Review: The Time of the Doctor

All things good or bad must eventually end, and Matt Smith's tenure as the iconic Time Lord from Gallifrey is no exception.  The reigns are handed over to Peter Capaldi in a tear-jerker regeneration scene you have to watch over and over again.  I honestly didn't think Tennant's departure from Doctor Who could be topped, but I am happy to have been proven wrong.

The episode opens with a narrator, who is later revealed to be the head of the Church of the Papal Mainframe, telling of a planet from which a signal is being broadcast across time and space, drawing all the Doctor's enemies to the world in fear of what that signal might mean.  Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor receives a panicked call from Clara, who "accidentally" told her relatives that she has a boyfriend and that she needs the Doctor to play the part at Christmas dinner.  The Doctor arrives in typically comic fashion and he soon takes Clara off for what ultimately will be his final adventure.

THE BAD:

 Consistency problems, much?  Come to think of it: LOGIC problems, much?  Why does the Doctor choose to strand himself on Trenzelore when he could simply have used the TARDIS to evacuate the farming community?  Also, why and how can a farming community exist on a snowy planet where the days last only a few minutes?  Plants need sunlight in order to grow.  What the hell?

Again, some consistency from Moffat would be nice.  It's already been established in "The Day of the Doctor" that Gallifrey was frozen in time inside a pocket universe outside our own.  How, therefore, do the Time Lords manage to transmit a signal into the main universe in order to find out if it's safe to return?  Dammit, Moffat!

The hideous age makeup they used on Matt Smith.  It's even worse than that used for Karen Gillan in "The Girl Who Waited".  If they're going to make anyone appear to grow old, do it right.

The poor treatment given to Jenna Coleman's character, Clara Oswald, in the final scene.  The Doctor, regenerating and hallucinating, gives a tear-jerking eulogy to himself before transforming, and Clara is basically a bystander in the scene, rendered almost irrelevant by the appearance of a former Companion.  Bad call, Moffat!

A wooden Cyberman?  Seriously?

THE GOOD:

Sweet Jesus, was there a lot in this episode to love!  This episode should really be subtitled "The Time of Matt Smith", because he owned it.  Moffat may not be consistent as a writer, but when he writes a scene he knows how to make it work.  When the Doctor, stuck on the planet (which turns out to be a pre-war Trenzalore) for centuries, shows signs of aging, he explains to Clara that he has used up all his regenerations and is on his final life.  This combined with the poignancy of 'Handles', a Cyberman head the Doctor salvaged and reworked into a personal portable computer, deactivating for lack of adequate repair, really was touching.  And Smith's final scene really made me cry.

The matter of the Silence, the explosion of the TARDIS, the engineering of River Song, and the prophesy of the First Question...all of it is finally resolved.  Ten's partial regeneration was counted as a complete one by Moffat, who needed to explain how the Doctor can continue to regenerate with the Time Lords gone and all his regenerations used up.  Granted, the latex on Matt Smith looked as fake as it was, but his acting made up for it.  Moffat has stated that in his mind the Time Lords are dead and gone and not coming back, but even he realized that he had to resurrect them somehow in order to write himself out of the corner previous show-runner Russell T. Davies had put him in.  The way all this was resolved was actually brilliant.

The final scene in the TARDIS, when a rejuvenated Doctor must say goodbye to Clara before his regeneration, was perhaps the best Matt Smith has ever given us, and like I said, he owned it!  A surprise visitor from the past makes an appearance in the form of a pre-regeneration hallucination to send Eleven to his final rest, and despite a tearful Clara's pleas, it's time for Eleven to go.  Peter Capaldi makes his appearance suddenly and without further warning, foreshadowing the tone his tenure as the Doctor will adopt.  I'm looking forward to seeing Series 8!

SNAPSHOTS:

Screen captures from the episode.  Enjoy!

"The Time of the Doctor" Preview!

Thanks to Krypton Radio for this link!


Time is running out for the Eleventh Doctor as the Silence gather their forces for the final battle at Trenzalore! Tune in at Christmas to find out what happens!

