due to their mystery nature. If you don't know the twist that is revealed in A Good Man Goes to War and The Wedding of River Song, you watch it with deep interest in trying to figure out what is going on and how the Doctor will get out of things. Once you do know the twist, you settle back and watch it a completely different light and it makes it harder to judge it on it's own merits and not as a larger body of work.
Plot Summary
The Doctor summons a group of people to the American southwest. These include Amy and Rory, River and an American named Canton Everett Delaware III. While picnicking with Amy, Rory and River, an Apollo astronaut rises out of the lake. The Doctor approaches it, warning the others to stay away no matter what. The astronaut shoots the Doctor, starting his regeneration and then shoots him again in the middle of it, killing him. The astronaut goes back into the water, River shooting at it as it retreats. Canton Delaware arrives and the four of them burn the Doctor's body. Canton then leaves but says that they will see him again.
River, Amy and Rory go back to the diner they ate at and find that the Doctor had invited his younger self as well. They opt not to tell him about his death and instead use the clues the Doctor had mentioned before he was killed to figure out what is going on and if there might be any chance to stop it. They fly back to 1969 and the search for Canton Delaware lands them in the Oval Office where Delaware is being assigned a mission by President Nixon.
Nixon has been receiving phone calls from a child and he is trying to find out where and who this child is. They discover the Doctor who reveals his team and offers to help solve the problem. Delaware convinces Nixon to try the Doctor out the group, including Delaware, travel to Florida, not far from Cape Kennedy. Before they left, Amy kept seeing an alien in a suit and confronting her in the bathroom, it killed another woman and then told Amy that she must tell the Doctor something. The alien has the power to make you forget it the moment you look away but you will remember instructions, like post-hypnotic suggestion.
In Florida, the group investigates a warehouse. Rory and River discover a control room while the Doctor and Amy discover elements of a space suit. The Doctor, Amy and Canton hear the little girl call for help. Canton races after the sound but is attacked and knocked out. The Doctor and Amy see the space suit walking towards them. Amy remembers to tell the Doctor that she is pregnant and realizing that she might be able to stop the Doctor from being killed, she picks up Canton's gun and fires at the suit, not seeing the little girl in it trying to get out.
Three months later, Canton has arrested the Doctor and is building a prison around him. He appears to have hunted down and killed Amy, Rory and River as well. Once the prison is finished, a room built of dark star alloy which would repel any attempt at penetrating it, he brings two body bags into the cell. Sealed in, Amy and Rory emerge from the bags and the group enter the TARDIS which was also hidden in the prison. They save River who had jumped off a building and set a plan in motion to stop the aliens whom they've observed over the last three months as being everywhere.
The Doctor installs a recording chip in each of their hands. Upon seeing an alien, they can record their thoughts and a light will tell them that there is a message even though they won't remember recording it.
The team splits up to search children's homes to find records of the missing girl while the Doctor works modifies the Apollo 11 capsule for the next phase of his plan. Canton and Amy find the home where the little girl was kept. The home has been abandoned but the man running it is still there. He has been memory modified so many times, he still thinks it's the early 60's and that the home will be shut down in 1967, despite it being 1969. Amy finds a group of the aliens. She also finds a room where the little girl was kept, complete with pictures of her and a picture of Amy holding a baby. She is then confronted by two aliens and the girl in the suit.
Her screams alert Canton but before he can go, an alien mentions something to the caretaker. Canton confronts the alien. It mocks him and Canton shoots it before running upstairs. The Doctor, Rory and River arrive at the home as Canton runs upstairs and the group breaks in to the room to find Amy gone and her chip removed. It is still recording and they can hear her being taken away. They also find the space suit empty nearby. They go back to the alien, who reveals himself to be the Silence and treat his wounds, taking him back to the Doctor's prison.
Canton stays with the alien while the Doctor, River and Rory return to the warehouse with the suit. Canton continues to treat the Silence and it angrily declares that the humans are foolish and that they should kill the Silence if they had any power. Canton records the outburst and sends it to the Doctor. The Doctor follows Amy's chip signal to the Silence control room and he reveals that he implanted the message from the Silence into Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man" broadcast. Humans are now post-hypnotically suggested to kill the Silence on sight.
Enraged, the Silence attack but River and the Doctor hold them off, River shooting most of them, while Rory gets Amy into the TARDIS. Canton is left with President Nixon and the Doctor drops River back at Stormcage prison. The Doctor speaks with Amy who asserts that she is not pregnant, Rory just learning of this now. The Doctor doesn't push it but secretly scans Amy where she reads both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time.
Analysis
As mentioned above, once you know the twist of both who River is and what is actually happening to the Doctor, the emotion of the story, especially the first half of The Impossible Astronaut changes dramatically. You are a lot less invested in the emotional fallout of the Doctor's death and instead studying the scene for clues to what is actually happening and that has a big impact on how you view it. Most importantly, it allows you to focus on the story as a whole and to see what appeals and what doesn't.
As far as the story goes, I enjoyed it. I never got the full mystery experience since I had found out through other means of both who River was and who the astronaut was. I hadn't been fully spoiled on how the Doctor escapes so I did enjoy that a bit more, but it is still good the second time around.
All of the characters are spot on in this story. The interaction between the Doctor and his companions, including Canton is funny but also serious. It gives the mission a sense of urgency where there always seems to be something at risk but you are not afraid as much because the Doctor is staying light-hearted. Even Nixon is enjoyable despite having to stick to stereotype. I'm also amused at President Nixon getting to ride in the TARDIS.
