What We Do in the Shadows - Season 5 reaction

I just finished "Exit Interview", the final episode of season 5 of "What We Do in the Shadows".

Damn!

I have to admit, I thought season 4 was weak tea. I dared to wonder if the show was getting into a rut.

Then this season happened.

Potential spoiler if you haven't seen season 4:



















At the end of season 4, Guillermo asked his vampire friend Derek to turn him into a vampire. Season 5 deals with the fallout of that while adding "The Guide" as a regular to the cast.

It's been utter genius. Brilliant, demented, and unpredictable genius. I have to say, I didn't see most of it coming when season 5 hit its finale.

I was a fool to doubt the writers. This show maintains its place as the best out there.

Zha'Ha'Boom (Babylon-5 the Road Home)

Just saw the latest offering from J. Michael Straczynski in the Babylon-5 universe: "Babylon-5: The Road Home".

An animated movie set before the various spin-offs but before the actual ultimate episode, "The Road Home" is a treat for fans of B-5. It's got hilarious dialog, great action (lots of BOOM), and offers greater insight into how the Babylon-5 story is told.

It's whet my appetite for the upcoming CW remake of the series, which I'd fear if anyone other than JMS were behind it.

If you're a fan of Babylon-5, this is a must-see. Just don't say lost in spa[censored due to copyright].

Thoughts on "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"

So I finally got around to watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves the other day.

I'm upset it took me this long to see this film. This is one of the most enjoyable fantasy romps I've watched in ages!

Set in the D&D fantasy world of "Faeun" (sp?), the film centers around the bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine), his barbarian friend Holga Kilgore (best name ever, played by Michelle Rodriguez). Imprisoned after attempting to steal a magic artifact from Edgin's previous employers, the heroic Harpers, the pair escape prison and recruit the dubious sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and shapeshifting druid and Tiefling Doric (Sophia Lillis) to rescue Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) from their treacherous former teammate, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant). And there's of course many shenanigans in the way.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is thematically a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy films. A rag-tag team of quirky misfits unite to stop a terrible evil in the form of the sorceress Sofina (Daisy Head). Along the way, the group befriends the paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page) and jump through hoops to become a quasi-family.

It's a formula and a predictable one, but it's perfectly executed in this film. The casting was rock solid, with every actor really making her or his character distinctive and entertaining. I'm hard-pressed to come up with a favorite, truth-be-told. I'm kind of torn between the humorless and earnest Xenk Yendar and the badass but blunt-spoken Holga Kilgore, though I really loved all the characters. Edgin could have easily been annoying, but Pine's portrayal really walked a good line to keep the character's flaws entertaining but not excessive.

I really hope they make sequels! Good sequels!

Late to the Game - Review: Wonder Woman

Yeah. So I'm going to start off with thoughts on DC heroes. DC Comics (who produce the icons such as Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern) are really solid at producing iconic, memorable, superheroes. Far better than their Marvel competitors, in my humble opinion.

That said:

• DC movies don't hold a candle to the Marvel ones.
• I largely dislike DC heroes.

Mainly, I really dislike Superman and Wonder Woman. I'm down with Batman. Mostly. Aquaman was a childhood favorite, but I mostly think he's a bad joke now. I love Green Lantern in his or her various incarnations, but DC has done a wonderful job muddying that mythology.

In film, the Marvel movies are just more fun than the DC ones. The first two Nolan-directed Batman films were pretty solid. The third was weak, but that's pretty much that. I've seen bits of the Superman films on flights. Enough to personally find them to be crap and not be inspired to finish them. The Green Lantern movie was... yeah... moving on. Batman vs Superman was a crime against cinema. I couldn't get through it far enough to see Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman be introduced.

So imagine my surprise when all the reviews (and several friends) praised the Wonder Woman film.

So today I finally saw it.

Damn that movie was awesome!

Wonder Woman pressed all the right buttons as a film. Solid origin story. Vulnerable-yet-badass hero (heroine?). Solid supporting cast. Good villain. Original setting (World War I). Solid feel. Great mix of humor and action.

Seriously. When they can produce films like this, it really makes me wonder what the fuck Warner Brothers was smoking for the Superman and Superman vs Batman films.

