THE GODS HAVE HEARD MY PRAYERS!

Or they've received my sacrifices. Either way: FANTASTIC NEWS!

Review: "The Husbands of River Song" (Latest Doctor Who Xmas special)

So... yeah. The latest Doctor Who Xmas special aired.

Spoilers.


















































Still there? You were warned.


















I'm really tired of this tradition. I'm prefacing my review with that. I'm really tired of Xmas stories in Doctor who.

So this is kind of stand-up comedy instead of a proper Doctor Who episode.

The Doctor is hanging out on some planet in the 51st century (which looks remarkably un-advanced, but let's move on). A weird bald guy recruits the Doctor thinking he's a surgeon. The bald guy is working for River Song, who does not recognize the Doctor. She needs a surgeon to remove a diamond from the brain of her husband, Hydroflax, the cyborg king of some empire. She wants to kill the king to steal back the diamond to sell it off.

There's some craziness and the Doctor and River make off with Hydroflax's head.

Turns out Hydroflax's body is a killer robot that takes the heads of others in its pursuit of River and the Doctor.

There's some shenanigans. River steals the TARDIS with the Doctor in it. They pop over to a spaceship where River plans to sell the diamond and... much craziness happens. The whole time, the Doctor and River are mixing while she has no idea that he's the Doctor.

They're cornered and then the Doctor tips off River and there's much um... yeah. Stuff.

Then... the conclusion. Overall pros:

• The Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston dynamic.
• Some funny bits.
• The sonic screwdriver.
• A somewhat satisfying conclusion to the River Song story.

Overall cons:

• The Sonic Sunglasses again????
• Sonic Trowell?
• The utterly nonsensical plot.

Review: "Hell Bent"

And we come to the conclusion of Series Nine of the new Doctor Who series.

Spoilers follow.















































Still there? You were warned.






The episode starts off with the Doctor, sporting an electric guitar, going into a Nevada diner. Clara is working there as a waitress. She doesn't appear to know who the Doctor is. The Doctor settles in to tell a story about a woman named Clara.

Then we have our scene readjusted. The Doctor is now back on Gallifrey after a few billion years punching his way through diamond. He walks to an old farmhouse in the middle of the Gallifreyan desert (aren't there any plants on this planet?) and chills out. Some matronly woman comes in blathering and stops to gape at the Doctor. It seems this is the farmhouse the Doctor used to chill out in as a kid.

Okay.

So the High Council of Time Lords knows the Doctor's about and the Sisterhood of Karn has somehow dropped in for a visit (because they apparently both know how to find Gallifrey and can travel in time and space but conveniently never told the Doctor where Gallifrey was 'cause... okay moving on). The Lord President Rassilon (now regenerated into a crusty old guy) sends forces to retrieve the Doctor. First it's troopers in hover vehicles. Then it's other Time Lords. Then it's Rassilon himself.

Rassilon and the Doctor have a bit of "whose is bigger" posing. Then Rassilon tells his troops to kill the Doctor. They all refuse and drop their weapons. The Doctor then performs a coup and banishes Rassilon from Gallifrey at the end of the universe (as that's where Gallifrey is hiding because... um... reasons).

The Doctor then starts doing a bit of housecleaning on Gallifrey. Rassilon and his lot were after the Doctor for information on the Hybrid and the Doctor just refused to give away that tidbit (and we never really get a definitive answer as to what the Hybrid is).

The Doctor uses Gallifrey's resources to snatch Clara out of time from the moment before she dies. She's frozen in a moment, with no heartbeat, but can still talk, walk, breathe, etc. Because reasons.

The Doctor then snags a gun, shoots one of the senior Time Lords, and flees with Clara.

It seems if they don't put Clara back into her timeline to die, the universe will unravel.

The Doctor flees into the Cloisters, where there's these cool "Cloister Wraiths" hanging about. He talks to Clara about how he was a young Time Lord and snuck in to the Cloisters where he learned about the Hybrid, then went a bit mad and fled Gallifrey.

The Time Lords and the Sisterhood pursue the Doctor and Clara into the Cloister. There's a bit of nonsensical posturing (with the Time Lords and Sisterhood essentially calling the Doctor an irresponsible fool) then the Doctor sneaks away, steals another TARDIS, grabs Clara, and flees.

There's a cool moment in which we see a re-done version of the First Doctor's classic TARDIS, complete with a working Chameleon Circuit.

The Doctor voices his plan to Clara to hide her and use a device to help her. The TARDIS stops and there's four knocks at the door at the hidden point at the end of the universe (where the Doctor seems to like to hang out a lot). Ashildr/Me is there, of course. She lectures the Doctor a bit, implying the Doctor is the Hybrid and may be half-human (a concept first introduced in the horrible 1996 Fox TV movie). Nevermind that the Doctor said at the end of Heaven Sent that he was the Hybrid. Whatever.

So the Doctor explains he intends to wipe Clara's memories of him so he can hide her. Clara, in the meantime, has turned on the TARDIS monitor and heard the whole thing.

Cue the three of them in this new TARDIS. Clara claims to have re-adjusted the mind-wiping device so it will wipe the Doctor's memories and that her past is her own.

The Doctor and Clara then cue the device together and the Doctor's memories of Clara are wiped.

Cue back to the diner. The diner is actually the stolen TARDIS. Clara and Ashildr have swiped it to jaunt across the Universe. The Doctor is returned to his TARDIS, gets a new coat, a new sonic screwdriver, and is off.

Yeah. So an entertaining story with a lot of nonsense and unanswered questions, such as:

• The Doctor apparently fled Gallifrey when he was very young, but he had a granddaughter. So... um... how does that jibe with the being "young" thing? Just a teen pregnancy thing?
• How the hell is the Sisterhood of Karn bopping about?
• Why were the Sisterhood able to give orders at the end? Hell, why were they there at all?
• Why the the neural-brain-zapper thing work on the Doctor when they made a big deal about it being "calibrated for humans"? The Doctor is not human, as the series has claimed endlessly.
• WTF was up with all that Hybrid nonsense?
• The Time Lords can manipulate time and space. Why were they hiding at the end of the Universe? Why were they hiding at all?
• Seriously, why are the Time Lords the loathed bad guys from the Time War but the Daleks are popping about and nobody seems to care?
• How were Ashildr and Clara able to read the TARDIS manual instructions if they were in Gallifreyan? The show has actually stated that one cannot properly run a TARDIS unless one is a Time Lord. There's a whole genetic thing. So how are they operating it at all?

I'm ready for Moffatt to stop running this show. I'm also hoping that one day they'll get coherent writers back.

EDIT: So I've had more time to ponder. Some things stick out in my mind.
Pros:

• Classic TARDIS.
• Resolution to Rassilon.
• We have the Time Lords back.
• Cloister Wraiths.
• New sonic screwdriver (I'm a sucker for toy-fodder).
• Diner TARDIS.

Cons:

• The Dickensian Gallifreyans at the old farm. WTF?
• Ashildr/Me. She was an unnecessary afterthought in this episode and, honestly, didn't have much of a part to play a couple of eps back when Clara died.
• The resolution of Clara. Why? Just... why? I mean, if her existence is threatening to tear the universe apart, it's clearly not happening so... um... why?
• The Doctor shooting the General, forcing a regeneration. That felt unnecessary and more than a lot stupid.
• The entire "Hybrid" thing. Like the entirety of Clara, the Hybrid story was incoherent and never really made any sense.

Review: "Heaven Sent"

When we last left the Doctor, something terrible had happened. Just as he has a moment to posture and pose, he's teleported...

And we get to "Heaven Sent". Spoilers.

















































You were warned.









The Doctor appears in a chamber just after some hapless, smouldering bloke collapses to the ground and turns to ash, leaving a single word drawn in the dust: "Bird".