I get paid tomorrow, and with any luck I'll be able to order a replacement motherboard to get my computer up and running again.  Having to rely on public terminals to get online is a real drag, and I'm falling so far behind it's ridiculous.  I've already missed the 50th anniversary special, but if I can get my computer properly repaired I'll watch that and write up a review for you.  Until then, wish me luck, and if you'd like to contribute to helping me get my computer fixed, please click the following link.

"Day of the Doctor" Mini-Episode Confirmed

According to Kasterborous.com, we may get to see a mini-episode teaser in the run-up to this month's fiftieth anniversary episode of Doctor Who, "The Day of the Doctor".

While we knew we were going to get an initial Day of the Doctor treat at the upcoming Children in Need event, we now have a little more inclination as to what we might be seeing. According to information on the BBFC web site, two different minisodes have been classified and attached to the upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of the 50th anniversary special: The Last Day and The Night of the Doctor.

The Last Day is slated to run just shy of 4 minutes and has no additional information attached to the description (although, Time War anyone?). The Night of the Doctor is set to run for almost 7 minutes and features David Tennant and Matt Smith (Note: at the time of writing, the BBFC page for this mini-sode has gone dark… Coincidence? I think not! Head to Who-natic to see the page before it was pulled). It’s anyone’s guess at this point as to what the minisodes will actually contain, but with only 11 days until Children in Need and 19 until the 50th, the wait is almost over!

Woohoo!

'Day of the Doctor' to Screen in American Movie Theaters!

I'm typing on my aunt's computer this afternoon while I'm over here washing laundry.  With any luck, my next paycheck (two weeks from today) will be enough for me to get a new power supply unit for my computer.  The old one is 400-watt and probably gave out finally trying to power my monster graphics card.  I really, really don't want the problem to be anything other than simply needing a new power unit.  If something broke in the C-drive, then my computer is well and truly dead.  UGH.

Anyway, it seems that the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, "The Day of the Doctor", is screening in select movie theaters stateside.

“Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor” will screen in select movie theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Minneapolis Nov. 23 in RealD 3D, coinciding with a worldwide simulcast of the special in 75 countries, including the U.S.

Yes, this event is going to be that big.  I just hope I'm able to see this when it airs.  SQUEEEE!

Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found In Africa, and the Regeneration Limit

Krypton Radio reports via the BBC and other news agencies that lost episodes of Doctor Who have been discovered in Africa.

Some new episodes of the popular BBC science fiction television series have been found in the archives of the Ethiopia Radio and Television Agency, and as the dust settles from the discovery it appears that 90 episodes are being recovered.  In fact, it is looking like everything that had been lost is now found again, according to Bleeding Cool, except “nine episodes of The Dalek Master Plan, plus Mission To The Unknown, two episodes of The Invasion, two episodes of The Ice Warriors, and two episodes of The Wheel In Space.”

This is very good news for fans worldwide, who have had to be content with surviving audio and still photographs in place of the missing episodes.  What's more, with the show's fiftieth anniversary coming up next month, it gives fans another chance to become acquainted with the legendary William Hartnell, the first actor to portray the enigmatic Time Lord from Gallifrey in his broken old T.A.R.D.I.S.

Rumors frequently circulate about lost episodes in the hands of private collectors, but only seldom do they prove true.  In the vastly finite wisdom of its earlier days, the BBC destroyed or recorded over its video tapes and film reels, or sold them off, not realizing the future potential in raking in money from home video sales.  As a result, many episodes of many television shows are now "lost", and can only be recovered if copies are found from stations in other countries that preserved them, or from people who were prescient enough to record them when they were first broadcast.

So this latest rediscovery is good news for Doctor Who fans, and for the BBC.  I for one am looking forward to seeing the recovered episodes in all their remastered glory.