The Silence make excellent adversaries. The forgetfulness aspect gives them a level of power that encourages a stay in the shadows aspect. This enhances their creepiness much like the Weeping Angels. Their only downside is that they are also complacent and don't move to kill with any decisiveness. That makes their defeat much easier than it should have with that kind of power.
There were a few moments I didn't care for. After dealing with it for all of Series Five, I'm a bit tired of the whole Rory doesn't know if Amy loves him or the Doctor bit. There were also a couple of secondary characters that seemed a little flat. Fortunately they didn't spend much time on them so it wasn't that bad.
I also thought the explanation for the spacesuit was rather odd. The Doctor surmised that the Silence planted the idea of going to the moon so that humans would construct spacesuits for the journey. But why was a spacesuit needed in the first place. Surely there were other outfits that could have been modified to make an assassin machine out of. Also, why place Melody in the suit as a little girl? She could have been kept in the home and out of the way longer while she grew into the suit and less resistant to their cause.
This is the part where knowing the outcome starts affecting your enjoyment. Madame Kovarian, having failed in her first attempt to kill the Doctor, has the Silence build an assassin suit, using a Time Lord infused sociopath as a power source, despite the fact that the suit can carry out the attempt itself. What's more, in order to get said sociopath, her mother must be lured back to the White House in 1969 where the Silence have a strong presence and she can then be held until the baby is delivered. It just seems like an overly complex plan to accomplish the assassination of the Doctor. Of course, we won't even cover the fact that it was the first assassination attempt that created the scenario in which Madame Kovarian decided that the only way to stop the Doctor was to kill him. Nasty bit of time logic there.
Plot nitpicks aside, the story is still enjoyable. It's an emotional journey at the start and an interesting elaborate plan that comes together to defeat the Silence in the end. Even if you know the twists, the characters and the structure of the story are both enjoyable enough to provide a good ride. It makes for a nice way to open Series Six, even if falls on it's face a few times, especially in the first half.
Overall personal score: The Impossible Astronaut - 4.5 out of 5; Day of the Moon - 4.5 out of 5
The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon are difficult stories to judge due to their mystery nature. If you don't know the twist that is revealed in A Good Man Goes to War and The Wedding of River Song, you watch it with deep interest in trying to figure out what is going on and how the Doctor will get out of things. Once you do know the twist, you settle back and watch it a completely different light and it makes it harder to judge it on it's own merits and not as a larger body of work.
Plot Summary
The Doctor summons a group of people to the American southwest. These include Amy and Rory, River and an American named Canton Everett Delaware III. While picnicking with Amy, Rory and River, an Apollo astronaut rises out of the lake. The Doctor approaches it, warning the others to stay away no matter what. The astronaut shoots the Doctor, starting his regeneration and then shoots him again in the middle of it, killing him. The astronaut goes back into the water, River shooting at it as it retreats. Canton Delaware arrives and the four of them burn the Doctor's body. Canton then leaves but says that they will see him again.
River, Amy and Rory go back to the diner they ate at and find that the Doctor had invited his younger self as well. They opt not to tell him about his death and instead use the clues the Doctor had mentioned before he was killed to figure out what is going on and if there might be any chance to stop it. They fly back to 1969 and the search for Canton Delaware lands them in the Oval Office where Delaware is being assigned a mission by President Nixon.
Nixon has been receiving phone calls from a child and he is trying to find out where and who this child is. They discover the Doctor who reveals his team and offers to help solve the problem. Delaware convinces Nixon to try the Doctor out the group, including Delaware, travel to Florida, not far from Cape Kennedy. Before they left, Amy kept seeing an alien in a suit and confronting her in the bathroom, it killed another woman and then told Amy that she must tell the Doctor something. The alien has the power to make you forget it the moment you look away but you will remember instructions, like post-hypnotic suggestion.
In Florida, the group investigates a warehouse. Rory and River discover a control room while the Doctor and Amy discover elements of a space suit. The Doctor, Amy and Canton hear the little girl call for help. Canton races after the sound but is attacked and knocked out. The Doctor and Amy see the space suit walking towards them. Amy remembers to tell the Doctor that she is pregnant and realizing that she might be able to stop the Doctor from being killed, she picks up Canton's gun and fires at the suit, not seeing the little girl in it trying to get out.
Three months later, Canton has arrested the Doctor and is building a prison around him. He appears to have hunted down and killed Amy, Rory and River as well. Once the prison is finished, a room built of dark star alloy which would repel any attempt at penetrating it, he brings two body bags into the cell. Sealed in, Amy and Rory emerge from the bags and the group enter the TARDIS which was also hidden in the prison. They save River who had jumped off a building and set a plan in motion to stop the aliens whom they've observed over the last three months as being everywhere.
The Doctor installs a recording chip in each of their hands. Upon seeing an alien, they can record their thoughts and a light will tell them that there is a message even though they won't remember recording it.
The team splits up to search children's homes to find records of the missing girl while the Doctor works modifies the Apollo 11 capsule for the next phase of his plan. Canton and Amy find the home where the little girl was kept. The home has been abandoned but the man running it is still there. He has been memory modified so many times, he still thinks it's the early 60's and that the home will be shut down in 1967, despite it being 1969. Amy finds a group of the aliens. She also finds a room where the little girl was kept, complete with pictures of her and a picture of Amy holding a baby. She is then confronted by two aliens and the girl in the suit.