Except for a childhood crush on Lynda Carter's '70's Wonder Woman (from the titular TV series), I've never really cared for Wonder Woman. She's always seemed a bit silly. She flies an invisible jet? She has some kind of magical lasso? She's got a vague background-slash-origin that varies a lot. She's always seemed a bit of a ridiculous character to me.

No longer. This film knocked all the other DC heroes to the wayside and put a tiara of badassness on the brow of a dark-haired immortal heroine who makes Bruce Wayne look like a ridiculous tool and Clark Kent/Kal-El look just plain childish and silly. A crazy man who dresses like a bat and an alien who likes to wear under-roos can't compete with a goddess.

Wonder Woman did a brilliant job defining the character of Diana in her role as a child among seemingly-immortal Amazons. It established a solid mythology and did a great job setting up the antagonist of Ares. Casting Gal Gadot was fantastic. She was the perfect blend of badass while seemingly naive and a bit emotionally-vulnerable. Chris Pine's Steve Trevor was far better than I expected. The rest of the cast of characters were just icing on the cake. And setting the film in WWI was inspired genius!

Gorgeous and clever movie. It only slightly takes a back seat to Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 in my book. But just slightly.

I'm almost tempted to give the Justice League movie a chance. Almost.

Thoughts on "The Force Awakens"

I can't stop myself. Must speculate ramble incoherently in a drunken way.





Spoilers. Be warned.




















































Still there? Foolish Jedi. The Spoiler Side is stronger.

















Okay, so The Force Awakens takes place a good three decades after the events of Return of the Jedi in which Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antillies (sp?), and a bunch of teddy-bear aliens defeated the Empire with a little help from Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Chewbacca. Oh, and Luke was there, too. He was busy setting out daddy issues or something.

In the aftermath, Han and Leia got busy and, in due course, had a rugrat they named Ben.

Being the son of Leia and grandson of Anakin, little Ben was strong in the Force. When Luke decided to rebuild the Jedi Order (hopefully discarding the lies and garbage Yoda and Obi-Wan taught him), he took Ben into the school to teach him.

Then everything went wrong.

First off: how the hell did Luke screw that up? How did Supreme Leader Snape (Snorkel, Snoop-Dog... I can never remember his name) weasel his way into Luke's Jedi school and lure impressionable young Ben over to the Dark Side? And what the hell are the "Knights of Ren"?

io9 has a bunch of articles discussing backstory on all this. I'm disinclined to pay too much attention to backstory not actually covered in the movie.

My reasons are simple: if you need backstory from other media to understand what's going on in a movie, that's lazy storytelling.

So anyway, we find out that Ben Solo is now going by the inexplicable name of Kylo Ren (following in the Supreme Leader's footsteps of having an unimpressive-sounding villain name). He's got a mask to hide his coiffed hair and the anger-control issues of a demented fifteen-year-old boy.

Supreme Leader Snark's First Order (nice name) builds yet another Death Star (because the first two were obvious successes), only this one is built out of a planet and eats suns to blow up planets on the other end of the galaxy using hand-wavy Star Wars science.

All said, not a terrible plan.

Supreme Leader Sniffles and Kylo Ren are also looking for Luke who has gone into hiding after his school got wiped out.

My bad. Clearly, Luke learned his lessons from Yoda on how to be a whiny quitter instead of rolling with the punches and actually fighting the bad guys.

Apparently "Jedi" is a Galactic term for "weak-ass whiny punk".

For some reason, Supreme Leader Snotty is actually afraid of Luke and wants to find him. And there's a map.

Okay, wait. Why is there a map? And in a society with faster-than-light travel, why does that map have multiple points on it? Wouldn't it be better simply to have destination coordinates? As I understand it, hyperdrive can take you from where you are to virtually anywhere, given arbitrary fuel factors and what not.

*Shakes head*

Nevermind.

Meanwhile, Finn (aka "FN-blah-blah-blah") showing actual guts, quits his job as a janitor stormtrooper (seriously, they have the black guy working in sanitation in the First Order? WTF?). He busts out a rebel resistance pilot and they steal a TIE and the fun begins.

The pilot, Poe, winds up giving Finn his name and they bond in what would make an awesome buddy movie.

Seriously, I'd watch the Adventures of Finn and Poe as they steal First Order spaceships and fuck up the bad guys. I think that would be tight.

Stuff goes on. Finn and Poe are separated. Then Finn meets Rey.