Oh!  It seems the issue of the Doctor's thirteen-life-limit will be addressed.  Departing actor Matt Smith, who plays the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, is handing the role over to Peter Capaldi in the Christmas episode at the end of this year, leaving only one or two more lives for the Time Lord under current series canon.  But Stephen Moffat hinted back in August that a way will be written into the show that resolves the limit on Time Lord lives, and others have speculated on how the 12-regeneration limit could be breached.  Obviously the BBC isn't going to let one of its biggest cash cows be canceled for lack of a plausible writing gimmick, so don't be surprised to see the issue resolved soon.

I'll be back next week with a review of a recent Who episode, as soon as I dig my DVDs out of boxes.  Until then...see you in the Time Vortex!

Review: The Name of the Doctor

Talk about titles that mislead, but don't!  The episode isn't about "the name of the Doctor".  It's about the Name of the Doctor: The Doctor, the title, the name he's chosen for himself, and the secret the revalation of which has ramifications throughout the Whoniverse.

Stephen Moffat left us with a cliffhanger ending that introduced (SPOILER ALERT) John Hurt as a future (?) incarnation of the Doctor.  Why the FUCK has he been holding out on us, letting mediocre stories get produced for the second half of Series 7, when he could have made them all awesomely epic and well written?  I don't know and I no longer care.  Moffat really ought to be sacked and replaced with someone who can write well and do it consistently.

Okay, now that I've gone off on my usual tangent, there was actually a lot to like about this episode and a lot not to like, but nothing I could really stay angry about.  Madame Vastra visits a prison, where a deranged convicted murderer waiting to be hanged offers information about the Doctor and Trenzalore in return for his life being spared.  The information turns out to be the location of Trenzalore, where the Doctor's future corpse is buried.  This sets off the story's action, and things get really bad really quickly.

There were a lot of things I didn't like, chief among them being the complete lack of the Silence, the group led by the Edward Munch-looking aliens, which has been trying to prevent the Doctor from ever going to Trenzalore for fear of what the revelation of his greatest secret will do to them.  Well, it seems that, going by what cryptic information this episode gave us, Trenzalore may in fact be the Silents' homeworld, or at least, their primary base of operations, or maybe just the place of their final defeat at the Doctor's hands.  We don't know, because nothing was revealed along those lines.  Instead, we got the Great Intelligence making another appearance, apparently trying to uncover the Doctor's Big Secret as a means of gaining its final revenge on the Time Lord, in an apparently completely unrelated plot.

Granted, the Doctor faked his death to get the Silence off his back, but still, for all the trouble they cause throughout Series 5 with blowing up the TARDIS and destroying all of Creation, and throughout Series 6 with their ploy to turn Amy Pond's and Rory Williams' daughter into a weapon with which to kill the Doctor, you'd think Moffat would have brought them back.  But no, instead we get the Great Intelligence, with no hint as to any previous involvement in any of this, on his own quest to kill the Doctor.  That just annoys the hell out of me.  Moffat, you botched it again in that department!  A pox upon your house!

On the other hand, we finally get the explanation for Clara and how and why she has existed in time and space before.  No, she's not Bad Wolf II like I initially thought.  Just watch the episode and you'll see.  I did like all the appearances of the Doctor's past selves, which included William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and (only as a stuntman dressed in costume) Christopher Eccleston.  We didn't get to see Paul McGann or David Tennant, either through footage or stunt doubles, as with the others.  That was odd, but we should really see all the Doctors in some way in November for the 50th Anniversary episode.  Anything less would be a huge letdown.

Now, as I wrote above, the cliffhanger ending was fantastic and introduced us to a (possibly) future incarnation of the Doctor — perhaps the Final Doctor — played by legendary actor John Hurt.  Only Hurt could portray a guilt-wracked Time Lord the way the future and Final Doctor must ultimately be played.  Brilliant casting decision there.  Oh, and if you're wondering how River Song could be in this episode after her doomed trip to the Library, well, it's Moffat's typically throwaway non-explanation.  I'll just say that even with that monumental cheat, the chemistry between Matt Smith and Alex Kingston was superb and undoubtedly caused quite the number of tears for many audience members.

So, I give "The Name of the Doctor" a B+ or A-.  Moffat still gets a big fat F- from me, but we'll see how the 50th Anniversary goes.