The Doctor finds himself in a strange castle surrounded by a seemingly endless sea. In most of the chambers of the castle is a monitor. From the monitor, the Doctor can see the castle from the perspective of the other inhabitant: a shambling, shrouded, fly-encrusted creature with claw-like hands that slowly, inexorably follows him. It's conjured from his darkest nightmares so he's got good reason to haul ass and get away from it.

After some cat-and-mouse, he learns that he can make the creature freeze by confessing a secret.

The Doctor quickly divines that he's being interrogated. After an involved internal lecture to the now-deceased Clara, he puzzles his way through to the exit from the chamber: a wall of some diamond-like substance. To open it, he simply must confess his arbitrary dark secret of the season, what he knows of "the Hybrid."

If you haven't been paying attention, "the Hybrid" is the Moffant McGuffin of the season. Some kind of creature, presumed to be half Time Lord and half Dalek that will destroy Gallifrey or something.

You know? Don't ask. It's a Moffatt thing and is probably best ignored.

Anyway, the Doctor refuses to reveal the whole Hybrid thing (or admit it's really about these fancy cars he developed on Earth or something). He lets the creature kill him but he doesn't die immediately. He slowly dies and claws his way back to the teleport chamber. He figures out the teleport thingie has a backup of him somewhere. He does Doctor-finagling and reboots himself by vaporizing himself, which is how the episode started.

Turns out that "Bird" refers to the story of the bird that pecked its way through a mountain or something similarly-silly. The comparison here is that the Doctor is slowly, one incarnation at at a time, punching his way through the super-diamond wall somehow over a billion years or two.

Yeah.

Okay, so he finally gets through. The creature disintegrates as the door is open and the Doctor exits to find out he was in his Confession Dial, the other McGuffin thingie that's been a season-theme.

And he's popped out on Gallifrey.

Oh, and he claims he's the Hybrid.

So... yeah. As an exercise in watching Capaldi do his thing, I enjoyed the episode. I can gloss over the logistical issues of flesh-and-blood eventually punching through a wall harder than diamond. He's a Time Lord. Whatever works.

Overall, I'm super-tired of these ridiculous and stupid story arcs that Moffatt dreams up. The whole constant deconstruction of the Doctor thing he does really poisons the show for me.

And I'd be willing to deal with it if his deconstructions weren't such utter rubbish.

This whole Hybrid thing came out of nowhere and is just very... um... stupid.

I mean, if you're going to deal with why the Doctor left Gallifrey, it seems to me anyone who has watched the show would take cues from the very beginning of the show.

The Doctor and his granddaughter, Susan, stole a TARDIS (she claimed to have created the name, so arrogance runs in the family, I expect). It's implied they fled some trouble from their home but it wasn't explored until much later. Largely 'cause they didn't have a concept of Time Lords until the Second Doctor's era.

So, back to history: why make up arbitrary bullshit reasons for the Doctor's exit? We know he had at least one child, and presumably a spouse. It's been stated that he's lost family - presumably all of them - at some point. If he was popping off with his granddaughter, one can assume his children, and probably his spouse, were dead.

Instead of going into ridiculous prophesies, why not simply explore how his spouse and children died? Why did the Doctor skip off Gallifrey with his granddaughter instead of just raising her on their homeworld?

Given that the Doctor was in his first incarnation when he skipped out, and how long Time Lords live, I'm curious how he had grandchildren. He must've been a horn-dog by Time Lord standards, but that's neither here nor there.

Oh well. Next week is the end of another lackluster season of Moffatt's reign. Sigh.

Review: "Hear the Raven"

Huh.

The first episode of Doctor Who since the Eighties to...

Spoilers.





























Still there?



Yeah. So that's it. No more Clara Oswald.

What happened? The Doctor and Clara are on the TARDIS. They get a call from Rigsby, an old friend from last season. Turns out he's got a tattoo counting down on his neck. They arrive and find out he's got some kind of "Quantum something-or-other" on him. Long story short: he's gonna die and aliens are going to kill him.

The investigation leads to a "trap street", a hidden street with aliens living on it. The aliens are under the protection of Ashilda, our immortal Viking woman who is the one who put the tattoo on Rigsby for killing an alien woman.

While the Doctor and Clara poke about, they find out that the tattoo countdown invokes some kind of alien spirit that takes the form of a raven. When the time is up, it kills the tattoo holder. The tattoo can be passed along if both parties are willing, but someone dies.

Clara manages to persuade Rigsby (a new father) to pass the tattoo to her, thinking she'll be safe as Ashilda has guaranteed her safety.

The investigation finds that the alien woman Rigsby allegedly killed is actually alive in stasis. The whole thing is a trap to get the Doctor in place so a teleport bracelet can be put on him for some nefarious purpose. Ashilda turns out to be behind it as a plan to save the alien street.

Then everyone finds out Clara did a tattoo switch. It seems that prevents Ashilda from having any control over the situation and revoking the death sentence. It's implied Ashilda was planning to let the raven kill her to spare Rigsby after the trap was sprung, but Clara has inexplicably cut Ashilda out of the deal somehow.

We then get several minutes of meaningful looks and good-byes before - yes - Clara dies. On screen, no less.

The Doctor is then teleported away, but not before warning Ashilda that he's pissed and she'd best stay out of his way.

The episode ends with the TARDIS marked up in with a pic of Clara and some artwork.

So, yeah. First Companion killed onscreen (permanently) since Adric was killed in "Earthshock". Can't say I'm sorry to see Clara go. She was a vague character that never really found her voice or point in the series. I've heard folks describe her as a "manic pixie girl", and that label fits. She was a sort of Mary Sue (though not quite as bad as River Song) and annoying as a result.

Overall, the episode felt rough, clunky, and excessively contrived. The whole thing was obviously too much of a "part one" of a continued story and Clara's death felt silly and anticlimactic. I expected more somehow.

So yeah. I'm chalking this episode up as weak tea.

Review: "Sleep No More"

Wow. As "Doctor Who" episodes go, this one was a special brand of WTF.

Spoilers follow. Blah-blah.
















































You were warned.













Okay, so the episode is done in a "found footage" format. No opening credits (first time ever). Narrated by some bespectacled wonk, it plays as shown from various camera angles starting with a crew of four soldiers coming to a space station that's gone quiet. As cliche soldiers go, they're pretty standard: there's the young female captain, the younger mouthy political wonk, the jokester, and the genetically-modified killing machine who happens to have a bit of a crush on the young mouthy wonk.

They get on the station and go through the motions of looking at the poorly-lit surroundings with flashlights.

In grand tradition, they stumble across the Doctor and Clara. There's a moment of guns pointing then the Doctor does the psychic paper thing and everyone is friends.

Then they're attacked by weird lumpy humanoids that growl a lot.

They're separated from jokester guy who later gets killed.

The main group finds a lab with a bunch of pods. Clara gets sucked into one and we all find out that the pods are "Morpheus", a technology that lets you go without sleep. Mouthy wonk guy is proud that he doesn't use it but the captain does, as does so many people back home on Titan.

I'm flashing to "Titan Maximum" as I read that. God I miss that show. Sorry. Going on...

So they find in one of the pods the bespectacled wonk who is narrating. Turns out he's hiding from the monsters in the pods. He's also the guy who created Morpheus.

In a scuffle with the monsters, the group got a part of an arm. Turns out the monsters turn to dust easily. The Doctor analyzes the dust and finds out it's eye-gunk from when you wake up in the morning.

Ew.

Turns out the monsters are made up of eye gunk. Ponder that.

Okay, so there's another attack. Bespectacled guy is apparently eaten by one of the monsters and the group is divided again. Genetic killing machine and mouthy political guy go off in one direction while the Doctor, Clara, and the soldier captain go off in another. There's shenanigans. Killing machine sacrifices himself to save his crush: mouthy political guy, but that guy gets killed a few minutes later.