Okay, so Rey is becoming a lightning rod out there. There's accusations that she's a "Mary Sue". I don't buy it. Let's discount for a moment any ancestry issues we're working out with her. She was abandoned on a shithole planet and raised having to fend for herself. It's made her a tough fighter and given her a broad skill set. Add to that the fact that she's clearly strong in the Force without her brain being polluted by Jedi bullshit dogma.

So far she's the biggest badass in the show aside from Finn, who may or may not have access to the Force in any significant way.

They meet, bond, and steal the Millennium Falcon (what a coincidence!) then wind up embroiled in the crazy.

Rey's sharp but seems to think the family who abandoned her to slowly starve to death on a crappy junkyard planet will come back.

Issues.

She's got a weird connection to Luke's lightsaber (somehow recovered from Bespin... also a weird coincidence). She's sufficiently badass that she is able to rescue herself from a cell using a Jedi mind-trick (without the hand wave). She can stop Kylo Ren's mind-probe powers. And she can pick up lightsaber skills pretty quick.

Okay, that sounds like an argument in-favor of the Mary Sue claim (despite the fact that "Mary Sue" can't possibly apply here, but I digress).

I think Rey's prowess isn't unreasonable. Luke had weird visions under weirder circumstances as did Anakin before him. Rey and Finn's ability to fight Kylo Ren (a trained Force user) on Starkiller Base seems ridiculous until you remember Kylo Ren had a hole in him from Chewbacca's bowcaster. And he was an emo, whiny punk.

Finn, a trained soldier, handled himself fine until Kylo remembered he has Force powers.

When Rey steps in, she's reasonably-fresh and has strong Force powers.

And then there's the parentage argument.

So it's implied (vaguely) that Rey may be Luke's daughter. Whether or not Luke adopted the whole "Jedi don't marry" thing, he still could have shacked up with someone and had a kid. As a child, Rey could have witnessed Daddy Luke lightsaber fighting and remembered some of that subconsciously.

Okay, that's a stretch, but we're talking about superpowered warrior monks. It's no weirder than the rest of the premises of the film.

So is Rey Luke's daughter? I honestly don't know. I know Abrams likes to tease and taunt with mysteries. I know Star Wars is supposed to be following the Skywalker family. Seems logical Rey is Luke's kid. A lot of that really depends on who her mother is.

Rey was abandoned on Jakku, a desert shithole junkyard where she lived a pretty terrible life.

If Luke is her father, seems he's going to be on the hook for neglect charges and therapy bills.

But Luke may not have known Rey was on Jakku. It's possible Rey's mysterious mom dropped her on Jakku, possibly being pursued. She may have intended to come back and met an untimely end.

Or it's a plot hole that will never be filled. Whatever.

Rey, when hearing Luke's name, seems to think he's a legend. She could have been faking, but if she's Luke's daughter, why react at all? Why just not shrug off the name. Seemed weird. It's possible Rey is Luke's kid but she was separated from him before she ever learned he had a name beyond "Daddy".

Seems like she was pretty young. I'm just sayin'.

If Rey is indeed offspring of Luke, it seems like old Ben Solo/Kylo Ren didn't inherit any ability to sense his cousins in the Force pool of powers. Leia may have. She and Rey hug when they first meet, which is weird. But that could also just be bad writing.

I'm nitpicking on these points because they bug me, of course. I still enjoyed the film immensely, but I really hope the writers have satisfactory answers to questions instead of Abrams' usual hand-wavy bullshit.

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: "Queen of Fire" by Anthony Ryan

Some time back I got my hands on a copy of "Blood Song" by Anthony Ryan. The tale of Vaelin Al Sorna, a young warrior of the Faith born with the mystical Blood Song in his mind, was one I found truly engaging. I must have re-read that story a dozen times before the sequel "Tower Lord" came out.

I can't say what exactly resonated with my interests so much in Vaelin's story. The intriguing split points-of-view were clever - one in present tense as an account by a historian and one in past tense told from Vaelin's perspective.

Whatever it was, it really worked for me.

"Tower Lord" was enjoyable, but different. In the second book, Ryan opted to go with more points-of-view, giving us not only Vaelin Al Sorna's view, but that of young Reva, a would-be assassin, that of Frentis, a fellow warrior of the Faith and friend of Vaelin's, and that of the Princess Lyrna, who would become Queen of the Unified Realm.