For an alternate take, go here.

Review: The Crimson Horror

This episode was kind of "meh".  Mark Gatiss, who wrote the teleplay, went for comic effect setting the story in 1893 Yorkshire, a year after the second Clara died.  People are turning up dead, petrified, and stained crimson, their faces twisted in expressions of horror, hence the title of the episode.  The impossible reflection of the Doctor's face in the eyes of the latest victim leads Madame Vastra, her wife and assistant Jenny, and Sontaran manservant Straxx to investigate an organization preaching doomsday and offering the chosen survivors a utopian vision of the future.

As was the case with every episode of Series 7's second half except Cold War, I just wasn't feeling blown away, and I blame that on the diminishing quality of the writing.  Head writer and show runner Stephen Moffat keeps promising us big things but always fails to deliver, and that is getting seriously irritating.  Neil Gaiman returns to pen the next episode, which features newly revamped Cybermen.  I'll let you know how that one goes.

Review: Journey to the Center of the TARDIS

I've got mixed feelings about this episode.  On the one hand, it was enjoyable seeing areas of the new TARDIS, which included a glimpse at the swimming pool, the library, an observatory, and even the Doctor's store room of cherished mementos.  On the other hand, the story was mediocre, which is to be expected from a show run by Stephen Moffat, and the ending was another "it never happened" cheat that abused time travel as a storytelling aspect.

Yes, I just gave you a major spoiler.  Considering how awful it was, you're not missing anything by knowing how the episode ends.

Okay, the plot revolves around the Doctor, Clara, and a trio of space salvage brothers as they try to save themselves from hideous burnt-mummy-clay-things.  At the same time the Doctor sets the TARDIS controls to a level Clara is able to handle, in an effort to bring her and the ancient time ship closer together, the salvagers lock a powerful tractor beam on the exterior, which happens to be materialized in space, heavily damaging the TARDIS.  Upon waking up from under the junk pile where the salvage team's spaceship dropped the exterior, the Doctor then proceeds to threaten them to help him locate Clara, who is lost somewhere inside the TARDIS, by activating a self destruct sequence.  And as is quickly evident, the five are not alone, and soon five become four.

There were a few nice touches, such as when one salvager removes a console panel only to hear the echoes of voices from the past, bringing us another reminder of the classic series, and another when Clara discovers the library and, irritated and impressed at the same time, reacts with the line, "now you're just showing off."  Also, while there, Clara makes an interesting if predictable discovery that, really, shouldn't have been included -- at least not the way it was in this episode.

So we have yet another contrived ending that once again leaves us feeling robbed of what should have been an epic moment in the development of Clara's and the Doctor's relationship.  I give "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" a C- for poor writing.  I give Stephen Moffat a big fat F for his atrocious handling of Series 5-7.

Review: Hide

This was a 'monster in the house' story that turned out to be something else entirely.  No one actually dies.  I know.  It's a rarity, right?  Anyway, get ready for a lot of spoilers.

It's 1974.  Professor Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) and his assistant, psychic empath Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine of Call the Midwife fame) try to summon the ghost of a woman who haunts the mansion they're working in when there is a knock on the door.  It's the Doctor and Clara, who identify themselves as "ghostbusters" sent by military intelligence to help find out what's going on.  The Doctor gives away Palmer's past as a military intelligence operative, contradicting the professor's story about having been a POW in World War II.  This would make more sense if actor Dougray Scott, who is forty-seven, wasn't too young to have held such a position in a war that took place over thirty years prior to the story, but for some reason writer Neil Cross felt compelled to give a nod to Third Doctor Jon Pertwee's service during WWII and didn't feel any need to get his chronology correct.  Damn lazy bastard.

As things start to get weird, and then comically frightening, the Doctor and Clara take turns playing matchmaker to Alec and Emma, who have feelings for one another but are each too timid to express themselves to one another.

