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Tag: Nu-Who

Can Every Christmas Be “Last Christmas”?

Review of Last Christmas
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Santa Claus has absolutely no place in Doctor Who. Except when he does.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

I will freely admit that I was among those fans who cringed and gnashed teeth when Santa showed up in the TARDIS at the end of Death in Heaven. The whole idea that this mythical (if well-beloved) person should exist as an entity as real as the Doctor himself within the Whoniverse just gave me hives.

The comedy-rich pre-credits sequence was, thus, painful to watch (though I do love to see Dan Starkey wearing his own face for a change). And on first viewing, Clara’s declaration that she does indeed believe in Santa Claus just adds the cherry to the top of the whole saccharine mess.

After one knows how it all pans out, though… Well, it all fits together nicely.

Note, for starters, that the Doctor never gives Clara an answer when she asks with breathless wonder if being back in the TARDIS with him is real. Combine that with his face-off with Santa before joining her there (“I know what this is. I know what’s happening. And I know what’s at stake.”), and I think it’s hard to argue that he’s not completely aware for the entire episode that they’re all dreaming.

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Fandom in Purgatory

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Review of Death in Heaven
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I’m always wary going into a Moffat finale. His tendency toward emotional manipulation and complex story arcs concluded without full closure generally grate on me. Death in Heaven delivered as expected, with plot holes and saccharine scenes galore, and though it had enough enjoyable content to keep me from hating it entirely, I’m not in a rush to watch it again.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Having resolved one of the major questions of the series at the end of last week’s episode (“who is Missy?”), the story’s focus shifted to ferreting out her Master plan (sorry; couldn’t help myself). I have to admit, it turns out less rubbish than her track record would suggest, but I have problems with the whole “Cyber-pollen” thing on several levels.

To begin, since when has “every tiny particle of a Cyberman contain[ed] the plans to make another Cyberman”? (I believe, Mr. Moffat, you’re thinking of Borg nanoprobes…) Now granted, the idea that they can now assimilate convert dead bodies into new Cybermen is super creepy—kudos on that one—but I’m still scratching my head over some of the logistics.

I mean, we’re told every dead person around the world is undergoing Cyber-conversion, but we’ve also heard that cremation is “pretty much the default these days,” at least in the UK. [Content advisory: if you found Cyber-conversion of the dead personally troubling for any reason, you may want to skip the next four paragraphs.] At what point is there not enough identifiably once-sentient organic matter left? If, for example, someone was cremated and then their ashes scattered, would the Cyberpollen still activate any of that material? Would each speck become another Cyberman, or would the pollen somehow “know” only to activate a single Cyberman per former individual?

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Masterpiece

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Review of Dark Water
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I’ll say this much for Dark Water: it’s certainly getting a reaction from fandom.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Although the story itself had a fair number of twists, I think it’s fair to say that the main thrust of the first part of the Series Eight finale was giving the audience an answer to the most obvious question posed by the series arc: who is Missy?

In addition to the boring way Missy conforms to Moffat’s archetype of one-note “bad gals,” her character has not interested me until now. I’ve become so jaded by Moffat’s convoluted (and often unsatisfactorily resolved) plot arcs, that I’ve stopped even trying to figure out what he’s up to. Missy’s identity was the only puzzle I felt up to taking a stab at, and I have to say I’m pleased that what seemed to me the most likely possibility turned out to be it.

But that reveal… Well, I’ll get to the reveal later. Let’s back up and look at the storyline.

Given the melodramatic feel of the first ten minutes, I can’t help but wonder if poor Danny was added to the cast this year just to provide the setup for this episode. I suppose I should’ve seen it coming, what with all the deaths leading to Missy’s realm all series. Regardless, I have no expectation that he’ll remain completely and irretrievably deceased, given Moffat’s inability to kill anyone, or let anyone suffer real, character-developing consequences.