Meanwhile the Doctor works out that there's actually no cameras anywhere. Not on the soldiers' helmets. Not on the station. Nowhere. Turns out the "found footage" is coming from dust mites of sentient eye gunk that are eating people.

Ponder that for a moment.

Okay, move on.

Turns out bespectacled guy is alive and in-league with the monsters. He's trying to smuggle a creature to Titan to spore and infect all humanity.

He gets shot by the captain, then there's a scuffle with monsters. They flee back to the TARDIS but are cut off. The Doctor performs sonic sunglasses wizardry and destroys the "gravity shields" that are keeping the station in orbit around... oh crap, I forget. Neptune? Doesn't matter.

The creatures are crushed by the increasing gravity and turn to dust. The Doctor, Clara, and soldier-girl get in the TARDIS and flee to safety, planning to go to Titan to destroy all the Morpheus machines causing the creatures to exist.

Then we cut to the footage. Turns out bespectacled wonk is still alive. And he's actually an eye-gunk shell and has been all along. The "found footage" includes an electronic signal (blipped on screen) to infect anyone who watches.

Yup. That's you, audience.

And that's sort of it. I guess everyone dies "Ringu" style"? I... I really don't understand what that ending was all about.

Honestly, the best part of the entire episode towards the last quarter when the Doctor started going on about how nothing that was going on made any sense.

Way to break the fourth wall, Doctor!

I can't tell if this is a two-parter with the next episode. It doesn't appear related in the trailer.

So... yeah. This was sort of a waste of time. Nice mood and ambiance (for "found footage", a trope I truly hate), but a complete and utter failure in plot.

Review: "The Zygon Invasion"

So we get to the two-parter known as "The Zygon Invasion" for Doctor Who. Spoilers. Usual caveats apply. Etc.
















































































Still there? You were warned.







Part one starts off with fighting happening in some unknown place. Fleeing from the fighting is a familiar face: Osgood from U.N.I.T., the Doctor's number one fan-girl. This is, of course, a bit confusing as we saw her get vaporized by "Missy" in last season, but it turns out that there's been two Osgoods since the events of "The Day of the Doctor". One Zygon and one Human. Nobody knows which is which and the Osgoods have been in charge of keeping the peace in the truce between Humans and the Zygons who live in-secret amongst us.

It turns out that a splinter group of Zygons has broken the peace, wanting to live as Zygons and not shapeshifted into humans. So they want "the Osgood Box", some MacGuffin that can be used to end the cease-fire somehow. So they captured Osgood and interrogated her, but not before she was able to send off an SOS to the Doctor.

Meanwhile, Clara finds something amiss in her apartment building and gets snatched by Zygons and replaced.

The Doctor comes and meets with U.N.I.T. and Clara. He wants to talk to the splinter group and negotiate. Kate wants to use some nerve gas Harry Sullivan made to kill Zygons but the Doctor stole. There's a lot of tension.

Clara (secretly a Zygon) and a U.N.I.T. flunky do investigation in London on weird disappearances of people while Kate goes to New Mexico to investigate where Osgood disappeared. The Doctor goes to Turkmanistan to where the renegade Zygons had a training camp.

There is a lot of paranoia resulting in a lot of dead U.N.I.T. people. Clara is revealed as a Zygon before she kills all the U.N.I.T. redshirts with her. Kate is cornered by a Zygon and the Doctor is on a plane returning to the UK when Zygon-Clara calls him to say Clara is dead just before she fires a missile at his plane.



Part two starts off where the cliffhanger ended. Turns out Clara is alive and in a Zygon pod. Being a Mary Sue, Clara is able to use her special Clara mind-powers to influence the Zygon holding her shape and interfere with Zygon-Clara's assassination of the Doctor... mostly. The Zygon-Clara still blows up the plane, but the Doctor and a rescued Osgood (retrieved in the prior episode) escape to safety. Presumably the pilot is killed, but no mention is made either way. Kind of cold, really.

So Zygon-Clara finds out that her interrogation of Osgood does not get her the "Osgood Box" that she believes to be a device to force all Zygons to assume their true form, forcing war between Zygons and Humans.

Frustrated, she goes to Clara's pod and mind-melds with Clara to interrogate her. Turns out Clara knows where the "Osgood Box" is. It's in the Black Archive (from "The Day of the Doctor"). Zygon-Clara meets with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who returns from New Mexico, apparently replaced by a Zygon.

Zygon-Clara takes Clara's pod with her and they jaunt off to the Black Archive. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Osgood have a bit of banter. The usual thing with the Doctor rambling on (he claims his first name is "Basil", for what it's worth). He wants to know if Osgood is Human or Zygon and she's not telling.

Everything comes to a head in the Black Archive where Zygon-Clara finds out there are two Osgood Boxes, each with two buttons. The Doctor comes on-scene, as does Kate. We get a reenactment of the show-down from "Day of the Doctor" only with these boxes. The Doctor claims one will either release the Zygon-killing nerve gas or detonate the nuke under the Black Archive, depending on which button is pressed. The other one will either force the Zygons into their true form or disable their shapeshifting, turning them pure human forever.

There's a lengthy bit of speeches in which the Doctor tries to convince Kate and Zygon-Clara not to press the buttons. He talks about his role in the Time War and the terrible consequences. It's pretty much the same fare that's been rehashed since 2005, so nothing new there. In an interesting turn of events, his speech works. Kate closes the box, buttons un-pressed. Zygon-Clara is reluctant, but finally agrees to not press the buttons.

Turns out the boxes are fakes. They don't do anything.

The Doctor wipes everyone's memory save for Osgood, Clara, and Zygon-Clara. Turns out this is the fifteenth time this showdown has happened.

Zygon-Clara takes the place of the missing Osgood. The Doctor and Clara jaunt off in the TARDIS. The Osgoods go off for ice cream.



The summary makes this story sound ridiculous and stupid, but I have to say I enjoyed it. The paranoia of the episodes was well-done and the threat was kind of cool. The villain being a splinter group of idiot children was a nice twist. And it was especially-nice that the Doctor's preaching found an audience for a change. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable.

EDIT: so there are a few points that bugged me in this episode:

• Why did the Doctor keep asking Osgood if she was human or Zygon? What did it matter?
• Mary-Sue-ness aside, how is Clara able to perform her bit of psychic mojo against the Zygons?
• Why do they keep portraying Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as borderline bloodthirsty? I thought she was supposed to be more "science" and less "guns".

Review: "The Girl who Died"/"The Woman who Lived"

I have to say, I'm liking the fact they're doing two-part episodes these days.

So, spoilers. Blah-blah.


















































Still there?



You were warned.









"The Girl who Died" - set in Viking times (only with horned helmets... so no authenticity, but we're talking "Doctor Who", so moving on), the Doctor and Clara arrive and are grabbed by viking raiders who take them back to their village. The best thing about the scene is the vikings destroying the sonic sunglasses (which are not permanently destroyed, alas). The Doctor attempts a bluff by claiming he's Odin and gets trumped by an image of Odin in the skies. He spies a girl (Maisie Williams) who gets his fascination. She is named Ashilda and is unusually clever (and mouthy) for a viking girl.

A bunch of alien soldiers materialize, grab all the warriors in the village, and then grab Ashilda and Clara when Clara uses the broken sonic sunglasses to try to free herself from viking chains.

Ashilda and Clara discover that the aliens zap the warriors to turn them into a sort of testosterone milkshake for the alien masquerading as Odin. Clara tries to bluff freedom for the two of them, but Ashilda winds up challenging the warriors to a duel the next day.