So basically, it's really a love story set against a haunted house.  But there are some darker elements thrown in.  The TARDIS, still not fully liking or trusting Clara, gets under her skin by using a holographic interface to irritate her.  Clara's response: "Oh, you are a cow!" was hilarious.  It was kind of creepy and funny at the same time.  And when the Doctor reveals his true reason for coming to the mansion to Emma, grilling her about her impression of Clara, which turns out to be quite normal, his disbelief, his refusal to accept her for what she is, suggests hostility on his part toward his own companion, masking it in his usual friendly, buffoonish demeanor.

My favorite part came when Clara, after having witnessed Earth in its distant past, near-past, and far-flung future, practically traumatized by the weight of it all, confronts the Doctor about how he must view human beings: we're all ghosts to him, because from his perspective he's seen everyone come and go — literally.

And yet for all those smaller, brilliant moments, there were obvious flaws in the story that kept me from enjoying it as much as I did "Cold War", the preceding episode.  Writer Neil Cross's bad chronology, for starters, and the lack of any real tension or fright, just didn't mesh well with the ending, and when we learn who the "ghost" is and what her relationship is to the mansion, Alec, and Emma, it all felt very contrived and fake.  "Hide" is only slightly better than Cross's other episode script, "The Rings of Ahkaten", but that's not really saying much in its favor.

Review: The Bells of Saint John

So the Doctor has finally found Clara Oswald, after what appears to be (from his perspective in time) a very long search.  If you want a better review than this, I suggest going here.  I'll take a page from Jayne Gudkov's style and give you a breakdown of what I liked, what I disliked, and 'best' moments.

WHAT I LIKED

The banter and on-screen chemistry.  Jenna-Louise Coleman and Matt Smith work really well together.  It's great when actors have a genuinely good working relationship, and it shows on the screen.  It's like Coleman is River Song (played by Alex Kingston) with twenty-five years taken off.

The mystery of Clara Oswald.  Who is this woman?  Why does she keep popping up throughout time, same face, body, and voice, dying only to reappear somewhere else in time and space with apparently no memory of her previous existences?  Moffat, if you screw this one up, you deserve to be sacked from the BBC.  Don't use your usual throw-away, non-stick explanations.

The reintroduction of the Great Intelligence (and other old school foes).  As we head into this November's fiftieth anniversary episode, the writers are wisely bringing out enemies from the classic series — not rebooted or alternate dimension versions, but the actual enemies.  The Great Intelligence has resurfaced now in two episodes of the "new" series (which is now in its seventh season, so it's hardly new anymore), and I can tell right now that its presence is tied up in some way to Clara, though we won't know until the Big Revelation.

WHAT I LOVED

The Doctor (and Clara) riding a moped again, a nod to the 1996 television movie featuring Paul McGann.  Oh, and he used the moped's anti-grav feature to ride straight up the side of the London Shard skyscraper.  Brilliant!

The Spoonheads robots.  They looked like something straight out of a cheesy 1940s sci-fi serial.  Awesome!

WHAT I DISLIKED

Are you seriously telling me that police boxes are now so rare in Britain that almost no one remembers them?  There are still a few scattered throughout the country, such as the one at Earl's Court, a location that was referred to in the episode when the baddies were looking for the TARDIS's familiar police box form.  So why does no one refer to the exterior as a police box, and instead call it only a "blue box"?

The lack of originality.  Didn't we already see people being downloaded into a network of monitors in the Series Two episode "The Idiot's Lantern"?  It's already been done before.  No need to repeat that.

WHAT I HATED

The Doctor keeps lying about his age.  During Sylvester McCoy's run as the Seventh Doctor, the Time Lord's age was established as being 953, give or take.  Then, when the series was revived in 2005, fifty-two of those years were shaved off — a writing error, no doubt, but one they felt compelled to stick with to maintain some continuity.  Besides, as he goes through his lives, the Doctor obviously feels much older than, say, a Time Lord might in his or her early lives, so it's understandable that he would want to lie to make himself younger than he really is.  But it's already been established in the episode "A Town Called Mercy" that he is now 1,200 at least.  And it's obviously been quite some time since he lost Amy and Rory.  So why, when he and Clara escape the Spoonheads and find themselves on a runaway airliner, does he give his age at 1,000?  Now he's shaving centuries off his age!  C'mon, really?  Dude...