"Tower Lord" was a much bleaker book and took the narrative, and the characters, to a much darker place. It also developed Vaelin's Blood Song ability to show just how dangerous Vaelin could be.

Then it ended on a dire cliffhanger.

"Queen of Fire" concludes the "Raven's Shadow" trilogy and the narrative of the battle against the evil being known as "The Ally". In that respect, I have to say I was glad to get a bit of closure but I still found the book a disappointment.

"Queen of Fire" lacked the engaging narrative I found appealing in "Blood Song" and the urgent thrill I found in "Tower Lord". It felt rushed and choppy in many parts. It built up the vile evil of the Volarian Empire and doesn't spare details of just how horrific the Volarians and the touch of the Ally can be, but it almost feels like it dwells a bit too long on those bits while glossing over other details from the previous books.

There were questions I have to say I didn't find answers for. How did One-Eye get his dark powers in "Blood Song"? Was he a tool of the Ally? That was always a bit ambiguous. What happened to (spoiler)Sister Sherin? Where the hell did the romance with (spoiler)Dahrena come from? Why didn't (spoiler) the mason from book one return?

Honestly, "Queen of Fire" felt rushed and a bit jarring. Didn't feel like a proper sequel to the previous two books but rather a hasty bow to tie up a plot that got a little too complex.

I'm kinda bummed. I was really looking forward to this book.

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.

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.

Review "Time Heist"

"Time Heist".

Okay, that was a pretty good episode.

Spoilers follow, blah-blah-blah.












































































































Still there? You were warned...

















Clara's getting spiffed-up for a date while the Doctor lingers around in a vaguely creepy manner. There's a phone call from the TARDIS and... bam. Next thing everyone knows, the Doctor and Clara are in a room with two other people - Psi (a cyborg) and Saibra (a shapeshifter). Everyone's had their memories voluntarily wiped up to a certain point by memory worms.

A mysterious figure known only as "The Architect" explains in a recording that their little quasi-Ocean's Seven group is to rob the most secure bank in the galaxy.

What follows is a classic parody of a "heist film", complete with the stylized cut-outs and poses.

There's lots of timey-whimey stuff that makes one ask how the Architect got all kinds of little tools in place for the robbers. And opposing them are the bank staff, including a creature known as "the Teller" which can not only read minds, but melt brains (and skulls, apparently).

There's a few moments to reveal what Psi and Saibra want in a few scenes. Psi, a hacker, deleted all memories of his family and loved ones to save them when he was arrested. He wants those memories back. Saibra takes the form of anyone she touches, making physical relations nearly impossible. She wants a cure for her mutant powers.

There's sudden reversals in which it seems Saibra is killed by a "fail-safe" left by the Architect. Psi follows not too long after.

Then all is revealed as the Doctor and Clara confront the bank owner. It turns out the bank owner has her own clones operating the bank and has the mate of the Teller captive in order to get the Teller's service. The two beings are the last of their kind.

It turns out - predictably - that the Doctor is "the Architect". He gives the bank owner a way to contact him for when she's old and regretting all the terrible things she's done. She contacts him as he's dying, starting the chain of events that becomes the episode.

All in all, it was a fun romp. The story felt rushed and cramped in parts, but it was tons better than the naval-gazing nonsense from "Listen".

Review: "Listen"

Aaaand we're back to Steven Moffat's writing for the latest episode of "Doctor Who".


Spoilers, masked with a font tag... blah blah blah.







































































Still there? Okay, you were warned...


The episode starts with the Doctor musing about some kind of hypothetical creature that has evolved a perfect method for hiding. He's seeming a bit manic, though there's a bit of creepy stuff in the TARDIS that lends credence to the idea that the Doctor is not actually alone.

Cue Clara having her date with Danny (aka Rupert) Pink, her fellow teacher. The date goes poorly. There is much mutual head-banging over both Clara and Danny having classic date awkwardness issues. Blah-blah-blah.

The Doctor grabs Clara from her apartment and has her plug into the TARDIS mainframe for... um... reasons... so they can go to a point in her timeline when she had a weird dream about something being under the bed in order for the Doctor to pursue his bug hunt.

Clara gets a call while plugged into the TARDIS, causing the TARDIS to go to Danny Pink's childhood where she interacts with the young Rupert Pink (he changes his name later) in a boy's home.