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Tyger Tyger, Fizzling Out

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Review of In the Forest of the Night
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Based on comments I’ve seen around the Internet and results of this week’s reader poll, In the Forest of the Night is the most universally reviled episode of Series Eight. I’d be lying if I said I thoroughly enjoyed it, but—though I can see a few similarities—I don’t think it comes anywhere close to earning the “Fear Her 2” label some have given it.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Perhaps it’s the heavy reliance on a fairy tale aesthetic that got in folks’ craws here. While it was well publicized that Moffat’s entire take on the Matt Smith era was based in the idea of Doctor Who as fairy tale, Series Eight has taken a sharp turn away from that conceit (much to its benefit, in my opinion). So a story that doesn’t just hint at the fairy tale style (even so blatantly as A Christmas Carol‘s “Peter Pan” theme or The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe‘s riff on the C.S. Lewis classic did) but outright states the connection to one (“Hansel & Gretel”) and makes only vaguely veiled reference to others (“Sleeping Beauty” and “Red Riding Hood”) may be putting fans of the more recent style of storytelling off their feed.

There’s also a similar problem with the plotting here as in Kill the Moon. Taking liberties with what we know of science is part and parcel of science fiction writing, but when things are set here on Earth, basic laws of physics still need to apply (or have a damn good explanation for why they are plausibly different from our daily experience), or the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief will be broken. A few weeks ago, it was gravity and mass conservation. This time, it’s the overnight appearance (and subsequent disappearance) of billions upon billions of trees across the entire planet (including areas that can’t support such life, like, err… the oceans).

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Lie to Me

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

Long since having tired of Moffat’s “the Companion is the main character” mantra, I was doubly irritated that Clara got to “be the Doctor” in Flatline. But when I started deconstructing the episode a little, I decided there was enough going on beneath the action that my irritation soon turned to fascination.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Flatline has turned into a very think-y episode for me. So much of the character development is intertwined. Right off the bat, we get clues to resolve the question at the end of last week’s episode about whether Clara’s change of heart about traveling in the TARDIS really did have Danny’s support (spoiler: nope).

The Doctor learns the truth of the matter by the end, and we can see threads of lies and identity woven all through this story. Clara lies to the Doctor. Clara lies to Danny. Clara “becomes” the Doctor. Clara lies to the people she’s with to emulate the Doctor. Clara gets “welcome[d] to [the Doctor’s] world” when she takes responsibility for solving the problem and trying to keep the bystanders alive.

The Doctor watches Clara play his role. The Doctor hears what he sounds like from the outside. The Doctor recognizes that what Clara did to save the day—the same things he would have done had he been able—had nothing to do with goodness.

Is the Doctor a good man?

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Back on Track

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Review of Mummy on the Orient Express
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I feel like I ought to be head-over-heels about this episode, yet I’m not. And I can’t quite put my finger on why.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

It was extremely atmospheric; both sets and costumes were phenomenal. It had an excellent monster; the mummy was hair-raisingly creepy, and made enough sense to remain satisfying once unveiled. The effects were good, the acting was (as always) good, the soundtrack was very good… So why aren’t I simply giddy?

I think it’s the continuing soap opera.

Although it sets the stage and introduces the mystery of the Foretold, the first ten minutes of the episode is spent on showing how the Doctor’s relationship with Clara is suffering. They’re out for their “last hurrah”—Clara’s version of pity sex, in effect. “I was saying goodbye,” she tells Maisie. “You can’t end on a slammed door.” (Of course, if one feels that way, it’s not really over.)

I find it really interesting that the production team did everything in their power to make it seem like Clara had really cut her ties with the Doctor, and that he was on his own in this adventure until the opening scene. Check out the official site’s page for this episode or the Radio Times poster. Neither one has Jenna Coleman listed as part of the cast. Clara isn’t in any of the clips in the episode trailer. Why were they so dead set on keeping her appearance a secret (it seems to be about the only thing that hasn’t leaked—maybe because no one cared)? It’s not like anyone believed she was gone for good.

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Kill the Mood

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

Here’s where my academic background betrays me.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

I have (generally speaking) enjoyed Series Eight so much that I really wanted to like this one, too. But even before the problematic personal interactions surface late in the episode, I had checked out. The plethora of egregious scientific errors pulled me so far out of the narrative I may as well have been orbiting Earth right along with that egg the moon.