LINES YOU JUST HAVE TO QUOTE AT THE WATER COOLER

The Doctor:  "Human souls trapped like flies in the world wide web, stuck forever, crying out for help."

 

Clara: "Isn’t that basically Twitter?"
Clara calling the TARDIS a "snog box".

(Thank you, Jayne!)

The Bells of Saint John's: Minisode

Trailer for Series Seven and a Half!

New trailer for the continuing Series 7 of Doctor Who!

Screencaps!

After watching the 2012 Christmas Special, I thought I'd share some screencaps.

The Cybermen get a new look and it actually looks even cooler than the art deco design they had before.

Shades of the classic series opening with the Doctor's current face appearing in the opening titles sequence.

The new console room looks more high-tech and futuristic, and very metallic in style.

I like the new opening sequence for its throwback to the classic series, but not the color scheme.  There's too much yellow, red, and violet for my liking.  Still, it is definitely an improvement over the last opening CGI vortex, and the opening theme music is much closer to the classic series, which is a nice touch.

Review: Closing Time

Tonight is the final regular episode of Series 6, so I thought I'd do a quick review of "Closing Time" before heading out to work on a student film project.

The Doctor is on a trip to visit old friends one last time before meeting his end in Utah, and his last stop involves dropping in on Craig, whom we last saw in "The Lodger" (Series 5).  He and Sophie now have added an infant son to their relationship, but the little tyke is more than either of them can handle.  Sophie is sent off on a much-needed holiday out of the house, setting up the events to come.  The Doctor and Craig save the world from Cybermen, and Craig gets a helping hand with his son, Stormaggedon, Dark Lord of All — okay, his name's actually Alfie, but he's a cute baby and he has his Stewie factor going on, so we'll forgive him his silly choice in self-naming.

What I liked about this episode was pretty much everything, including the running gag of a co-worker of the Doctor's at the local department store in which he's taken a temporary job misconstruing the relationship between Craig and the Time Lord.  The redesign of the Cybermats was pretty cool.

The only part I didn't like was the unexplained presence of the Cybus Cybermen.  How is it that they managed to crash a ship into Earth, in England, centuries before?  Time storm?  Maybe.  Crack in the universe from Series 5?  Probably, knowing Moffat.  I just didn't care for it.  I would like to see the Mondasian Cybermen meet the Cybus versions.  It might make for a really interesting clash of classic and new series.

Anyway, that's it for this review.  I'll write one up of "The Wedding of River Song" tomorrow after I've watched it.

Review: The God Complex

Only, what, two more 'regular' episodes left to go for Series 6?  Where DOES the time fly?  Oh yeah, in an alien-built hotel made to look like one from 1980s Earth, which is the setting for "The God Complex".  It's basically a retelling of the Minotaur story from Greek mythology, and Toby Whitehouse's script makes it an enjoyable one indeed.

I won't give too much away from the episode, for the sake of people who haven't yet been able to see it.  Suffice to say that it's a great stand-alone episode and a real heartbreaker at the end.  The character of the Minotaur, actually an alien in the story from a race of beings who literally feed on the mental energy generated by a person's faith, could have been portrayed as an irredeemable monster.  But just as in the Series 5 episode "Vincent and the Doctor", he's really just a victim himself, and proves worthy of sympathy.

It is here I will give away the most spoilers, because I really want to focus on the Minotaur.  Imagine a race of beings who feed off of certain types of mental energy, who roam from world to world setting themselves up as gods to be worshiped, feeding on the faith of their followers.  On a planet with thousands, perhaps even millions of followers, it is easy to feed without necessarily killing, except for the odd sacrifice every now and then.  One imagines this is what the Nimons were perfectly content with.  Somehow, however, one of their relatives got himself imprisoned in a labyrinthine prison with no escape, and a steady stream of faithful people from all over the universe brought in to keep it alive.  With so few to feed from, the Minotaur is forced by his survival instinct to take all of the energy from its victims, killing them in the process, something it may very well never have wanted.  But it can't help itself, and eventually, after many thousands of years, it is at the point where it no longer even remembers its own name.  It simply is, and it cannot help but run on pure instinct, full of sorrow at what it must do to survive but unable to end its suffering on its own.  Sooner or later a hero comes and kills him, ending the barbaric ritual of sacrifice to the half-god bull.