Turns out there is something creepy going on. Clara and the young Rupert encounter a thing on Rupert's bed that hides under a blanket. The Doctor intervenes and he, Clara, and Rupert convince the never-seen thing that it can go away. It leaves, both the room and the story.

Clara has the Doctor take her to the tail end of her date disaster where she tries to reconnect with the adult-Rupert-now-called-Danny, but makes a slip by calling him "Rupert" when she's not supposed to know his name.

The date ends badly again. A guy in a spacesuit then comes along and lures Clara back into the TARDIS.

Turns out the guy in the spacesuit - who looks like Danny/Rupert is a descendant of Danny (and probably Clara) who blew a time-travel experiment and wound up at the end of the Universe.

The Doctor takes them to the end of the Universe so descendent-boy can pack. The Doctor and Clara then try to see if there's really something hiding at the end of the Universe that may be his mysterious hidden alien.

It's ambiguous if there ever is an alien. The Doctor gets knocked out by a hull-breach and Clara plugs into the TARDIS again to flee... this time accidentally to the Doctor's childhood where she gives him cloying words of wisdom against being afraid of the dark.

Everyone goes home to their respective timelines, Clara and Danny get busy snogging. The Doctor gets no closure. No sign is ever seen of these hidden aliens again or why anyone even needs to care about them.

Okay, that should take care of the spoilery-bits.

The episode was classic Moffat: great mood and ambiance with fantastic setup, then utterly falls short on delivery. The plot details are all about a cool gimmick with no proper delivery or attention to continuity or details. Mix in some cloying, overly-sentimental and navel-gazing nonsense and there's your story.

Another bit of cotton candy. He gets points for the awesome mood but the weak, disjointed, incoherent story kind of spoiled it for me.

Why is it so hard to write a goddamn story?

Review: "Robot of Sherwood"

FINALLY!

A goddamn "Doctor Who" episode that didn't feel as though it was written by a deranged five-year-old on acid.

So, standard deal. I'm going to offer my opinions and they'll contain spoilers. I'll try to obscure them with that font tag, but... well... it may not work, so be warned.




























































































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"Robot of Sherwood" is written by the ever-brilliant Mark Gatiss. Plot summary:

The TARDIS is in the vortex. The Doctor offers Clara the choice of their next destination as he works away writing obscure stuff on a chalkboard and licking food off a spoon. Clara says she wants to meet Robin Hood.

The Doctor assures Clara that Robin Hood is a myth, but takes her to Sherwood Forest all the same to prove he's not real.

And that's when they meet Robin Hood.

The Doctor duels Robin Hood in a somewhat ludicrous battle with Robin using a sword and the Doctor using a spoon. The Doctor mostly wins, establishing animosity between the Time Lord and the outlaw.

The Doctor and Clara go to meet the Merry Men and learn of the whole Sheriff of Nottingham deal.

The Doctor is convinced Robin Hood and his Merry Men are not real, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. The one thing that the Doctor finds to be off is the weather. The sun is shining and the forest green in Autumn.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff has taken away a damsel in distress with faceless knights at his beck and call. His interest is in gathering slave labor and gold.

Robin Hood intends to interrupt the legendary archery contest. Clara warns him it is a trap but he claims to already know and intend to interrupt all the same.

The archery contest goes down as expected, though the Doctor trumps it by his own fancy archery seeming to be a match for Robin Hood. The Sheriff's guards come to arrest everyone and in a battle, one has its arm cut off revealing the Sheriff's men to be robots with laser-beams that shoot out of their faces.

And then the fun begins.

The Doctor, Clara, and Robin Hood are captured. After some bickering in a cell, Clara is taken to the Sheriff where she learns that the robots come from a crashed spacecraft and they elicited the Sheriff's aid. The Sheriff gathers gold to help them repair their ship and they will help the Sheriff conquer the world.

The Doctor and Robin, in the meantime, argue and bicker endlessly (and stupidly). They finally cooperate to escape and stumble across the control center for the spaceship. Turns out the Sheriff's castle is the spaceship in disguise. The spaceship and its robot crew is going to "the Promised Land" (the strange and somewhat stupid story-arc for this season) and they crashed on Earth.

The Doctor determines that the ship is too badly damaged. If it tries to take off, the explosion will obliterate half of England.

Another fight. Robin Hood escapes with Clara. The Doctor is captured by the Sheriff.