They're returned and Clara tries to convince the Doctor to help. The Doctor intends to abandon the village as the fight is hopeless, but Ashilda and Clara convince him to stay.

The Doctor starts to train the remaining villagers (none of whom are warriors), then comes up with a clever plan to fool the invaders.

Cue fancy hand-waving, culminating in stealing an alien warrior helmet to Ashilda can dream up an illusion to scare off the aliens.

The plan works but Ashilda's heart gives out working the alien helmet and she dies.

The Doctor has one of his melodramatic moments and then uses some alien med tech to bring Ashilda back from the dead. And it makes her immortal. Before he takes off, he leaves another alien immortality chip thing so Ashilda can make an immortal companion if she wants.

To be continued...




"The Woman Who Lived" - Ashilda has now been alive for 800 years and it's the 1600's. She's disguised as a robber known as the Knightmare. The Doctor arrives (sans Clara) hunting alien tech. He stumbles across Ashilda's path and finds out she now calls herself "Me" and can't remember most of her past. She's now cooperating with an alien cat man (seriously, don't ask) to get an amulet that will get him home.

The majority of the episode is Ashilda (aka "Lady Me") and the Doctor talking about the impact of immortality on her and how it's made her numb to humanity.

She wants to travel with him and he's reluctant (why? I don't know. I mean, he traveled with Susan, Romana, Captain Jack, and K-9, all of whom don't have short lifespans, but except for a brief reference to Captain Jack, that point is glossed over).

Turns out she's working with alien cat man 'cause he promised to take her off-world if they get the amulet that can use a person's death to open a portal to his world or something.

Ashilda is ready to kill her manservant but the Doctor pleads for her to remember her humanity. Then some soldiers come to tell Ashilda that they captured a highwayman rival of hers - some guy who tried to rob her earlier and lost - and they plan to hang him. She decides to use his death by hanging to open the portal and leaves the Doctor trapped.

The Doctor finagles an escape and follows. The highwayman is doing stand-up gallows comedy (with truly awful puns that I have to applaud and curse by turns). Everyone arrives, the Doctor gets the people to free the highwayman but Ashilda uses the alien amulet thing to kill the highwayman and open the portal.

So turns out the cat man lied and aliens start blasting through the hole in space. Ashilda and the Doctor use the remaining immortality chip to revive the highwayman, sealing the portal. The cat man is killed.

The Doctor is unsure if the highwayman is immortal, thinking the portal may have drained that energy, but Ashilda is still stuck. She now knows the Doctor won't take her with him because their perspectives are too much alike and it makes them lack empathy. That's why the Doctor has companions, to give him perspective for empathy.

Ashilda reveals she knows of the Doctor by stories and that he has a reputation for cutting off and leaving messes behind. She decides her purpose will be to clean up the aftermath of the Doctor's adventures on Earth.

The Doctor is rocking out in the TARDIS with his electric guitar when Clara returns. She tells the Doctor about some student who took a selfie as a gift to the Doctor for some reason. The Doctor looks at the picture and sees Ashilda in the background, looking at the student and Clara.

All-in-all, I'd have to say these eps were the best of the season thus far. I really liked "The Girl Who Died" and Maisie Williams really carried the episode. If she weren't on as Arya Stark, I'd dig seeing her as a Clara-replacement. The story had an old-style feel with proper villains and good, proper trickery mixed with drama.

I was less-fond of "The Woman Who Lived". Ashilda now is another Mary Sue like River Song, which would be annoying if it weren't Maisie Williams. Still, there was a lot more exposition and navel-gazing than I'd like in the ep and it didn't particularly impress me. Plus the damn sonic sunglasses are back. Oh well.

Review: "Under the Lake"/"Before the Flood"

I'm a bit late commenting. I could claim allergies, 'cause FSM-knows I've had a ton, but mostly I've just been... digesting.

Undisguised spoilers follow. Read at your own peril and keep in mind this is less of a critical review and more of my frothing rants. I do not make claims to be even-minded, or even coherent.

I figure if "Doctor Who" under Steven Moffatt doesn't have to be coherent, neither do I.

































Still there? You were warned...









Let's start with "Under the Lake".

A call-back to the classic "Doctor Who" era, it starts with a claustrophobic scene of an underwater base with a mix of characters. They find a spaceship and inside there is strange writing that affects them somehow.

Then the ghost appears. It activates the drive of the spaceship killing the commander.

The commander comes back as a ghost and the two ghosts (one dressed as a funeral parlor director for reasons) try to kill the rest of the people on the base.

Cue the arrival of the TARDIS. The TARDIS is unhappy for some reason and the Doctor is trying to comfort it. Then out pops Clara and they go exploring.

They find the base seemingly-abandoned in haste.

The Doctor and Clara encounter the two ghosts that tried killing the base crew. The ghosts look at them but do not otherwise react and leave.

The Doctor and Clara follow, find the spaceship, then see the mysterious words within.

Then the ghosts try to kill them.

The Doctor and Clara flee and find the rest of the crew hiding away in a farady cage, the only thing that block the ghosts from walking through walls.

The crew is a mix of a deaf woman (the now-commander), a young guy who interprets her sign language, a science geek, a short mouthy woman who is a fangirl of the Doctor (she was in military intelligence and had access to U.N.I.T. files), and the perfunctory corporate stooge who everyone is supposed to hate.

We find out the ghosts only come out when the base is on "night cycle" and hide away when it's "day".

Nobody knows why the ghosts are trying to kill them.

Turns out the base is set in a flooded valley that used to be a village of some sort back in the '80's.

Cue ahead. The Doctor investigates and the ghosts get clever. They fool the base computer into thinking it's night and manage to kill the corporate stooge.

By reading the lips of the ghosts, they get an arcane message that the Doctor concludes are some kind of coordinates.

They regain control of the base and use a remote sub to go to the coordinates and recover a suspended animation chamber.

Spooky.

The ghosts then return to try to kill them. The Doctor and Clara get separated. The Doctor, geeky guy, and short mouthy woman get to the TARDIS and the Doctor goes back in time to find out what happened when the spaceship crashed.

The episode concludes with Clara looking outside in the water to see the Doctor's ghost...

Overall, a good episode. Nice suspense. Good cast of characters. Nice threat. Fun crowd. I'm tired of Clara, but otherwise, it was good fare.

Then came...

"Before the Flood" tries very hard to wrap things up.

It starts with the Doctor talking about a paradox. He's talking to the audience, so you just know the writer is clubbing you over the head with his clever story point. You can turn off your viewer and stop now.

So, Clara is trying to parse out that the Doctor is dead (as that Moffatt-era cliche is apparently never, ever going away).

The Doctor, mouthy, and geek (I didn't bother to try to learn the names of the characters) are apparently on the platform of a Russian train station. Geek is sick from time travel. Mouthy is super-excited and name-dropping bits about the Doctor's adventures (and hinting at one that hasn't happened yet). She's got "Companion-material" written all over her.

They find the spaceship and it's crewed by an obsequious, masochistic alien who is a funeral attendant taking the body of "The Fisher King" to Earth to be buried. Because reasons.

There's no writing in the spaceship.

The Doctor calls Clara across time-and-space using his incredibly awesome cellular plan. Clara tells him he's dead and a ghost.

Meanwhile, creepy alien funeral dude finds out the Fisher King isn't dead (or still in-place). The writing is on the wall (literally and figurative) and the alien is killed by something offscreen.

The Doctor, Mouthy, and Geek go to the alien ship and note the writing and missing body. The suspended animation pod has also been moved.

Then the alien chases them. They split up and the alien kills mouthy.

In the present, Clara, deaf-lady, and her boy-interpreter all flee back to the faraday cage and hide, leaving the cell phone outside so Clara can see it and know the Doctor is signalling her she can leave the cage.

Mouthy's ghost appears to them, snags the phone, and that's that.