Clearly, the writer intended this to be the basis for the Greek myth, or a continuation of it, or some combination of the two concepts.  Whitehouse could have done a lot worse with his handling of the Minotaur myth, but he pulled it off splendidly.

Okay, I was wrong.  I gave away a lot more than I intended.  If I'm able after this weekend, I'll write my review of "Closing Time".

Review with Link: The Girl Who Waited

Somebody already wrote up a fairly decent review of "The Girl Who Waited", so I'm just going to link to it here and let you judge it for yourself.  What I write below is merely to add to what has already been written.

To begin with, I've never really understood the animosity some fans feel toward the character of Amy Pond or of the actress behind her, Karen Gillan.  Billie Piper's Rose Tyler was too weepy, and Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones spent most of her time making moon eyes at the Doctor while getting all silently angsty over his inability to notice her feelings for him.  It wasn't until Catherine Tate's turn as Donna Noble that I began to like the Doctor's companions again, since the dynamic of the on-screen relationship was such that I could really see some fleshing out of both characters without the annoying unrequited love thing taking over.

With the character of Amy Pond, I began to fear that the series was returning to the lovesick puppy routine, but that gimmick was quickly ended when Arthur Darvill's Rory Williams became a central figure in the show and the true focus of Amy's romantic love.  If Moffat's tenure as head writer can be credited with anything good, it's the strong supporting cast for Series' 5 and 6.  It is this context that I watched and liked "The Girl Who Waited", though it's not nearly as good an episode as it should have been.

I didn't like the throw-away explanation of why a person can spend literally years alone without food and water in an isolated environment while dodging badly programmed security robots.  Timey wimey, wibbly wobbly stuff aside, it's insulting.  I'd have preferred a better explanation of survival, maybe showing a fruit orchard that the older Amy has been raiding or something.  I also didn't like that she initially rejected Rory upon reuniting with him, rather than be overjoyed.  Rory literally waited centuries for her in a collapsing universe as a plastic recreation of himself who was continuously awake, retaining his sanity and love for Amy throughout all that time.  She couldn't return the favor for thirty-six years, especially given what she's gone through with him and the strengthening of their bond since "The Eleventh Hour"?  Come on, the writers can do better than that.

Still, for those faults, I did enjoy the dramatic dynamic of this episode.  The final, heart-wrenching scene was reminiscent of Russell T. Davies' superb ability to tear out our hearts, stomp them into greasy spots on the ground, pick them up and reconstitute them, put them back in our chests, and start the whole process over again for the next episode.  But then there was the logical question that sprang to mind: why is Rory so broken up when he has managed to rescue the Amy he knows and loves?  And that killed the moment for me as a punch to the gut.  (Now don't go complaining about a spoiler — if you don't know by now that the Companions, with rare exception, get a Hero's Death Battle Exemption every episode, you really should pay more attention.)

I give "The Girl Who Waited" a C-, which is a pretty generous grade in my humble opinion.  It's saved by the talents of Darvill and an ever-improving Gillan, but excellent acting can only go so far with a story this weak.