Robin interrogates Clara on what she knows of Robin Hood from history. The Doctor, in the meantime meets up with the girl captured earlier in the episode and brings about a revolt of the captives, using plates and trays to reflect the robot lasers and destroy most of the robots.

Robin and Clara then arrive and it's all Robin vs. the Sheriff. Robin wins, the Sheriff falls into a vat of gold (ouch). They flee the launching spaceship. The ship takes off but can't get into orbit. The Doctor, a wounded Robin Hood, and Clara use the golden arrow won from the archery contest to shoot gold into the spaceship (in fairness, that was probably the stupidest part of this whole story).

The spaceship gets into orbit and blows up.

The Doctor and Clara leave. Robin learns he is not considered a historical figure. He seems cool with it.

The TARDIS fades away and the saved damsel-in-distress appears behind it. Turns out she's Maid Marion, who Robin has been looking for but somehow unable to find. Happy kissing reunion. Good times.



So, yeah. Gatiss wrote an episode that was silly but felt more true to classic "Doctor Who" than anything I've seen in a good, long time. Classic villains, robots, the Doctor having to resort to tricks rather than exclusively using the sonic screwdriver, and not too much focus on the Doctor.

There were parts I found disappointing: I wasn't keen on how ridiculously-contrary the Doctor was. I enjoyed him being dark and crotchety, but that got old fast.


Overall, pretty entertaining episode. Best one of the season. I hope Gatiss writes many more.

Review: "Deep Breath"

So... yeah. Series Eight of "Doctor Who" started today.

Peter Capaldi's premier episode was written by Steven Moffatt.

Aaaaaand... reactions that follow are going to be just loaded with spoilers and opinions. I shall endeavor to conceal all the spoilers behind obscuring text (highlight to read), but do keep in mind this doesn't do jack on handhelds, so...




















































Still there? Let's see if my trick works.








The episode opens with a T-Rex in Victorian London. We get our obligatory disoriented-new-Doctor schtick done by Capaldi and we get our Madam Vastra and the gang. There's a series of spontaneous human combustion events going on instigated by a weird, clockwork man for reasons.

The Doctor, now seeming to take on a rather sinister new personality, goes about his standard, random and chaotic investigations. In the meantime, Clara is having the standard female companion reaction to a new Doctor. She's freaking out. In fairness, the Doctor is giving her some reasons to freak out.

Turns out the clockwork man is a homicidal robot-cyborg-thing using humans as spare parts to build giant balloons and rebuild itself as a human-ish being. For... um... reasons.

Yeah.

So Moffatt tried his best to go for a nice, dark villain. He got somewhere in the neighborhood but the entire episode felt a bit navel-gazing with his references to the "Girl in the Fireplace". The writing seemed too proud of the past reference, leaving the villain feeling a bit flat.

Capaldi and Coleman did great in their roles. The new 12th (13th?) Doctor's incarnation felt a bit choppy, but I credit that to first episode jitters. Capaldi has a lot of promise as an intriguing future Doctor.

Certainly Moffatt gives Capaldi's Doctor a decidedly sinister air. He's got more of a dangerous feel than Hurt's "War Doctor" ever had. And he's certainly willing to take extreme measures.

I can't say I'm warming to Clara. I like Jenna Coleman as an actress and I think the only reason I can stomach the character of Clara at all is due to Coleman giving her some sort of charm, but the 21st Century "version" of Clara has always sort of left me cold. In this episode, she went from sort of a zero to being annoyingly-whiny. To her credit, she didn't consistently stay whiny. There was good bits when the character was convincingly scared.

Still, the episode felt a bit choppy. The ending was vaguely unsatisfying and the Vastra gang inclusion felt like a pandering afterthought.

I did like the TARDIS interior redesign.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the odd character added at the end of the episode.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Sherlocked Out

Saw S03E03 of "Sherlock" known as "His Last Vow".

So... yeah. Is it spoilery to just generally whine about how stories are told without getting into specifics?

I'm honestly not sure.

Okay, I'm going to do a crapload of carriage returns. Keep reading if you're unconcerned about vaguely-worded spoilery things.









































































Still there? Okay.


So this entire season of "Sherlock" hasn't really been about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson solving crimes. It's been more about a bit of naval gazing fanfic mixed in with exploration of the Sherlock-Watson "bromance". The antagonists were, at best, weak tea. Only "The Sign of Three" (S03E02) had any mysteries in it worth mentioning and, while those were clever, they got short shift to the main story of the wedding of John and Mary.