In the past, the Doctor goes through that tired "I can't change my own past" bullshit that stopped being a thing back in the Third Doctor's time. Turns out the Doctor's ghost in the future is repeating a list of names of those who die - in order, including Clara. After Mouthy, she's up.

The Doctor in the past decides "fuck the rules of time travel if it saves my vapid companion!" (I'm paraphrasing) and decides to try to stop the Fisher King (who is apparently creating the ghosts.

Are you confused yet?

Seriously, I'm glossing over a lot of details, and it's not doing the story much justice, but... it's pretty much this wonky.

Anyway, turns out in the present, the interpreter never read the alien words in the spaceship. Clara persuades him to risk his life by going out amidst the ghosts and getting the phone.

Deaf lady has some things to say to Clara. I need to learn sign language now, 'cause I bet that was awesome.

So the ghosts don't kill interpreter-boy. They trap him. Deaf lady and Clara go out looking for him 'cause Deaf lady is totally hot for her interpreter.

They get separated 'cause Clara is dumb as a stone, and Deaf lady is stalked by a ghost in an awesome scene that almost makes up for the over-complicated story.

In the past, the Doctor has left Geek in the TARDIS and confronts the Fisher King. The Fisher King's nefarious plan is to use dead souls as transmitters for his army 'cause... um... reasons. The Fisher King is an awesome, creepy-looking alien with a giant gun he doesn't appear to want to use on the Doctor. Oh, and like everyone in the Universe, the Fisher King knows all kinds of details about the Time Lords.

Apparently there's been universal news specials or something. Y'know, despite the Time Lords being reclusive, super-powerful, and... oh for God's sake, I can't keep doing this. Moving on.

The Doctor tricks the Fisher King into going outside where the Fisher King gets trapped when the dam blocking the valley from getting flooded blows up (thanks to the Doctor's trickery). The TARDIS does its emergency protocol thing and goes back to the present with Geek inside still mourning Mouthy, with whom he was passionately in-love but couldn't say anything. Like pretty much every character ever in the re-imagined series.

Is my irritation showing?

The ghosts are closing on everyone. The suspended animation chamber in the base starts to open and... you guessed it! The Doctor is inside.

His ghost is, of course, a fake. A hologram. The ghosts are lured into the faraday cage with hand-wavy cleverness and the Doctor uses the Sonic Sunglasses to erase the alien symbols from everyone's minds.

Because thinking of doing that earlier on was apparently not an option to him.

Geek tells interpreter to express his love for Deaf lady. He does. There is much lip-locking. Happiness and joy for those two.

The Doctor and Clara get in the TARDIS and leave. The Doctor essentially admits he was going to let everyone die, including himself, until he realized Clara was going to die.

Essentially he concludes his epic dickishness and then states that he "rewrote" his fate by using details Clara gave him over the phone to try to undo his death by instead doing that fancy paradox trick.

Sigh.

Overall, the two episodes had clever points but it was too convoluted by far. And frankly, the show needs to stop with these tropes now:

• The Doctor dies/is gonna die. We all know it's not going to happen. The show hasn't been canceled. Stop it. Now.
• Exploring the Doctor mythos and deconstructing him. We don't need our hero deconstructed. If you want to masturbate over your Doctor fantasies, write fanfic.
• The Doctor will only move if his Companion is in danger. Seriously? I realize the First Doctor was a bit of a dick, but are you seriously going to revive that trope twelve incarnations later?
• The Sonic Screwdriver/Sunglasses/Magic Wand/Whatever does Deus Ex Machina bullshit. For God's Sake, there's technology and tools out there beyond some sound-generating bit of voodoo. Try something original and new for a change.

Review: "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar"

Just finished part two of the start of Series Nine of the revived "Doctor Who".

Much commentary to follow.

Much spoilerage in said commentary.

Essentially I'm ranting. If you read this blog (FSM help you), you probably have a sense of the kind of incoherent nonsense I'll blather on about.

Rather than bother with the whole deprecated font tag trick, I'll just put in a bunch of page breaks so you don't accidentally view my spoilery nonsense.




































































Still there? You were warned...






Okay, here goes:

"The Magician's Apprentice" starts off with a war on a battlefield. Mix of technologies where a biplane uses blasters and soldiers on the ground have scanning devices and bows and arrows. A soldier spies a kid running from a battle and tries to help the kid out. The kid and the soldier wind up in a field of "Hand Mines". Creepy-as-hell hands with eyes in the palm that grab you and pull you into the ground. The soldier gets snagged and the kid is trapped.

The kid calls for help and a sonic screwdriver lands at his feet. The Doctor is there and tells the kid he's got a one-in-a-thousand chance of surviving and to disregard the odds and focus on the one tiny chance. He asks the kid's name. The kid replies: "Davros".

The Doctor realizes he's on ancient Skaro during that generational war between the Thals and the Kaleds. He pops into the TARDIS and abandons young Davros, the future creator of the Daleks, to his fate.

We next get the tired Moffatt trope of some sinister figure hunting for the Doctor.

Yup. Apparently everyone and their cousins can just bop around through time and space without needing a TARDIS and can just randomly question people as a way to find the Doctor. 'Cause that makes sense somehow.

This figure, called "Colony Saaff" or something like that, is a creepy amalgam of snakes that's working for Davros.

Why a snake man and not some kind of Dalek? Oh, silly reader, don't ask questions.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Clara is teaching rugrats about what a great kisser Emily Dickenson was when she spies a plane frozen in the air. Turns out every aircraft in the world is frozen in a time bubble.

Oh that's right, it's the Master returned as "Missy". Missy froze time to get Clara's attention. It seems Missy has been delivered (somehow) the Doctor's "Confessional Dial", a sort of recorded last will and testament as he's going to die.

Yup. We're back to another tired Moffatt trope of the Doctor's death, which we know won't happen as the show hasn't been canceled.

Anyway, Missy is trying to find the Doctor as he's disappeared. Needs Clara's help. With U.N.I.T.'s incomprehensible algorithms, they discover the Doctor is in medieval England having an axe-fight, only in the Doctor's case he's on a tank and has an electric guitar.

And the crowd is rocking out. Because electric guitar apparently has universal appeal, save for my parents' and grandparents' generations. So... yeah. Um. Moving on.

Missy and Clara reunite with the Doctor and Colony Saaff appears because reasons. Colony weirdo says Davros is dying and wants to see the Doctor.

The Doctor lets Colony Saaff handcuff him with a snake (again, WTF?) to transport him to Davros. Missy and Clara also agree to come along, cuffed and all because... um... yeah. Moving on.

Davros, it turns out, is on a space station that isn't really a space station but is the planet Skaro disguised because... um... I really don't know. Why would the Daleks bother to hide their planet? If the Time Lords are toast (and the Daleks seem to think they are during this episode) nobody in the universe can threaten them, or even resist them, so why hide anything?

For that matter, why haven't they just conquered/obliterated the universe? Argh. I give up.

Anyway, the Doctor is chatting with Davros while the Daleks find Missy and Clara, then exterminate them to the Doctor's horror. Oh, and apparently the Daleks always knew where the Doctor was and had an agent in the medieval times. They snagged the TARDIS and vaporize that too.



So yeah. Jump to "The Witch's Familiar". Of course Missy and Clara aren't dead. Missy and Clara had found the Doctor in the past using vortex manipulators (I guess Missy lacks a TARDIS of her own?). So when the Daleks tried to disintegrate Missy and Clara, Missy performed some hand-wavy bullshit to teleport Clara and her away, burning out the vortex manipulators.