Her screams alert Canton but before he can go, an alien mentions something to the caretaker. Canton confronts the alien. It mocks him and Canton shoots it before running upstairs. The Doctor, Rory and River arrive at the home as Canton runs upstairs and the group breaks in to the room to find Amy gone and her chip removed. It is still recording and they can hear her being taken away. They also find the space suit empty nearby. They go back to the alien, who reveals himself to be the Silence and treat his wounds, taking him back to the Doctor's prison.
Canton stays with the alien while the Doctor, River and Rory return to the warehouse with the suit. Canton continues to treat the Silence and it angrily declares that the humans are foolish and that they should kill the Silence if they had any power. Canton records the outburst and sends it to the Doctor. The Doctor follows Amy's chip signal to the Silence control room and he reveals that he implanted the message from the Silence into Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man" broadcast. Humans are now post-hypnotically suggested to kill the Silence on sight.
Enraged, the Silence attack but River and the Doctor hold them off, River shooting most of them, while Rory gets Amy into the TARDIS. Canton is left with President Nixon and the Doctor drops River back at Stormcage prison. The Doctor speaks with Amy who asserts that she is not pregnant, Rory just learning of this now. The Doctor doesn't push it but secretly scans Amy where she reads both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time.
Analysis
As mentioned above, once you know the twist of both who River is and what is actually happening to the Doctor, the emotion of the story, especially the first half of The Impossible Astronaut changes dramatically. You are a lot less invested in the emotional fallout of the Doctor's death and instead studying the scene for clues to what is actually happening and that has a big impact on how you view it. Most importantly, it allows you to focus on the story as a whole and to see what appeals and what doesn't.
As far as the story goes, I enjoyed it. I never got the full mystery experience since I had found out through other means of both who River was and who the astronaut was. I hadn't been fully spoiled on how the Doctor escapes so I did enjoy that a bit more, but it is still good the second time around.
All of the characters are spot on in this story. The interaction between the Doctor and his companions, including Canton is funny but also serious. It gives the mission a sense of urgency where there always seems to be something at risk but you are not afraid as much because the Doctor is staying light-hearted. Even Nixon is enjoyable despite having to stick to stereotype. I'm also amused at President Nixon getting to ride in the TARDIS.
The Silence make excellent adversaries. The forgetfulness aspect gives them a level of power that encourages a stay in the shadows aspect. This enhances their creepiness much like the Weeping Angels. Their only downside is that they are also complacent and don't move to kill with any decisiveness. That makes their defeat much easier than it should have with that kind of power.
There were a few moments I didn't care for. After dealing with it for all of Series Five, I'm a bit tired of the whole Rory doesn't know if Amy loves him or the Doctor bit. There were also a couple of secondary characters that seemed a little flat. Fortunately they didn't spend much time on them so it wasn't that bad.
I also thought the explanation for the spacesuit was rather odd. The Doctor surmised that the Silence planted the idea of going to the moon so that humans would construct spacesuits for the journey. But why was a spacesuit needed in the first place. Surely there were other outfits that could have been modified to make an assassin machine out of. Also, why place Melody in the suit as a little girl? She could have been kept in the home and out of the way longer while she grew into the suit and less resistant to their cause.
This is the part where knowing the outcome starts affecting your enjoyment. Madame Kovarian, having failed in her first attempt to kill the Doctor, has the Silence build an assassin suit, using a Time Lord infused sociopath as a power source, despite the fact that the suit can carry out the attempt itself. What's more, in order to get said sociopath, her mother must be lured back to the White House in 1969 where the Silence have a strong presence and she can then be held until the baby is delivered. It just seems like an overly complex plan to accomplish the assassination of the Doctor. Of course, we won't even cover the fact that it was the first assassination attempt that created the scenario in which Madame Kovarian decided that the only way to stop the Doctor was to kill him. Nasty bit of time logic there.
Plot nitpicks aside, the story is still enjoyable. It's an emotional journey at the start and an interesting elaborate plan that comes together to defeat the Silence in the end. Even if you know the twists, the characters and the structure of the story are both enjoyable enough to provide a good ride. It makes for a nice way to open Series Six, even if falls on it's face a few times, especially in the first half.
Overall personal score: The Impossible Astronaut - 4.5 out of 5; Day of the Moon - 4.5 out of 5
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
Could you all stay still a minute BECAUSE I AM TALKING!
The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang made an excellent end to Series Five and the start of the Eleventh Doctor. However, while good, I don't gush as profusely as others about this one.
Plot Summary
The Doctor arrives in Roman Britain with Amy. He receives a message that the Queen of Egypt has come and wants to see him. There he finds River with a painting message from Vincent Van Gogh. Also in the camp is Rory, although Amy fails to recognize him. His memory is fuzzy beyond being killed by the Silurians and then awakening as a Roman centurion but all other memories are intact.
The Doctor, Amy, River, and Rory's squad of Romans proceed to Stonehenge where they find a large stone box, the Pandorica. The Doctor realizes that it is coming on-line and will open soon. He also realizes that a signal is being sent so that all hostile races of the universe will be attempting to collect it. Several decayed Cybermen are already there and attempt to kill Amy and the Doctor before being dispatched by the Romans. A number of aliens arrive but the Doctor manages to scare them off with a speech. He then sends River to bring the TARDIS to Stonehenge. She gets to the TARDIS but gets taken instead to Amy's house where she discovers books on Roman Britain and Greek mythology. Realizing that it's a trap, River races back to the TARDIS but something goes wrong and the TARDIS explodes.
Meanwhile, the Romans (including Rory) reveal themselves to be Autons. They capture the Doctor and bring him down to face a group of his greatest foes. The Pandorica opens with only a chair inside. They lock the Doctor inside with him pleading with them to not do this as it will cause the universe to collapse. Rory, attempting to fight his Auton nature, shoots Amy and she collapses.
