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Tag: Twelve

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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Heavy Meta

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

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Doctor Who episode with such strong metatextual themes. From the moment the Doctor tells Clara that “old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned storybooks” and she asks, “What about you?” the ideas of story and reality overlap in ever thicker layers.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Nor is the episode afraid to call back to the pre-Hiatus era—and skillfully enough not to make new fans wonder WTF is going on, I’d wager. Twelve certainly channeled his inner Three, first with reference to a miniscope and then with a carefully timed “Hai!” to chop Robin’s sword from his hand at the archery tournament.

Even without any of that context, though, Robot of Sherwood serves as an important milestone in the Twelfth Doctor’s tenure: his first “romp.”

Writer Mark Gatiss is on top form here. It’s certainly my favorite from him since his inaugural outing in The Unquiet Dead. The fact that Clara an active role in sorting out what the Sheriff’s plan is, having proved herself the ringleader through the simple act of keeping her yap shut, is refreshing (though I’m not sure that making the Doctor into a petulant twit set on one-upmanship is a great trade-off). Clara and Twelve are settling into a more comfortable relationship, and she’s back to happily giving him what-for when he needs it (“Can you explain without using the word ‘sonic screwdriver’?”).

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A Good Dalek (Episode)

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

If you’d told me a month ago that one of the episodes of this series would be The Invisible Enemy meets Dalek, I’d have been, shall we say, dubious at best. Yet that’s what we got in Into the Dalek, and I have to say I think it worked.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

The very fact that I’m willing to mention this episode in the same breath with Dalek, a personal favorite from the post-Hiatus era, tells you something about how much I enjoyed it. Granted, is was not completely flawless (though to be honest, I doubt such a beast exists), but it was, for me, certainly one of the best since Moffat took over as showrunner.

Yet while the main conceit of the episode—literally getting inside a Dalek’s head—is new and therefore interesting, it was not, in fact, the driving force of the story. Instead, it’s a character piece.

Most of the character development is for our new Doctor. We the audience are still getting to know him (as is Clara and, let’s be honest, he is himself), so this is important stuff for us to see. And I was fascinated to realize both that I like Twelve less than I did in his debut, and that I find him an infinitely more interesting character than most of his predecessors. This distinction is important to me, so let me put it another way to be sure I’m making myself clear: this Doctor is not nice, but I adore him.

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Exhale

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

The new Doctor has officially arrived, and I can release the anticipatory breath. My biggest fear was that Capaldi would not live up to all my expectations. That one, at least, I can put to rest.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

As for the remainder of the episode… Well, let’s just say the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It’s a series opener, so we all knew before the list of titles, writers, and directors was released that this was going to be a Moffat story. I had my fingers crossed, but it came out true to form. On my first viewing, I really enjoyed it; certain details niggled at me, but I was able to ignore them and enjoy the ride. On second and later viewings, the flaws started to do more than niggle, and it became ever more difficult to enjoy certain scenes. That, for me, is the classic Moffat signature.

Before I go any further, let me be clear: I thought Capaldi’s Twelve was bloody brilliant. I love him already. He was everything I hoped for (with the possible exception of some overly friendly chatting up of a lonely female T. rex), and I can’t wait to see more of him.

Clara, however, was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, she really stepped up her game, executing a very Doctor-ly bluff-calling when set against the Half-Face Man (more on that later) and standing up to Vastra. On the other, she—the Impossible Girl, who had saved the Doctor time and again in his many incarnations—couldn’t get over the fact that he wasn’t the same man anymore. On the whole, I think she came out net positive for me (her improvements outweighing the backsliding), and I’m hoping she continues to grow into a character I could miss.

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Confession #46: I’m Still Hopeful About Capaldi

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Last week the world got its first glimpse of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor at the tail end of what was arguably the worst episode since Moffat took over as showrunner. I’ve seen comment after Internet comment about how Moffat effectively jumped the shark with The Time of the Doctor, and I can’t say I completely disagree. And yet, I still find myself oddly hopeful that the upcoming series with Capaldi’s Twelfth* Doctor won’t suck the proverbial big one.

Given how many times I’ve been burned by Moffat (as mentioned last week, my enjoyment of his episodes has generally decreased over time), you’d think I’d learn not to let my expectations get the better of me. Despite experience, though, here I sit, cautiously optimistic that the show will undergo a positive change.

The rumor mill obviously has something to do with this attitude. Once folks started posting I-heard‘s and according-to‘s claiming Capaldi’s first series would trend away from the “fairy tale” motif Moffat ensured was infused throughout Smith’s run and toward a more “gothic” feel, that treasonous spark of hope rekindled.

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Confession #40: I’m Excited for Twelve

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Ever since the news leaked that Matt Smith would be leaving the role at the end of the year, fandom has been eating its own tail, trying to figure out who would be cast next. Would it be a woman; a black actor; an older actor; or yet another young, white man? The pros and cons of each have been debated ad nauseum—just like they are every time the role opens.

Well, now we know it’s to be Peter Capaldi. And, like usual, it’s someone I, from my sheltered American perspective, hadn’t really heard of before Sunday’s announcement. Granted, that’s not entirely true—after all, when his name started cropping up everywhere in the days preceding the announcement, I looked him up and recognized him as Lucius Caecilius from The Fires of Pompeii and John Frobisher from Torchwood: Children of Earth. But the point is, I had to look him up.

I’ve become accustomed to this state of affairs. I recognize that I’m not soaking in British culture like the hometown fans are, so I’m never going to react to casting news the way UK fans do (I’m often flummoxed, for example, by the excitement surrounding guest cast press releases). As a result, I was neither bouncing in my seat nor beating my head against my desk at the official announcement (nor was I ready to start making Malcolm Tucker mash-ups—had to look up Malcolm Tucker, too). I was admittedly rather disappointed that the fans/media had managed to peg the guy so readily (I’d been hoping for another “unknown,” a real surprise), but was relieved that they’ve at least cast someone with a few more years under his belt. I think that will help give Twelve some welcome gravitas.

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