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Tag: Amy Pond

Nu-View #22: Taking Satisfaction

The Angels Take Manhattan (Series 7, Ep 5; 2012)
Viewed 16 Apr 2018

Doctor/Companion: Eleven, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, River Song
Stars: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston
Preceding Story: The Power of Three (Eleven, Amy, Rory)
Succeeding Story: The Snowmen (Eleven, Clara)

This coming weekend, I get to take my daughters to their first Doctor Who con—in fact, their first con of any sort since becoming fans of the show. As you may recall, the three members of the Paternoster Gang were slated to be the guests of honor, and I was trying to figure out how to give the girls enough background to appreciate said guests.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Since then, Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra)—the first of those guests to have been announced, as I recall—has had to cancel, and my kids have blown through so much Doctor Who that they’ve now seen not just one, but every extant episode in which the Paternoster Gang appears. I’m no longer worrying about their excitement for meeting these actors; now it’s a matter of which Doctor do we watch next (and next, and next…).

Not only are we watching lots of episodes together, but it’s also been a ridiculously long time since the Ladies have gotten together to watch anything other than the most recent series (scheduling can be a real bear). And since a commenter suggested it might be fun to read more about what my daughters think about these new-to-them stories, I thought I’d choose a few during which to record their reactions and reboot the NuViews section of the blog in earnest.

At the time I made that decision, we were in the middle of Series 7A. A Companion departure story seemed like a really good one to capture, so when it was time to watch The Angels Take Manhattan, I got out my clipboard and—with the girls’ permission—started taking notes.

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Confession #120: I Love a Retrospective

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My kids had spring break last week. We spent some lovely time with family members whom we don’t get to see often enough, and returned home with a couple of spare days to laze around the house. The girls and I have been making our way through modern Who together over the past few months, and before we headed out of town, had reached the end of Tennant’s run. Although they were resigned to the change, they were (much like their mom at that stage) not really ready to move on.

However, with several more days of spring break stretched out in front of us, and the Smith era just waiting there invitingly, the girls decided to dive in. They grudgingly agreed to give this not-Tennant guy a try, knowing that eventually we’d roll back around to Capaldi (remember that they started modern Who by watching Series Ten), but they weren’t harboring any high hopes.

We started on Wednesday the 4th with The Eleventh Hour (S05E01, a day late for the eighth anniversary of its first broadcast) and binge-watched nearly two full series, finishing The Girl Who Waited (S06E10) by Sunday the 8th. That’s twenty-four episodes in the span of five days—a serious feat, if I do say so myself. Somewhere in the middle they reached the fourth of the five stages of the Whovian’s regeneration cycle (counting “Regeneration” as the first), though I don’t know that they necessarily rank Eleven as their favorite. Still, they’re on board with him being the Doctor, and they adore Amy, Rory, and River. Result!

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A Farewell to Aims*

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Review of The Angels Take Manhattan
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

It all makes sense now. Well, I say “all”… Clearly, some of it is still utter nonsense, but at least one of the things that’s been bugging me all series is finally obviously and satisfactorily resolved, at least in my head. But I’ll get to that.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Let me start by talking about how this – this – is finally the kind of episode I’ve been looking for all series. At long last, here’s one I can get behind wholeheartedly because there’s so much right with it, I can ignore just about everything that isn’t.

I really liked the gumshoe detective novel feel to the 1938 portion of the episode (aside from “bouncing off 1938” – wtf?), though I didn’t cotton on till the second time through that Mr. Grayle was deliberately feeding the Angels, nor that it wasn’t necessarily Mr. Garner himself typing up the chapter on “The Dying Detective.”

Even better, though, the Angels have gone back to the basics and once again become the kill-you-by-letting-you-live-to-death monsters we fell in love with in Blink. Somehow, the insidious nature of this particular mechanism makes them creepier and more interesting to me than the sheer monster in the dark we saw back in The Time of Angels. It’s made even more horrific by the way both Garner and Rory are confronted with their future selves (loved the age makeup, too!). It’s good to have the “original” Weeping Angels back.

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The Weakness of Plot

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Review of The Power of Three
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

“Uh-oh. It’s Chibnall again.” Despite my more-optimistic-than-any-previous-episode reaction to the next-time trailer for The Power of Three, I couldn’t help wincing a bit and bracing for the worst when I realized it was another entry by one of my all-time least favorite writers. I’m happy to report, though, that I didn’t hate it.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Granted, after some thought and a subsequent viewing, my initial very positive reaction was somewhat dulled as I realized how many plot holes there were, but somehow I was still mostly able to look beyond the letdown-y bits and have fun with it. Because – let’s face it – I’m a sucker for any reference, however oblique, to the Brigadier.