In the second part, the aliens have all turned to stone as their home planets are wiped out of time. Rory, mourning what he has done to Amy, sees the Doctor arrive from the future and tell him to unlock him from the Pandorica so he can help Amy. Rory does so and they place Amy in the Pandorica which will keep her alive until a sample of her fresh DNA can be used to restore her. This means that Amy will have to wait in the Pandorica until arriving at her own childhood nearly 2,000 years in the future. Rory accepts this, vowing to stand guard over the Pandorica until the Doctor and young Amy arrive.
The Doctor uses River's vortex manipulator to jump forward in time and get young Amy to touch the Pandorica, opening it and reviving Amy. She is reunited with Rory who is now a museum security guard. The light from the Pandorica also revitalizes a Dalek who had been kept in the museum. Young Amy disappears, a sign that the universe is collapsing and, urged by a visit from a wounded Doctor from the future, run to the roof where they see the TARDIS exploding. The Doctor uses the vortex manipulator again to rescue River from the TARDIS.
The Dalek emerges and shoots the Doctor. He then jumps back in time while Amy and Rory run. River shoots the Dalek, destroying it. The group reunites with the wounded Doctor who has converted the Pandorica to fly into the TARDIS explosion, which should reset the universe. Urging Amy to remember him, he flies in to the explosion and begins to seal the universe cracks. He closes the last one in Amy's bedroom by stepping into it.
Amy then wakes on her wedding day. Prompted by River's empty diary at the reception, Amy begins to recall the Doctor and focuses on her memories of him. The TARDIS then materializes and the Doctor steps out of it. After the wedding, the Doctor returns River's diary and vortex manipulator, allowing her to return to her own time while he, Rory and Amy leave on new adventures.
Analysis
Both episodes are very good, although I think I like The Pandorica Opens a little better than The Big Bang. The pacing keeps you on the edge of your seat and the mystery of what is going on causes you to lose yourself in the story. There are also great moments of comedy ("Look at me, I'm a target") that provide levity at just the right moments, pulling you actually deeper into the story.
Ironically, if there was one part of The Pandorica Opens that I didn't care for it was the Stonehenge speech which everyone else loves. There wasn't anything particularly profound in it and it was a reliance on the threat of the Doctor rather than actually seeing him do anything. It makes for a stark contrast to the Tenth Doctor who would be subtle, almost indifferent in his warnings, but then he would go forth and damn the body count.
The Big Bang was a good follow up and very different. It still held a good amount of tension but the scope was so different. While The Pandorica Opens had an epic feel with a large cast and many special effects, The Big Bang was contained with the smallness of the cast and location pressing in on you. It's such a significant contrast that it ends up flowing very well.
Like The Pandorica Opens, the pacing is tight with the emptiness providing the tension. Yet there are also dashes of humor, especially from River, that both ease the mood and yet draw you in further to the story. River's taunting of the Dalek before she kills it is especially entertaining.
On the subject of the Dalek, that begins the short list of nits that I have to pick with this episode. The Dalek wasn't really necessary and it actually ended up being mostly pointless other than to provide a substantive threat for a brief period of time. You could liken it to the Primords in Inferno in that the environmental threat was viewed as not enough and a corporeal monster was also needed. However, the Dalek's role is small and it does also provide with the fun scene between it and River so that also mitigates my annoyance with it.
My other problem with the episode was the almost magical nature of the Doctor's return. The End of Time rightly took a lot of flak for resurrecting the Master with blood magic (no matter how much they tried to claim it was "science"). I don't really see why Amy's resurrecting of the Doctor should get any less scorn. First, her memory is triggered by River and her (now empty) diary. But River got her diary from the Doctor so it's existence is questionable to begin with. Second, why is it that Amy remembering is what brings the Doctor back? Her latent memories of Rory brought him back but that was due to the Autons exploiting her memory and recreating aspects of that reality. The Doctor is more or less wished into existence by Amy calling on latent memories. I can understand how dual memories can exist when patching together two time streams, but actually being able to bring something from that other time stream by nothing other than bridging it in your mind seems a little to fanciful for a show that leans very heavily on science and logic. If you wish to indulge in magic or acts of faith, fine; I have no problem with that if it is within the context of your tale (see Harry Potter). But to indulge in that without setting up a proper context for it just doesn't sit right with me. It's more Deus Ex Machina than I can truly accept.
Still, it doesn't diminish what went on in the prior minutes. They are still very good stories and I happily sit down to rewatch them when I get a chance.
Overall personal score: The Pandorica Opens - 5 out of 5; The Big Bang - 4 out of 5
The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang made an excellent end to Series Five and the start of the Eleventh Doctor. However, while good, I don't gush as profusely as others about this one.
Plot Summary
The Doctor arrives in Roman Britain with Amy. He receives a message that the Queen of Egypt has come and wants to see him. There he finds River with a painting message from Vincent Van Gogh. Also in the camp is Rory, although Amy fails to recognize him. His memory is fuzzy beyond being killed by the Silurians and then awakening as a Roman centurion but all other memories are intact.
The Doctor, Amy, River, and Rory's squad of Romans proceed to Stonehenge where they find a large stone box, the Pandorica. The Doctor realizes that it is coming on-line and will open soon. He also realizes that a signal is being sent so that all hostile races of the universe will be attempting to collect it. Several decayed Cybermen are already there and attempt to kill Amy and the Doctor before being dispatched by the Romans. A number of aliens arrive but the Doctor manages to scare them off with a speech. He then sends River to bring the TARDIS to Stonehenge. She gets to the TARDIS but gets taken instead to Amy's house where she discovers books on Roman Britain and Greek mythology. Realizing that it's a trap, River races back to the TARDIS but something goes wrong and the TARDIS explodes.