Cue lots of somewhat interesting conversation between the Doctor and Davros. In a nutshell:

• The Doctor tells Davros that Gallifrey survived and is out there somewhere (he'll doubtless regret that later).
• Davros makes lots of maudlin noises about he and the Doctor being almost friends.
• Davros talks about some prophesy on Gallifrey about a hybrid race between a warrior race and the Time Lords or something. How does Davros know anything about stuff that happens on Gallifrey? I have no idea at all.

Missy and Clara stumble about in the Dalek sewers, where decaying Daleks, who have now become goo, are residing as they "can't die" somehow. Missy arranges for her and Clara to capture a Dalek and Missy forces Clara into the Dalek so they can get into the Dalek city.

Meanwhile Davros reveals his plan: turns out he's been living off the life-force of the Daleks and playing on the Doctor's compassion to give him "one last sunrise". The Doctor can apparently share a bit of his regeneration energy (does this mean he's burning regenerations like he did with the hand or does this somehow, mysteriously, not count, Moff?). It's a trick and Davros and Colony Saaff try to suck out all the Doctor's regeneration energy to somehow make the Daleks more powerful.

Missy steps in and kills Colony Saaff, saving the Doctor from dying. And the Doctor reveals he let himself get pulled into the trap so he could regenerate the sewer Daleks, who flood out to kill the still-living Daleks.

The Doctor abandons Davros and flees with Missy. Missy tries to fool the Doctor into killing Clara while Clara is still in a Dalek shell, but that doesn't work out. Missy gets stuck on Skaro, the Doctor escapes with Clara and using his sonic sunglasses (he's done with the screwdriver, apparently) he re-forms the TARDIS through more hand-waving then he and Clara watch the Dalek city burn. The Doctor then goes back in time to save little Davros because compassion.


Whew!

All-in-all, it's classic Moffatt. Excellent mood and great dialog but the plot is utter trash and nonsensical.

Capaldi carries the episodes, as does Gomez's Missy. For all that, I'm seriously praying Moffatt leaves the show soon.

Doctor Who - latest season

Just for the record, I have seen the season opener: "The Magician's Apprentice". I've decided not to comment in this blog until I've seen part two - "The Witch's Familiar" - and digested it.

A Whovian Plea

It's official: Jenna Coleman is leaving "Doctor Who" at the end of the season.

As a fan of the show since the late '70's, I make this plea to you Steven Moffatt: please follow her.

Look, I get it. You're a huge fan. You've done some fantastic work. "Blink" was, in my opinion, the best episode of "Doctor Who" ever written. You've done outstanding stuff with creepy, faerie-tale stories.

Seriously, you get cred for that. But your term as showrunner for "Doctor Who" has been a bit of a disaster.

I liked the Matt Smith era. Smith was an outstanding Doctor. I thought Amy Pond and Rory Williams were brilliant additions. It was a bit cute to have the Doctor float in and out of their lives.

Yup. Good stuff.

Too bad the rest was shit.

You just had to go nuts with your hand-wavy timey-whimy bullshit, didn't you? That whole Pandorica storyline that never ever even attempted to make sense? Just insulting. The lack of good monsters? Sad. Oh you had your trademark Weeping Angels appear, but you couldn't even be bothered to keep them consistent between appearances!

You brought back the ever-so-tired Daleks for a lot of yawns.

You had the Zygons walk on as an afterthought and comic relief.

But you couldn't stop there, could you? You were still mentally in your days of writing "Coupling", so you just had to wack-off on a page and create your little dream Mary Sue of River Song, didn't you?

Clever idea, that. A woman who functions in reverse time to the Doctor's timeline.

Except you didn't do that, did you? She was always "in his future", with your timey-whimey, hand-wavy bullshit that never attempted to make sense.

She's better at the TARDIS than the Doctor. The TARDIS talks to her. She was born in the Time Vortex and automatically becomes a Time Lady until she sacrifices it to the Doctor in a creepy, nonsensical story.

Dude. Mary Sue. When you make a character that supplants the title character, it's time for you to put your fanfic away and play a new game.

But you weren't done there, were you Moff? You go and create Clara Oswald.

Now, I was a huge fan of Coleman's character in the Xmas special she appeared in. She was a character not centered in the tired 21st century working middle-class trope. She was clever, charming, and new.

And you killed her off.

Oh, you weren't done. I mean, you'd already toyed with having her appear as a genius Mary Sue who turned out to be a Dalek. That was cute, by the way.

Unable to stop with that, you had to have some sort of inane, ridiculous plot in which some boring 21st century version of her becomes the Doctor's Manic Pixie Girl savior.

Whomever came up with "Manic Pixie Girl" as a name for a trope, deserves a beer/cocktail, by the way. That's genius.

Anyway, back to you Moff. You've been increasingly ridiculous. You have these poorly-written, nonsensical story arcs dotted with crap standalone stories (the Moon is an egg? Seriously?) throughout your tenure. You keep trying to romance up the Doctor, which is not what this show is about!

Seriously, you turned the Master into a demented Mary Poppins.

WHY????

You need to stop Steven. You're only hurting the show. Please step down and move on. As a fan, I ask - indeed, I beg - this of you.

Review: "The Last Christmas"

Aaaah, the Doctor Who Xmas special. It's become a thing since the days of RTD and continues under Moffatt's reign.

The last couple of Xmas specials have been beyond crappy so I had no expectations for this one.

It probably helped.

I could go all spoiler-y and recap the plot but I don't think I will this time. Instead, in broad strokes, Moffatt told a tale of creepy monsters mixed with Xmas schlock (complete with Nick Frost as Santa Claus himself). It was weird, oddly-funny at times, and creepy in others. Moffatt retains is ability to create disturbing monsters that play off of perceptions. It was - as this season has gone - a pretty good episode. Though as I say that, I should be clear: most of the season has been nearly unwatchably-bad.

Many thanks to V for letting me watch a recording. Cheers.

Review: "Death in Heaven"

And we've come to the finale.

Spoilers follow and all that. Proceed at your own risk.
























































Still there? You were warned. Highlight to view.




Starting from the ridiculous mess that was "Dark Water", the gender-bent Master, now known as "Missy" has brought the Cybermen back to Earth using imprinted memories from the dead from across time and space, thanks to Time Lord technology. U.N.I.T. crashes the scene, taking both the Doctor and "Missy" into custody as the Cybermen display flight capabilities and depart. They go into the skies above all major population centers and explode.

Meanwhile, Clara - trapped by a Cyberman - tries a bluff by claiming to be the regenerated Doctor to buy her time before she's killed. Her erstwhile boyfriend, Danny, has also returned as a Cyberman but with his emotions intact. He rescues Clara from the other Cybermen and knocks her out.

The Doctor awakens to find his TARDIS in U.N.I.T. custody. U.N.I.T. gets him and "Missy" on a plane then reveal that the Doctor is now the de-facto President of Earth to lead them out of the current threat. You see, the exploded Cybermen have turned into clouds that rain over graveyards and bring back the dead as Cybermen.

Don't ask.

So the world is in terrible danger, blah-blah.

Meanwhile, "Missy" plays head-games with one of the U.N.I.T. scientists before gleefully murdering her and the really useless U.N.I.T. guards.

Fast-forward to the Cybermen attacking the plane. The Doctor and "Missy" have a showdown, but "Missy" outmatches the Doctor by blowing out the side of the plane, sending Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (the daughter of the Brigadier) to her apparent death and then the Doctor to the same as "Missy" teleports to safety.

The Doctor manages to get into his falling TARDIS and head to the revived Clara, who is attempting to help the Cyberman-Danny delete his emotions because reasons.

"Missy" reveals to the Doctor that she can control all the Cybermen in the world as her puppets and they are invaluable tool to conquer the known universe. And she gives control of the Cybermen to the Doctor so he can find out that he's no different than she.

The Doctor ponders who he is, then gives control of the Cybermen to Cyber-Danny who uses the Cybermen to destroy the Cyber-clouds that are awakening the dead.