OK, OK… There were other parts to like, too (Rory in his pants (or “underwear,” for us Americans) was clearly among them). In fact, there was a lot I enjoyed. Especially that first time through, I got swept up in the “romp,” willing until the very end to play along with what I was clearly intended to be getting out of it. There was a silly-fun puzzle with the cubes, another fish-out-of-water interlude with the Doctor trying to take the Slow Path with Amy & Rory, more of Rory’s charming dad Brian, a random reference to an attempted Zygon invasion, and the delightful Kate (Lethbridge-) Stewart.

In other words, all the window-dressing was beautiful.

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Respect, If Not Affection

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Review of A Town Called Mercy
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I don’t know what it is about S7/S33, but I’m just not feeling it. Each episode has been beautifully rendered – good acting, good effects, and in this case a gorgeous location – but I have yet to feel a visceral connection with anything going on in the lives of the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Maybe it’s because we’re not really following their collective lives anymore.

Respect Susan's life choices.
Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Whatever is going on, I still liked this episode better than the last one. In Dinos, everything from the title on down was designed for the kiddies, with a few incongruous bits of very adult themes thrown in for good measure. Here’s its rather the opposite. We’ve got a cool-looking cyborg, but that’s the backdrop for a huge ethical exploration of what it means to be a war criminal. As Sue of Adventures with the Wife in Space would say: Not. For. Kids.

Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Mercy more than Dinos, though. Westerns aren’t my favorite; I vastly prefer The Seven Samurai to The Magnificent Seven. Despite that, I really felt like this was a story I could sink my teeth into – the spaghetti Western bit was just set dressing (as opposed to the first time the Doctor was coerced into becoming a lawman in America’s Old West). Really, it could have been set anywhere, anywhen – they just happened to decide to put it in the 1870 U.S. frontier.

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Some Treasures Among the Coprolites

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Review of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
Further warning: Profanity ahead.

I’m going to be up front about this: I didn’t really care for this episode. To start, I’ve never been much of a Chris Chibnall fan. No disrespect meant, but I’ve just never particularly enjoyed his episodes. Mix that with the fact that I thought the whole dinosaurs-on-a-spaceship concept was less than fabulous (not to mention a ridiculously stupid title – I find the Snakes on a Plane reference juvenile and tawdry), and you have a recipe for … well, for a bit of a letdown.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

Before those of you who adored the episode crucify me, let me say I did not hate it unconditionally. There were parts I liked, and I’ll get to those. But having come in with low expectations because of the title and then having my heart sink when I saw Chibnall’s name on the screen, it was bound to be a bumpy ride. And while I could have fun with it from time to time, overall I came away with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Let’s start at the beginning. Surely I can’t be the only one who’s noticed with chagrin how strongly it’s implied lately that the Doctor is not only sexually irresistible to every (usually historically famous) woman he comes across, but that he is sexually attracted to them in turn. I mean, I thought the whole thing with Ten and Queen Elizabeth I was bad – Queen Nefertiti in the opening moments here (and Mata Hari last week) is just over the top. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit I totally ship Ten/Rose (that’s effectively canon), but that happened gradually over many many episodes. It started as a friendship, and built from there, rather than coming sheerly from a basal place of horndoggery like this. So I was irritated right off the top.

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A Trick with the Memory

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Review of Asylum of the Daleks
Warning:  This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Well. It looks like it’s time to revise Confession #23. In truth, though, there’s still much to be seen about where that particular plot twist takes us as we head into the second half of the series. More on that later, though.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2012 BBC

My initial reaction was generally positive. Having managed to avoid any spoilers, I was suitably surprised by all the key revelations, and had no qualms allowing myself to be swept up in the narrative as it galumphed rapidly toward its conclusion. (Can galumphing ever be rapid? I’m going with “yes.”) The Doctor’s questions niggled at the back of my mind, too, but I was content to let them percolate until the denouement made it all clear. I might have been able to puzzle it out on my own given time, but of course the script never gives you that luxury.