Meanwhile, the Romans (including Rory) reveal themselves to be Autons. They capture the Doctor and bring him down to face a group of his greatest foes. The Pandorica opens with only a chair inside. They lock the Doctor inside with him pleading with them to not do this as it will cause the universe to collapse. Rory, attempting to fight his Auton nature, shoots Amy and she collapses.
In the second part, the aliens have all turned to stone as their home planets are wiped out of time. Rory, mourning what he has done to Amy, sees the Doctor arrive from the future and tell him to unlock him from the Pandorica so he can help Amy. Rory does so and they place Amy in the Pandorica which will keep her alive until a sample of her fresh DNA can be used to restore her. This means that Amy will have to wait in the Pandorica until arriving at her own childhood nearly 2,000 years in the future. Rory accepts this, vowing to stand guard over the Pandorica until the Doctor and young Amy arrive.
The Doctor uses River's vortex manipulator to jump forward in time and get young Amy to touch the Pandorica, opening it and reviving Amy. She is reunited with Rory who is now a museum security guard. The light from the Pandorica also revitalizes a Dalek who had been kept in the museum. Young Amy disappears, a sign that the universe is collapsing and, urged by a visit from a wounded Doctor from the future, run to the roof where they see the TARDIS exploding. The Doctor uses the vortex manipulator again to rescue River from the TARDIS.
The Dalek emerges and shoots the Doctor. He then jumps back in time while Amy and Rory run. River shoots the Dalek, destroying it. The group reunites with the wounded Doctor who has converted the Pandorica to fly into the TARDIS explosion, which should reset the universe. Urging Amy to remember him, he flies in to the explosion and begins to seal the universe cracks. He closes the last one in Amy's bedroom by stepping into it.
Amy then wakes on her wedding day. Prompted by River's empty diary at the reception, Amy begins to recall the Doctor and focuses on her memories of him. The TARDIS then materializes and the Doctor steps out of it. After the wedding, the Doctor returns River's diary and vortex manipulator, allowing her to return to her own time while he, Rory and Amy leave on new adventures.
Analysis
Both episodes are very good, although I think I like The Pandorica Opens a little better than The Big Bang. The pacing keeps you on the edge of your seat and the mystery of what is going on causes you to lose yourself in the story. There are also great moments of comedy ("Look at me, I'm a target") that provide levity at just the right moments, pulling you actually deeper into the story.
Ironically, if there was one part of The Pandorica Opens that I didn't care for it was the Stonehenge speech which everyone else loves. There wasn't anything particularly profound in it and it was a reliance on the threat of the Doctor rather than actually seeing him do anything. It makes for a stark contrast to the Tenth Doctor who would be subtle, almost indifferent in his warnings, but then he would go forth and damn the body count.
The Big Bang was a good follow up and very different. It still held a good amount of tension but the scope was so different. While The Pandorica Opens had an epic feel with a large cast and many special effects, The Big Bang was contained with the smallness of the cast and location pressing in on you. It's such a significant contrast that it ends up flowing very well.
Like The Pandorica Opens, the pacing is tight with the emptiness providing the tension. Yet there are also dashes of humor, especially from River, that both ease the mood and yet draw you in further to the story. River's taunting of the Dalek before she kills it is especially entertaining.
On the subject of the Dalek, that begins the short list of nits that I have to pick with this episode. The Dalek wasn't really necessary and it actually ended up being mostly pointless other than to provide a substantive threat for a brief period of time. You could liken it to the Primords in Inferno in that the environmental threat was viewed as not enough and a corporeal monster was also needed. However, the Dalek's role is small and it does also provide with the fun scene between it and River so that also mitigates my annoyance with it.
My other problem with the episode was the almost magical nature of the Doctor's return. The End of Time rightly took a lot of flak for resurrecting the Master with blood magic (no matter how much they tried to claim it was "science"). I don't really see why Amy's resurrecting of the Doctor should get any less scorn. First, her memory is triggered by River and her (now empty) diary. But River got her diary from the Doctor so it's existence is questionable to begin with. Second, why is it that Amy remembering is what brings the Doctor back? Her latent memories of Rory brought him back but that was due to the Autons exploiting her memory and recreating aspects of that reality. The Doctor is more or less wished into existence by Amy calling on latent memories. I can understand how dual memories can exist when patching together two time streams, but actually being able to bring something from that other time stream by nothing other than bridging it in your mind seems a little to fanciful for a show that leans very heavily on science and logic. If you wish to indulge in magic or acts of faith, fine; I have no problem with that if it is within the context of your tale (see Harry Potter). But to indulge in that without setting up a proper context for it just doesn't sit right with me. It's more Deus Ex Machina than I can truly accept.
Still, it doesn't diminish what went on in the prior minutes. They are still very good stories and I happily sit down to rewatch them when I get a chance.