Doctor Who has always played fast and loose with the science in its stories, but science fiction (or even “science fantasy,” if you feel that description more accurately fits Who) storytelling doesn’t work if the writing isn’t self-consistent. You can say, for instance, that the sonic screwdriver can unlock anything except a deadlock seal, and your audience will go with it—as long as you don’t later use the sonic to unlock a deadlock seal. Similarly, if you’re going to set your story on Earth (and its moon), and have the plot hinge on something as well understood as gravity, you’d better not fuck with the basic laws of physics as we all know they work on Earth.

I could roll with it at first. So the moon’s got Earth-normal gravity now; somehow it’s gained mass. Fine. The Doctor even provides a few science-fictiony explanations that are narratively plausible: “gravity bombs, axis alignment systems, planet shellers…” But when you turn around and say it’s because the moon’s really an egg, and the fetus’s growth has added 1.3 billion tons to the moon’s mass—thus completely throwing out conservation of mass, one of the most basic laws of physics—I’m done.

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School Disunion

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

Although I’m confident that in retrospect, I’ll be able to look back at The Caretaker and point out pieces that were key to the series arc, as far as I’m concerned, we could’ve just skipped it entirely.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Superficially, there were certainly some similarities between The Caretaker and School Reunion, the Series Two episode that saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K-9. But while the latter had bittersweet tones of reminiscence and reconciliation, the former sank rapidly into the realm of romcom. While I enjoy a good romcom as much as the next hopeless romantic, that’s not why I watch Doctor Who.

It’s become more and more the norm, since the post-Hiatus era began back in 2005, for occasional stories to center on the Companions’ domestic life. More recently (read: since Moffat took over as showrunner), the Companions don’t even travel with the Doctor full time like they always used to do. That is not necessarily a bad thing per se, but it most definitely yields a different experience for both Companion and viewer.

Think about it this way: the Companion is comparable to a student going off to university for the first time. Does she live in a residence hall or off campus, e.g., with her parents? Dorm life gives one a vastly different college experience than commuting to school every day does. So, then, does living in the TARDIS as one jumps from adventure to adventure instead of being picked up every now and again to go gadding about the universe between grocery shopping and parents’ night.

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The Memory Cheats

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Review of Time Heist
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that Doctor Who would eventually spoof a caper film. It’s too bad they spoiled one of the major twists right in the title.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

For the most part, it worked pretty well. The conceit that the whole team had to go in without any conscious knowledge of the plan (read: convenient amnesia) made for a nice twist on the “this is how it’s going to go down” reveal as the heist unfolded. I even thought it made sense the first time around (though knowing how it all turned out brought up several questions on subsequent viewing).

And far be it from co-writer Moffat (one has to wonder how much of the script had to be manipulated to fit the series arc in order for him to get that billing) to leave well enough alone. Almost from the get-go, we get anvil-on-the-head reminders of loose plot threads when the TARDIS’s phone rings. After all, few people (including Clara) have that number. “And some woman in a shop. We still don’t know who that was.” Oh really? Gosh, I’d completely forgotten that! [End sarcasm.]

At face value, though, it’s another nice romp with no stakes (a common Moffat theme: no one actually dies). I liked the co-conspirators, and was nominally invested in them—enough so that I was initially pissed that Saibra, a young black woman, was almost immediately replaced with the image of and old white dude. Once I realized that was a temporary disguise and not a permanent cast change, I could forgive it, though it did ruin an otherwise awesome “walking into the bank to rob it” cast photo.

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Blah Blah Blah

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

Clara F***ing Oswald


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

I had an even harder time than usual this week making myself go back to re-watch the episode before reviewing it. Once I did, I finally figured out why.

It’s not that I didn’t like Listen—quite the contrary. It’s that I enjoyed it so much that my extreme disappointment with the last three minutes utterly ruined it in retrospect.

Knowing what was coming the second time around, I found I could isolate the ending from the rest, preventing it from tainting my appreciation. Perhaps, like the whole “half human on my mother’s side” thing, I’ll end up just putting my fingers in my ears and chanting “I can’t hear you!” about this, too.

So let’s go back to the beginning, and look at what Moffat’s pulled out of his hat this time. Continuing in his usual vein of finding ordinary things to make extra scary, the Moff has decided this time to prey on the idea that the urge to talk to oneself when alone just means we’re talking to an invisible companion.

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