Clara, having stolen "Missy's" death-ray-thing, prepares to murder the renegade Time Lady, but the Doctor stops her. The Doctor struggles to finish "Missy" himself when she is apparently disintegrated by another Cyberman. It seems Danny wasn't the only Cyberman among the dead to retain his emotions. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is revealed to be alive thanks to a Cyberman who can only be the Brigadier.

The episode ends with some hand-wavy stuff from beyond in which Danny sends the kid he killed as a soldier back to Clara so Clara can get him home. The Doctor and Clara meet one last time and lie to one another to ease their parting. Then Santa Claus appears.

Okay, my snark aside, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this finale. It was probably one of the few Moffatt-finales I actually did enjoy. The story writing was rough, but far, far better than his previous attempts. The gleeful, horrific brutality of "Missy" made up for much of the overly-convoluted nonsense of the plot and sold me on "Missy" as an incarnation of the Master. I also liked the grimly-brutal resolution of the Danny Pink storyline and how it really was an unhappy ending for Clara and Danny. I was also impressed with the consistency of the horrible lying that ultimately split the Doctor and Clara apart.

So, I raise a toast to you, Stephen Moffatt. Nicely-played. It wasn't great but I found it somewhat-enjoyable. Now please go on to other things and pass the baton to someone else.

Not a review: "Dark Water"

I'm not going to bother on this one.

I was in the UK when it aired and got to see it broadcast. There's nothing positive I can say about this episode at all.

Honestly, I can't think of a single positive thing. So rather than turn this into a bile-filled tirade, I'll just leave it here as I didn't like the episode and it's just another example of Moffatt losing it.

Not-Really-A-Review: "Into the Forest of the Night"

I'm not even going to bother summarizing this one. I don't think I can. It was an utter, disjointed, incoherent mess of acid-induced crap. I can't even spoil it as it's too incoherent. This one is up there with "Love and Monsters" for my list of worst episodes ever. Though I'm still leaning towards hating "Love and Monsters" more.

Review: "Flatline"

Huh. That was a lot better than I expected!

My commentary follows with a summary. Spoilers, standard stuff. Highlight to see. Blah-blah.






































































Still there? You were warned...








The episode starts out with a panicked man calling about disappearances. There's something out there responsible and he knows what it is. As he's on the phone with the police he suddenly vanishes.

The TARDIS materializes in a Council Estate (public housing area). Clara is still on her lying to the Doctor about how her boyfriend Danny is cool with her continuing travels with the Doctor (he's not).

And there's a problem: the TARDIS appears in a diminutive size, half of what it is normally. The Doctor and Clara are able to exit the TARDIS and look around a bit. The Doctor re-enters the TARDIS, puzzled, and sends Clara off to investigate.

Clara stumbles across a monument to some missing people and some guys doing community service. Two of the guys who stand out are Rigsby, a kid who got busted for tagging and a racist old bastard who bullies the crap out of the others.

Clara notices a few weird things, such as the various missing people the tagger-kid tells her about and mysterious murals of all the missing folks.

She returns to the Doctor to find the TARDIS has shrunk again. It's the size of a kid's toy and the Doctor cannot exit. He loans Clara his sonic screwdriver and psychic paper and has her carry the TARDIS with her as she goes to investigate some more. Her investigations run her across a policewoman, who is quickly killed, while they are investigating an apartment of a missing man (the guy who died at the beginning of the episode). The Doctor quickly groks what's going on: aliens from a 2-dimensional universe are killing and dissecting people. Clara and Rigsby escape and wind up rejoining the other community service guys. And the aliens follow them.

The Doctor struggles between some kind of dimensional drain against the TARDIS by these aliens and advising Clara. Clara, for her part, leads the community service guys to escape the hostile aliens.

There's a brief attempt to communicate with the aliens, which really just seems to reveal they're hostile and evolving. Then cue the chase scenes.

The aliens can turn things 2-dimensional (thus obliterating doorknobs and such), which makes fleeing hard for our heroes. And the aliens learn how to become 3-dimensional constructs as they start taking out the crew, one-by-one, until there's only Clara, Rigsby, and the asshole guy left. Clara is separated from the Doctor as the miniaturized TARDIS is knocked from her hand. The TARDIS goes into "siege mode", locking down completely and separating the Doctor from Clara, save via their little erratic communications link.

Clara, with Rigsby's help, manages to trick the aliens into pouring power into the TARDIS, allowing the TARDIS to restore its size. The Doctor emerges and uses some kind of Time Lord magic to obliterate the aliens after a corny speech.

The episode ended with Rigsby, the asshole-guy, and another side-character picked up along the way surviving. The Doctor seems disturbed that Clara took over his role so well.

And we pull back to our obligatory reference to the ever-so-boring "Heaven" mystery bit as Missy the weird story-arc character gloats about how Clara was such a good choice for something... DUN-DUN-DUN!!!!!!!


Overall, I found "Flatline" an entertaining episode. Rigsby had awesome Companion-potential, as seems to be a pattern with a number of side-characters getting introduced. I kind of like that the asshole character survived. It made things weird.

Clara had more to do in the episode, which was nice. The character still bugs me, but I have to give Jenna Coleman credit for doing her best with what she's got.

I'm kind of getting tired of the endless dickishness of Capaldi's Doctor, but it's a minor quibble for me, at best.

I appreciate that we're finally getting proper "bad guy" monsters back in the show. It's certainly an improvement.

Review: "Mummy on the Orient Express"

I was all set to hate this one. I really was. The premise alone sounded too stupid for me to want to give it a chance.

I admit that this one caught me by surprise.

Spoilers follow.
















































































Still there? You were warned.




It starts on an old-fashioned train. An old lady starts hallucinating a mummy that only she can see. Then it reaches her and she's suddenly dead.

It turns out the old-fashioned train is actually a spacecraft set up to replicate the old Orient Express for reasons. Everyone on the train is dressed up in period outfits and acts period for reasons.

The TARDIS materializes in the cargo hold and the Doctor and Clara disembark. This is to be their last journey together and the Doctor brought her for a last huzzah. They have drinks and exchange some talk. The Doctor talks of planets and phenomena. Clara talks of feelings. They're not really communicating. They have a brief encounter with the grand-daughter of the old woman who died. The grand-daughter is out-of-it and tips them off to the mysterious death.

It doesn't take long before the Doctor is poking around and investigating. Clara, in the meantime, winds up with the grief-stricken granddaughter. Shenanigans get them trapped in a cargo hold while more deaths happen by the mummy that only the impending-dead can see. A countdown of 66 seconds happens when the mummy appears until the target is dead. Nobody can stop it.

The Doctor's investigation brings him across the ship's engineer, the PSTD-plagued ship's captain, and a few other passengers. It turns out almost all the passengers are actually highly-skilled scientists. Everyone has been maneuvered on to the train to solve the mystery of the mummy (called "the Foretold") which has been killing people for millennia.

The Doctor reveals that the mysterious puppet master has even lured him, though the Doctor knew he was being lured. Clara, by this point, is furious at being dragged into danger and lied to by the Doctor. The Doctor, however, is more focused on figuring out the mystery of the mummy. As people are targeted, he remorselessly quizzes the soon-to-be-dead on giving him information on the mummy before the target is killed. The Doctor's callous behavior is angering and disgusting others, including Clara.

Finally, the mummy targets the grief-stricken granddaughter. The Doctor performs technological wizardry and tricks the mummy into thinking the Doctor is the target. He quickly decrypts the mummy's secret: it is a super-soldier kept alive by some sort of malfunctioning life-draining technology. The Doctor surrenders, and the mummy stands down then disintegrates.

The puppet-master behind tricking everyone on the train then tries to murder everyone on board to cover up the events, but the Doctor saves them all.