Overall personal score: The Pandorica Opens - 5 out of 5; The Big Bang - 4 out of 5
Thursday, December 31, 2015
The Husbands of River Song
Hello Sweetie
The Husbands of River Song was interesting in more how it ended up. We knew going into it that this was going to be a comedy romp and it delivered on that. It got so far that it became a bit silly at a few points, but that was okay given how dour Series Nine was. What was interesting was how the episode ended and how it seemed to be a bit of a swan song for Steven Moffat.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is taken by a servant who has confused him for a surgeon to a crashed space ship. Inside, River Song welcomes him, not recognizing him as the Doctor, and asks him to remove the head of the king she is married to. There is a valuable diamond lodged in his brain and it is going to kill him. River acts like she is wanting to save the king's life, but she just wants the diamond. The king gets wise to this and removes his head from his cyborg body, ordering it to kill River and the Doctor. They steal the head and run for the TARDIS. River has been looking for the Doctor but is only looking for his previous incarnations. The cyborg body takes the heads of her two accomplices and gets into the TARDIS. Before it can kill them, the TARDIS takes off and they land on a ship where River plans to sell the diamond. She makes the deal but the buyers intend to worship the head of the king they believe dead and will kill River and the Doctor on the orders of the king. Before they can, the cyborg body breaks in. It recognizes that the head of the king is beyond repair and destroys it, deciding to take a new head. It opts for the Doctor and that is when River realizes that he is the Doctor. Before the cyborg can take the Doctor's head, the ship is caught in a meteor storm and crashes on the planet Derilium. The Doctor and River are saved in the TARDIS, although River is briefly knocked out. The Doctor sets up things to see that a restaurant is built on the crash site in front of the singing towers. When River wakes up, he has reserved a table through the night. River senses what is coming, having dug ahead and found that the night on Derilium was to be their last. She is sad at that thought, but the Doctor reveals to her that night on Derilium lasts 24 years.
Analysis
I liked this one. It wasn't perfect, but it was enjoyable. After a dark couple of series, it was nice to see a light-hearted tone being taken. In fact, I think that is the best way to play River: either very serious as in Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead or the last few minutes of The Angels Take Manhattan or in a heavy comedic role such as with Richard Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut. I thought the Doctor's comedy routine, especially with the little asides to River's comments were particularly funny. The rompy run-around was also enjoyable in the episode taking itself too seriously.
If there was one part I didn't care for in the rompy bits, it was the fact that I thought River's nonrecognition of the Doctor went on a little too long. It was funny for a while but when the Doctor did his funny and over-the-top reaction to the inside of the TARDIS, that should have been the clue to River that he was taking the Mickey a bit. At the very least, she should have recognized that he had actually been in the TARDIS before. It also would have lessened the suspension of disbelief that he could pull levers on the TARDIS console and seem to know what he was doing (the button to seventh floor not withstanding.
But we must mention the end. After a big romp, things settle down and we are granted a quiet moment where we say a form of goodbye to River. Since we saw that she didn't realize that the Doctor had been granted a new regeneration cycle until the singing towers, it will effectively be impossible to insert newer Doctors with River. If any future events are shown with the 12th Doctor and River, it will have be confined to that night (24 years in duration). So this is more or less goodbye to River (again). To me, this also seemed a little like Steven Moffat hinting that his own time on the show is coming to an end. I could be reading into it but there has been speculation that he will leave when Peter Capaldi leaves, making a clean break just like RTD did for him. I don't know if that is true, but it gave an extra layer of melancholy that I appreciated after the earlier comedy.
So, this was a good one. Not the absolute best, but a good bit of a fluff with just a sting in the tail at the end to balance out the saccharine.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
The Husbands of River Song was interesting in more how it ended up. We knew going into it that this was going to be a comedy romp and it delivered on that. It got so far that it became a bit silly at a few points, but that was okay given how dour Series Nine was. What was interesting was how the episode ended and how it seemed to be a bit of a swan song for Steven Moffat.
Plot Summary
The Doctor is taken by a servant who has confused him for a surgeon to a crashed space ship. Inside, River Song welcomes him, not recognizing him as the Doctor, and asks him to remove the head of the king she is married to. There is a valuable diamond lodged in his brain and it is going to kill him. River acts like she is wanting to save the king's life, but she just wants the diamond. The king gets wise to this and removes his head from his cyborg body, ordering it to kill River and the Doctor. They steal the head and run for the TARDIS. River has been looking for the Doctor but is only looking for his previous incarnations. The cyborg body takes the heads of her two accomplices and gets into the TARDIS. Before it can kill them, the TARDIS takes off and they land on a ship where River plans to sell the diamond. She makes the deal but the buyers intend to worship the head of the king they believe dead and will kill River and the Doctor on the orders of the king. Before they can, the cyborg body breaks in. It recognizes that the head of the king is beyond repair and destroys it, deciding to take a new head. It opts for the Doctor and that is when River realizes that he is the Doctor. Before the cyborg can take the Doctor's head, the ship is caught in a meteor storm and crashes on the planet Derilium. The Doctor and River are saved in the TARDIS, although River is briefly knocked out. The Doctor sets up things to see that a restaurant is built on the crash site in front of the singing towers. When River wakes up, he has reserved a table through the night. River senses what is coming, having dug ahead and found that the night on Derilium was to be their last. She is sad at that thought, but the Doctor reveals to her that night on Derilium lasts 24 years.
Analysis
I liked this one. It wasn't perfect, but it was enjoyable. After a dark couple of series, it was nice to see a light-hearted tone being taken. In fact, I think that is the best way to play River: either very serious as in Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead or the last few minutes of The Angels Take Manhattan or in a heavy comedic role such as with Richard Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut. I thought the Doctor's comedy routine, especially with the little asides to River's comments were particularly funny. The rompy run-around was also enjoyable in the episode taking itself too seriously.