I liked the addition of Amanda Abbingston (the spouse/partner of Martin Freeman) as Mary Watson, but the so-called revelation in "His Last Vow" was ridiculous and cliche. The whole plot of "His Last Vow" lacked any real mystery at all and the antagonist was a serious let-down.

Given that the writers only produce three episodes a season, I'd had higher hopes for series three of "Sherlock". I guess Moffat and Gatiss are tapped out. Sad, given the rich material to draw from, but there you have it.

A lack of

I missed the premiere of "Intelligence", the "Chuck" knock-off that CBS has decided to air. So I decided to stream the pilot from the CBS site last night, mainly out of curiosity.

It stars the guy who played "Sawyer" from "Lost". While any association with "Lost" generally brings up a rage surpassed only by "Battlestar Galactica", I did enjoy several of the cast and Sawyer was a favorite character, mostly for his being such an unabashed jackass.

So, "Intelligence". Yeah. Um... It really wasn't all that good. In a nutshell: super-spy Sawyer (I can't even be bothered to look up the names of any of the characters) has a chip in his head that lets him tap into computers via wireless signals. So he's sort of the organic opposite of the Machine from "Person of Interest". He's also kind of an idiot and starts the pilot with a hopelessly contrived backstory of a "is she or isn't she?" terrorist wife who is MIA and a weird father-son relationship with the scientist who put the chip in his head.

The writers cut to the normal mid-season story quickly by having said scientist kidnapped in the beginning of the episode and stilted exposition follow.

Cyber-Sawyer is partnered with a tough-but-generically-pretty secret service woman to protect him (and mainly the chip in his head). Meanwhile, the bad guys are doing something predictable that I'll refrain from spoiling. Needless to say, we get a recurring villain or two from the get-go that fit cliches I thought went out-of-fashion some time back.

What are writers going to use as bad guys when North Korea collapses and China's economy is too enmeshed with ours to risk offending their audience? Oh, I think that spoiled something. My bad.

The pilot was disappointing and the cast was lackluster at best. The story was weak tea and the show had a writing quality that matches "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (that is not a compliment). I'm sure it'll do fantastically in ratings.

Navel maneuvers

I saw the first ep of series three of "Sherlock" last night.

I'm not going to review it in any specific detail in this post.

I am going to rant a bit. It may cross into something that might vaguely be considered spoilerish. Perhaps.

I watched the episode with eager anticipation. I love "Sherlock". Moffatt and Mark Gatis have done a fantastic job with the re-imagined show. The episode from season two with the Triads was weak, but the rest of the five episodes were entertaining, if not actually fantastic.

I enjoyed "The Empty Hearse" (the opener for series three) but there was just something that bugged me.

It took me about thirty minutes of watching until it really sank it. It's a lot of what has bugged me about Moffatt's tenure on "Dr. Who" as well as Russell T. Davies' tenure on "Dr. Who".

There's this weird mixture of excessive navel-gazing, patting one's self on the back, and vague homage coupled with masturbatory slash-fic-ing that Davies, Moffatt, and Gatiss have a tendency to do that's really starting to get to me.

Until the most recent ep of "Sherlock", I never got that vibe from Gatiss. He seemed to have his shit together and keep stuff in perspective. I've generally enjoyed Gatiss's offerings in "Dr. Who". They haven't knocked my socks off, but they've been solid enough, especially when compared with the shockingly-weak stuff Moffatt has produced.

Gatiss is credited for "The Empty Hearse" and I gotta say, the ep felt more like something Moffatt whacked-off onto a page.

All three of these men seem determined to take their childhood heroes and sexualize them rather than focus on writing the characters having adventures in the manner in which they're intended.

Example: RTD brings back "Dr. Who" in a modern, brilliant way. Then he gets super-involved in adding sexual chemistry signals followed by tons of snogging and odd affair-like scenarios between the Doctor and his various female companions, most of whom act embarrassingly-clingy and besotted.

Moffatt and Gatiss had fun with exploring homoerotic overtones with "Sherlock" and that was entertaining, but the story of Sherlock Holmes isn't about a sexual dynamic, homosexual or not. It's about solving mysteries. When the focus shifts from being a detective to slapstick and sexual innuendo as the dominant themes, you're no longer writing Sherlock Holmes. You're writing slashfic and there's a place for that: the Internet.