One thing that the pacing made unpleasant for me was that the mass of Daleks wasn’t… errr… massive enough. I know it’s weird to say I didn’t think there were enough Daleks (especially given my recent Confession about my feelings towards Daleks), but all the pre-show hype about “every Dalek ever” made it seem like it would be more obvious to non-experts like myself. I did love the list of survivors of various wars in the Intensive Care ward of the asylum, though (and even recognized many of them before looking them up): Spiridon, Kembel, Aridius, Vulcan, Exxilon… So there was at least some verbal mention of diversity. I’ll still have to go back to the cover of my Doctor Who Magazine #447 and review the physical differences so I know for whom to look. Even with my eyes peeled, I was barely able to find the Special Weapons Dalek.

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Confession #22: I’m Ready for the Ponds to Leave

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By now most of you reading will have heard that Amy and Rory are slated to leave the show in Series Seven. The initial announcement, on 15 Dec 2011, stated that their story would be coming to a “tragic” end. Much as I love Rory (and don’t actively hate Amy), I’m ready for them to go. Here’s why.

First, Amy’s tenure on the show is unprecedented in post-Hiatus Who. Until the arrival of Eleven and Amy, there was a change in either Doctor or Companion (or both) at least every series. Though I found it slightly galling at the time, longing for a bit more stability, it kept things “fresh,” and I find that now the TARDIS crew is getting slightly stale. Three series is quite a lot, actually, and that’s borne out by reviewing the pre-Hiatus TARDIS crews, too.

Look at the longest tenure record-holders. According to the TARDIS Index File, we can consider individual episodes (in which Jamie comes out on top, with 113), total stories (Rose, with 26, including the Children in Need special and two “substantial” cameos), or calendar time (Tegan, just shy of 3 years, with Sarah Jane only a couple of weeks behind). Amy is fast approaching these latter two marks.

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The Impossible Series Plot

Review of The Complete Sixth Series
DVD Release Date:  22 Nov 11
Original Air Date:  25 Dec 2010 – 01 Oct 2011
Doctor/Companion:  Eleven, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, River Song
Stars:  Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston
Preceding Story:  The Big Bang (Eleven, Amy, Rory, River)
Succeeding Story:  The Doctor, the Widow & the Wardrobe (Eleven)

Since the blog began with a review of the first episode included in this boxed set (A Christmas Carol), I won’t go into details about my views on each one. As a reminder, though, I’ll list for you the thirteen regular episodes of the series here, with links to the associated reviews:

Look back over that list and take a moment to think about what this series was. There was some great stuff (as The Doctor’s Wife), some stinkers (I’m looking at you, Rebel Flesh/Almost People), and some mixed bags (Good Man gave us both the scintillating Mdme. Vastra and the regrettable “kitchen sink approach to cameos”). Mostly, though, it was about something “inevitable” (the Doctor’s death) that we all knew was never going to happen. I’m not sure why Moffat decided to go that route. As I’ve said before, no one over the age of eight ever believed the Doctor was really and truly dead – or at least that he would really and truly remain so. That takes a heck of a lot of suspense right out the window along with your credibility. So I suppose in the end, it was all a question of how he’d get out of it, rather than of whether.

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Much Ado About Nothing

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Review of The Wedding of River Song
Warning:  This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2011 BBC

While I will admit that I rather enjoyed (most of) the Series Six finale, and there were plenty of moments that felt epic, when you stop and think about it for a while, not much really got resolved. Moffat is a master at smoke-and-mirrors scriptwriting, like last year when the universe got “rebooted,” yet we didn’t learn anything about why the TARDIS blew up in the first place. In fact, we still don’t know the answer to that particular little puzzle.

Now we do have the answers to a couple of big questions: no, the Doctor didn’t really die on that beach (was anyone surprised by that?); and yes, River Song is his wife. Sort of. Actually, that wasn’t clearly answered, either, thank-you-very-much. I can’t imagine the Doctor actually taking that kind of thing seriously (especially since it was clearly used as a device to gain River’s cooperation). Perhaps that’s why they did a handfasting ceremony instead of an actual wedding. Are they really “married”? How binding/lasting is a handfast marriage? How did the Time Lords (does the Doctor) view such an interpersonal contract? Frankly, I was terribly disappointed to see these two get “married”; not only does it go counter to how I think of the Doctor, but it made River’s story overly predictable (“Of course she’s the Doctor’s wife! What else could she possibly be to him?” Yuck.). My own personal canon will look on this as a non-binding contract-of-convenience, and leave it at that.

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