If there was one part I didn't care for in the rompy bits, it was the fact that I thought River's nonrecognition of the Doctor went on a little too long. It was funny for a while but when the Doctor did his funny and over-the-top reaction to the inside of the TARDIS, that should have been the clue to River that he was taking the Mickey a bit. At the very least, she should have recognized that he had actually been in the TARDIS before. It also would have lessened the suspension of disbelief that he could pull levers on the TARDIS console and seem to know what he was doing (the button to seventh floor not withstanding.
But we must mention the end. After a big romp, things settle down and we are granted a quiet moment where we say a form of goodbye to River. Since we saw that she didn't realize that the Doctor had been granted a new regeneration cycle until the singing towers, it will effectively be impossible to insert newer Doctors with River. If any future events are shown with the 12th Doctor and River, it will have be confined to that night (24 years in duration). So this is more or less goodbye to River (again). To me, this also seemed a little like Steven Moffat hinting that his own time on the show is coming to an end. I could be reading into it but there has been speculation that he will leave when Peter Capaldi leaves, making a clean break just like RTD did for him. I don't know if that is true, but it gave an extra layer of melancholy that I appreciated after the earlier comedy.
So, this was a good one. Not the absolute best, but a good bit of a fluff with just a sting in the tail at the end to balance out the saccharine.
Overall personal score: 4 out of 5
Monday, November 23, 2015
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Donna, stay out of the shadows.
Given all the history between River Song and the Eleventh Doctor, her introduction with the Tenth Doctor can feel a bit out of place on rewatch. But, taken as a story in and of itself, Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead are excellent.
Donna and the Tenth Doctor are summoned via psychic paper to the largest library in the universe by River, except that she sends the message too early the Doctor hasn't met her yet. While there, the team of archaeologists are attacked by the Vashta Nerada, tiny creatures in the air that act like piranhas when in swarms. Most of the team is consumed and Donna is trapped within the computer memory. The Doctor strikes a bargain with the Vashta Nerada to release the trapped people within the core memory, which will also restabilize the computer. River, however, stops the Doctor from hooking himself to the computer and does it instead to save his life. He, in turn, is able to preserve her mind and those of her fallen comrades within the computer memory.
Silence in the Library is a wonderfully scary set up. The Vashta Nerada are a well imagined menace. The bit play with River is witty and unlike many of her subsequent appearances, she gives in to her fear with only traces of the brashness she will sometimes show. The interplay with Donna is also good as Donna had been somewhat sidelined in the Sontarian two-parter and The Doctor's Daughter and then played only for comedy in The Unicorn and the Wasp. Here she was allowed to do drama again and does it very well. Even the mystery with CAL has an interesting hook as you can't quite figure who this girl is that is observing and controlling the library.
The Forest of the Dead fell a little short of the bar set by Silence in the Library. It is still good and the drama, especially with Donna in the computer, is good and tragic. However, the Doctor gets a little cocksure and it feels like a little bit of a let down to have a more or less mindless monster negotiate a cease-fire based solely on the Doctor's reputation. That feels like a cheap trick of the writer to show the Doctor getting out of a situation that they can't actually think of any other way to escape.
Still, it does deliver on the scariness still and the tension stays high. The final scene with the Doctor and River is also touching and it is something that improves once you've seen River's arc through the time of the Eleventh Doctor.
I would be always up to rewatch these two and have already watched them more than once. They make for an excellent story and entertaining television.
Overall personal score: Silence in the Library - 5 out of 5; Forest of the Dead - 4.5 out of 5
Given all the history between River Song and the Eleventh Doctor, her introduction with the Tenth Doctor can feel a bit out of place on rewatch. But, taken as a story in and of itself, Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead are excellent.
Donna and the Tenth Doctor are summoned via psychic paper to the largest library in the universe by River, except that she sends the message too early the Doctor hasn't met her yet. While there, the team of archaeologists are attacked by the Vashta Nerada, tiny creatures in the air that act like piranhas when in swarms. Most of the team is consumed and Donna is trapped within the computer memory. The Doctor strikes a bargain with the Vashta Nerada to release the trapped people within the core memory, which will also restabilize the computer. River, however, stops the Doctor from hooking himself to the computer and does it instead to save his life. He, in turn, is able to preserve her mind and those of her fallen comrades within the computer memory.
Silence in the Library is a wonderfully scary set up. The Vashta Nerada are a well imagined menace. The bit play with River is witty and unlike many of her subsequent appearances, she gives in to her fear with only traces of the brashness she will sometimes show. The interplay with Donna is also good as Donna had been somewhat sidelined in the Sontarian two-parter and The Doctor's Daughter and then played only for comedy in The Unicorn and the Wasp. Here she was allowed to do drama again and does it very well. Even the mystery with CAL has an interesting hook as you can't quite figure who this girl is that is observing and controlling the library.
The Forest of the Dead fell a little short of the bar set by Silence in the Library. It is still good and the drama, especially with Donna in the computer, is good and tragic. However, the Doctor gets a little cocksure and it feels like a little bit of a let down to have a more or less mindless monster negotiate a cease-fire based solely on the Doctor's reputation. That feels like a cheap trick of the writer to show the Doctor getting out of a situation that they can't actually think of any other way to escape.
Still, it does deliver on the scariness still and the tension stays high. The final scene with the Doctor and River is also touching and it is something that improves once you've seen River's arc through the time of the Eleventh Doctor.
I would be always up to rewatch these two and have already watched them more than once. They make for an excellent story and entertaining television.
Overall personal score: Silence in the Library - 5 out of 5; Forest of the Dead - 4.5 out of 5
Friday, October 23, 2015
The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone
Anything that contains the image of an Angel, can become an Angel.