Clara finally decides to continue staying with the Doctor, lying to him about Danny Pink being okay with it. The Doctor seems dubious, but glad of her company.

All-in-all, it was an entertaining episode. A menacing, proper monster and the claustrophobic feel of "classic Doctor Who" coupled with memorable side-characters made for a pleasant change of pace. I even enjoyed the Doctor and Clara interacting (for a change). I'm really liking the seeming-misanthropic callousness of Capaldi's Doctor. Not a bad story. Not bad at all.

Review: "Kill the Moon"

Just saw "Kill the Moon". Spoilers and all that.





















































































Still there? You were warned...












Where to begin? So this wasn't a Moffatt-penned episode and it was really clear from how the story moved along. The Doctor has apparently been a bad influence on student Courtney Woods, who is mainly a teen brat. Woods, who was interesting in "The Caretaker" has devolved in the episode to whiny as the Doctor's obnoxious manner hurts her feelings. Clara drags the Doctor to Courtney to make him apologize. Instead, the Doctor takes Clara and Courtney in the TARDIS to the Moon, where Courtney can become the first woman to walk on the Moon.

And then things go wrong.

The TARDIS instead materializes on a space shuttle that is landing on the Moon with a trio of astronauts and a crapload of nukes.

It's the mid-21st century (some thirty or so years in our future) and the Moon is causing gravity disruptions that are damaging the Earth. When they all land, the Moon has essentially got Earth-normal gravity, weirding out the Doctor.

The astronauts are coming to investigate a Mexican-sponsored mining base that went dark ten years prior. Oh, and probably use the nukes to blow up the Moon, 'cause that's a great idea.

They find dessicated bodies and spider webs about. Before long, a couple of the redshirt astronauts are snacked on by giant spider-like things. The group runs scared until Courtney kills a spider thing with some Windex she has from class.

Turns out the spider thing is actually a giant germ. There's tons of them living in the ever-widening cracks of the disintegrating Moon.

Before long, the Doctor does some crazy exploration and they discover that the Moon is instead a giant egg for some kind of giant alien beast. The spider things are just the bacteria from the egg.

The remaining astronaut, afraid the hatching Moon egg will destroy the Earth, wants to use the nukes to kill the baby alien. Clara and Courtney, outraged, want to save the alien. The Doctor, weirdly, detaches himself from the discussion and jaunts off in the TARDIS, leaving the decision to the three women.

There's a brief moment when Clara communicates with the Earth to ask Earth to vote over saving or killing the alien by turning on or off their lights. The vote becomes immaterial as the astronaut decides to detonate the nukes anyway, only to be stopped by Clara. Then, as the Moon is hatching, the Doctor returns with the TARDIS and takes the three to Earth.

They watch the alien hatch from the disintegrating Moon (no debris survives to damage the Earth). The alien flies away, leaving behind an egg that is a new Moon.

The Doctor takes Courtney home then Clara, well and truly pissed off at the Doctor for abandoning them, finally tells him off and tells him to go away. She then finds comfort in the arms of Danny Pink.

So... yeah. This was an uneven episode, at best. The spider-monsters were moderately cool (and doubtless will give arachniphobes nightmares for years to come) but otherwise, the rest was pretty much trash.

The Doctor's weirdly-inconsistent and misanthropic behavior just feels jarring and wrong, especially when he decides not to take an active hand in saving the baby alien. The character of Courtney, who was entertaining in "The Caretaker" has slid into boring and ridiculous. And Clara remains sort of vague.

The premise - that the Moon is a giant egg - was probably one of the stupidest plots I've seen in ages, though in all fairness it's very much the sort of thing one might see in a "classic" Doctor Who episode from the old days.

I'm pretty disappointed in this season so far.

Review: "The Caretaker"

Sweet FSM! A 12th Doctor ep that actually surprised me by being better than expected! How novel!

Spoilers follow, highlight to see... unless you have a hand-held device. Then just scroll down a bit 'cause I don't know how to hide text other than using this deprecated font tag thing.




























































































Still there? You were warned...






The episode starts with snippets of the double-life Clara is leading by romancing Danny Pink when she's not jaunting off on adventures with the Doctor. She's told the Doctor she's dating someone but not who and she's certainly never told Danny about the Doctor.

Finally a day comes when the Doctor brushes off Clara, claiming he has to go "under cover". In typical Doctor fashion, he explains nothing.

Predictably, he shows up at Coal Hill School (where Clara and Danny are teachers) as the new caretaker: "John Smith" (homage to his alias from the Pertwee days).

The Doctor is tracking a deadly robot-alien killing machine that is in the area for REASONS. It kills a policeman and poses a threat to "the entire planet" in typical show melodrama.

The Doctor behaves as erratically as usual, which offers great comic moments, both from Capaldi's Doctor and from Coleman's Clara as she tries to cope with the Doctor being right in front of her during her work hours... and in front of her new boyfriend.

The Doctor makes his way across the campus of the school, laying "time mines" to deal with the alien. During these encounters, he and Danny Pink meet. The Doctor learns Danny used to be a soldier and flips into his uniquely Capaldi-era overreaction against soldiers (conveniently forgetting his friendship with Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Sergeant Benton, and others from his U.N.I.T. days). In short, the Doctor and Danny don't get along in a contrived prejudice the Doctor holds that's apparently going to be a theme this season.

Danny notes there's something off about the Doctor and that Clara seems to know him.

There's a few sitcom-esque misunderstandings for a bit that quickly get brushed-aside as the Doctor leads the alien back to the school using an invisibility-watch he's created to trap the alien with his "time mines".

Things get complicated when Danny's decided to investigate the Doctor's doings and disrupted the placement of the time mines... the alien nearly kills Danny and is sucked into a time vortex... just not far enough away.

The Doctor and Danny have the normal conflict that happens when the Doctor's plans are disrupted. Danny is shown the TARDIS and told the Doctor is an alien. He leaves to process and the Doctor prepares for the alien, which is due to return in three days due to the time mines being disrupted. Clara, in the meanwhile, tries to balance the two people in her life and get them to get along.

Cue ahead to some serious Clara-Danny conversations that are predictable. Meanwhile, a troublesome young student who has "future Companion" written all over her meets the Doctor and they sort of bond in a surprisingly-good mix of chemistry while the Doctor prepares for the return of the alien killing machine.

The alien returns early, in the middle of parents' night, disrupting Clara and Danny's jobs.

The Doctor has Clara act as bait for the alien killing machine as he prepares a gadget. There's a sudden, unexpected twist to the final confrontation that has Danny swoop in to distract the alien and buy time for the Doctor to finally deactivate the alien robot killing machine.

There's a terse, manly truce between the two men over Clara. The Doctor takes the teenage kid on a jaunt in the TARDIS, causing her to throw up (hilariously). And we get another hint of the over-arcing "paradise" story that is too stupid to mention.


Overall, the story was a tremendous improvement over the ENTIRE previous offerings of the season. The banter was solid and amusing. The dynamic between Capaldi's Doctor and Samuel Anderson's Danny Pink is surprisingly-good for being so contrived. And Clara seems to be settling into her own a bit.

I'm liking that the stories are less-reliant on the magic-wand Sonic Screwdriver and going more into other sci-fi gadgetry of the Doctor's making. The show really needs more random inventions and less of the Sonic Screwdriver being the end-all super-gadget.

The monster was a nice touch, being both weird and threatening.

I could do with less of the relationship stuff. Honestly, these last few seasons have felt like Moffatt thinks he's still writing for "Coupling" instead of a science-fiction program. I've no objections to romance in the show, but I'm old-school in feeling it really shouldn't be a focus.

I still think this weird "Promised Land" over-arcing plot is ridiculous. Otherwise, it felt like an improvement.