I really wish the new crop of brainiacs would dial down their masturbatory fantasies by a factor of a million and focus instead on just doing good stories.

Moffatt proved with "Blink" and other tales that he can pen fantastic stuff for "Dr. Who". Gatiss similarly has done solid work. Write slashfic on your own time, guys. Post it to a newsboard. Sell it as an ebook on Amazon. Folks will buy it up and feel overjoyed. Don't dilute the main programs in that fashion. It's childish.

Review: The Time of the Doctor

So I saw it.

The final Matt Smith episode, "The Time of the Doctor" has aired and I have personal reactions. Spoilers follow, so be warned. I'll hide it under a deprecated font tag, which will do exactly jack for handheld devices, but I lack technical skill to hide spoilers properly and am too lazy to research so... here we go.



























































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"The Time of the Doctor" starts with Smith's Doctor in orbit around a planet. He has a damaged Cyberman's head that he's talking to in the TARDIS while a fleet of every alien ever is answering a strange, untranslatable message from the forcefield-encased planet below.

Meanwhile, Clara is having Christmas dinner and has the Doctor drop by as her faux-boyfriend in an entirely immaterial side-plot. That gets Clara on-board the TARDIS when the Doctor learns the message is transmitting that the mysterious planet below claims to be Gallifrey. It isn't.

The story then spins off into the normal navel-gazing incoherent nonsense that Moffatt usually pens. The planet is protected by the once-noted Papal Mainframe under the control of some woman the Doctor knew from before. The Doctor tricks the Papal whatsits to letting him go down to the planet where he finds another crack in time from Series Five that leads to Gallifrey beyond time-and-space. There's a "truth field" in place to make people speak the truth. The Doctor is being asked "Doctor Who" under the arbitrary logic that the answer will call back the Time Lords. Nobody in orbit wants that 'cause they think it will start another time war (huh?) so the Papal whosit woman starts the Silence movement to stop the Doctor. The Doctor lingers on the planet in a town called Christmas where... um... you know, don't dwell on the town. It's just meaningless and random. The planet is named Trenzalore and this is where the final battle is going down.

The Doctor sends the TARDIS to take Clara home, but Clara hangs on the TARDIS and somehow comes back to Trenzalore only centuries have passed and the Doctor has started to age. Everyone and their cousins up in orbit is fighting and some of the Papal people have gone back in time to do the whole Silence mystery thing that was the plot of series five. Turns out those Silence wonks? Gene-engineered confessors. Yeah... okay.

The plot takes weirder turns and the Doctor with the Papal people are fighting everyone to stop them from... um... I dunno. Killing the Doctor so he can't call back the Time Lords? That's only one of many plot points that wind up making no sense at all.

In the end, the Doctor is dying of old age. Through very creative math, it turns out the Doctor is on his last incarnation, having had his twelve regenerations. Clara talks the Time Lords from beyond into helping somehow and they manage to send him a new life-cycle while opening and closing the time crack at will. So the Doctor's new regeneration blows up the Daleks (the only enemies standing) and turns him into the... um... next Doctor? The 14th incarnation or 13th regeneration or whatever.

Plot points that make absolutely no sense at all:
- How was the Papal Mainframe able to stop the TARDIS from doing anything? Isn't Gallifreyan technology more advanced than everyone else?
- How did the Silence movement blow up the TARDIS in series five? That was never, ever addressed.
- Really? That regeneration-into-the-hand thing is going to count? Seriously? Fuck you guys.
- So if the Time Lords are now not-bad (still an open question) why would letting them return be a bad thing? I mean, everyone seems okay with the Daleks hanging around and they're homicidal to the extreme. What the hell?
- Why the hell do the Time Lords need the Doctor's "real name" to return? Why not just have the Doctor use the TARDIS to respond?
- If the Time Lords can get through the crack, why not send an expedition from their side using their substantial technology? I mean... seriously?
- If Clara was able to get them to help the Doctor, it seems the Time Lords got their reply that all was well. If they could move the time crack (and they clearly could) why not just pop into reality at a different point? Why fuck around at Trenzalore?

So, yeah. It was an entertaining episode, I suppose, but it was incoherent nonsense. Moffatt should hand off the reins to someone with a better sense of details and focus on "Sherlock". My two cents.