Steven Moffat cited the contrast with Alien and Aliens when asked about The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone in comparison to the introduction of the Weeping Angels in Blink and his comparison is quite apt. One is the slow, tense creeper and the other is a scary, action fest; and like the aforementioned movies, I enjoy the Angels two-parter immensely.
I will admit that I was middling on these two when I first saw them, especially Flesh and Stone and there is still one part of it that I don't like. But upon watching it a second time, I find that it is a lot better and if you let the creepiness wash over you it becomes even better. Of the two I like The Time of Angels a bit better, mostly due to the fact that the Angels remain the primary antagonist and it turns from a seek and destroy mission to a run for your life mission. Flesh and Stone, while still good, brings in the crack as a secondary danger that takes away from the Angels a bit. They must still get away from the Angels but the Angels themselves are now distracted by the crack and a little bit less of the urgent threat they were. The crack itself is now also offering a source of danger (previously not seen) that dilutes the danger from the Angels.
And that brings me to the part of Flesh and Stone that just bugged me. After her protectors have been swallowed by the crack, Amy must walk through the woods amidst the Angels with her eyes closed, but still making the Angels think she is watching them. This is a very tense set up and it should be a near high point of the episode. But the director couldn't help himself and after Amy stumbles, we actually see the Angels move. They then advance slowly on Amy until she is transported away by River right before the Angels get her.
On the surface, that would seems like a brilliant shot full of tension. But it plays exactly opposite of everything we have seen and been told. The Angels never move naturally that we see. They move so fast that it's a series of frame jumps between one position and the next. The the firefight in the corridor at the beginning of the episode, the Angels appear to advance in a strobe light effect that leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat. But in the forest, the Angels revert to a more human speed. They look around and observe like a normal person would. They also creep up on Amy like a conventional monster. If this had been a conventional monster, this scene would have been fine and I wouldn't have had a problem with it. But it's the Angels and when they act in a manner that is seemingly opposite of what we've had before to both create artificial tension and yet ensure the main character is spared, it just feels wrong.
Despite this bit, Flesh and Stone is still very good. It just happens to contain a flaw that is all the more noticeable when compared to the near perfection that is The Time of Angels.
One last bit before my final score. There is one little bit that always bugged me about the story in relation to the relationship between River and the Doctor. In Silence in the Library, River asks the Tenth Doctor if he remembers the crash of the Byzantium, which is the story contained in this two-parter. Yet, shouldn't she have been able to know that he hadn't done it yet because the Doctor's face was different? I know Steven Moffat wasn't projecting that far when he wrote Silence in the Library but it's just something that bugs me, knowing that Moffat could have created a new adventure that River did not mention. But, given the quality of episode we got, this is why he writes the episodes and I just watch them.
Overall personal score: The Time of Angels - 5 out of 5; Flesh and Stone - 4.5 out of 5
Steven Moffat cited the contrast with Alien and Aliens when asked about The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone in comparison to the introduction of the Weeping Angels in Blink and his comparison is quite apt. One is the slow, tense creeper and the other is a scary, action fest; and like the aforementioned movies, I enjoy the Angels two-parter immensely.
I will admit that I was middling on these two when I first saw them, especially Flesh and Stone and there is still one part of it that I don't like. But upon watching it a second time, I find that it is a lot better and if you let the creepiness wash over you it becomes even better. Of the two I like The Time of Angels a bit better, mostly due to the fact that the Angels remain the primary antagonist and it turns from a seek and destroy mission to a run for your life mission. Flesh and Stone, while still good, brings in the crack as a secondary danger that takes away from the Angels a bit. They must still get away from the Angels but the Angels themselves are now distracted by the crack and a little bit less of the urgent threat they were. The crack itself is now also offering a source of danger (previously not seen) that dilutes the danger from the Angels.
And that brings me to the part of Flesh and Stone that just bugged me. After her protectors have been swallowed by the crack, Amy must walk through the woods amidst the Angels with her eyes closed, but still making the Angels think she is watching them. This is a very tense set up and it should be a near high point of the episode. But the director couldn't help himself and after Amy stumbles, we actually see the Angels move. They then advance slowly on Amy until she is transported away by River right before the Angels get her.
On the surface, that would seems like a brilliant shot full of tension. But it plays exactly opposite of everything we have seen and been told. The Angels never move naturally that we see. They move so fast that it's a series of frame jumps between one position and the next. The the firefight in the corridor at the beginning of the episode, the Angels appear to advance in a strobe light effect that leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat. But in the forest, the Angels revert to a more human speed. They look around and observe like a normal person would. They also creep up on Amy like a conventional monster. If this had been a conventional monster, this scene would have been fine and I wouldn't have had a problem with it. But it's the Angels and when they act in a manner that is seemingly opposite of what we've had before to both create artificial tension and yet ensure the main character is spared, it just feels wrong.
Despite this bit, Flesh and Stone is still very good. It just happens to contain a flaw that is all the more noticeable when compared to the near perfection that is The Time of Angels.
One last bit before my final score. There is one little bit that always bugged me about the story in relation to the relationship between River and the Doctor. In Silence in the Library, River asks the Tenth Doctor if he remembers the crash of the Byzantium, which is the story contained in this two-parter. Yet, shouldn't she have been able to know that he hadn't done it yet because the Doctor's face was different? I know Steven Moffat wasn't projecting that far when he wrote Silence in the Library but it's just something that bugs me, knowing that Moffat could have created a new adventure that River did not mention. But, given the quality of episode we got, this is why he writes the episodes and I just watch them.
Overall personal score: The Time of Angels - 5 out of 5; Flesh and Stone - 4.5 out of 5
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