Night Terrors and Torchwood: Miracle Day

Okay, I'm writing this before I have to prepare for my DJ gig in a couple of hours that will be immediately followed by me leaving (I hope) for a friend's birthday party.  I'll start with a brief review of the Doctor Who episode "Night Terrors" and then begin my review of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

"Night Terrors" is so much better than "Let's Kill Hitler" that I wonder how Moffat can stand letting himself be upstaged by someone who actually knows how to write.  George, a little boy plagued by the monsters inhabiting his room at night, does a ritual chant for expelling them, calling out for someone, anyone, to "save [him] from the monsters."  His loving but frustrated parents don't know what to do, since his fears have pretty much paralyzed not only his life but theirs since they have to drop whatever they're doing at any given moment to reassure him, all to no avail.  George's call for help is so powerful, psychically, that it reaches all the way out into space and time to write his message on the Doctor's psychic paper.  Naturally, the Doctor is compelled to go help, and the episode kicks off.

Okay, sorry, I should have warned you about spoilers.  But bear in mind that what I just described above only takes place before the opening credits.  What I liked about this episode is that it was generally bereft of the convoluted storytelling Steven Moffat has injected into the show since he began his tenure as head writer.  As a stand-alone episode, "Night Terrors" really shines.  It deals with the fears every child has about the toys and other things that, while ordinary and friendly by day, turn into scary monsters at night.  Only in this episode, those monsters turn out to be very real, and the Doctor must help banish them.

There's a closet (or cupboard, as it's called in the episode) where all the things that frighten little George are locked, the better to help soothe his fears.  That construct becomes a central part of the story.  Even more integral to the plot is George's father, who as it turns out has fear issues of his own as he is confronted by his bullying landlord.  His hangups and those of his son are inextricably linked, and we learn why by the end of the episode.  As it turns out, George is truly the son his dad always wanted, and is like him in so many more ways than one.  I wish more had been told of the relationship between the boy and his mother, who is largely absent from the episode, but given the obvious constraints the show's creative team are operating under, this was understandable.

Amy and husband Rory, as usual, end up being chased around by the monsters and in their now-typical fashion lend both credibility as horror-story heroes and comic relief.  A lot of Who fans haven't caught on to Karen Gillan's Amy Pond, but the actress seems to be really growing into the role — less sassy, more realistic, maturing.  Arthur Darvill as Rory is brilliant as usual.  At times I think he is the real star of the show under Moffat's tenure, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing;  for the first time in many years, Doctor Who's Companions are more than simply damsels in distress weeping over the Doctor or being helpless in situations — they're smart, strong, and proactive, though they don't always know enough to make sound judgments.  I can now easily see where Moffat is going with these characters as the parents of River Song, and their influence on her is crucial to that character's development.  If Moffat has done anything right since taking over the show, it's creating, developing, and evolving these two characters.

I will tell you this about "Night Terrors": how it plays out was written a lot better than it probably had any right to be given the creative rut Moffat has put the show in.  I was pleasantly surprised by this episode, and I sincerely hope that Moffat stays out of the rest of the series so better writers can tell his overall story arc.

"The Gathering", the ninth episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day, is the second-to-last one of this fourth series that tells the story of Captain Jack Harkness and his friends.  A lot of things are reaching their climax now, and I can hardly wait to see next week's episode, which will wrap up the whole series.  I'll give a more thorough review of this and other previous episodes tomorrow, but safe to say that Russel T. Davies has much, MUCH more in store for us.

Doctor Who News Links

Steven Moffat chimes in on the series' new executive producer:

 The exec joining me on Doctor Who is Caroline Skinner - fresh from the wonderful Five Days, and still finishing up on a brand new show called The Fades (a fantasy horror series, written by Jack Thorne - I've seen episode 1, and it's BRILLIANT.) Somewhere between me laughing in a basement and choosing planets to invade, and Marcus Wilson raising armies, there has to be a Prime Minister actually running the whole thing. That's the job Piers Wenger and Beth Willis have been doing so wonderfully for the last few years. Now that Piers is off to movie land, that's the furnace Caroline will be walking into.

Okay, now I'm mildly curious as to the upcoming second half of Series 6, Series 7, and the future of the show.  Moffat was coming close to turning me off of watching with his poor direction.  Maybe some fresh blood in the producing team will help provide a much needed improvement.  According to the article, fourteen new episodes have been greenlighted and series star Matt Smith will be returning for them.  That's good, because I like him in the role of the Doctor.

Mark your calendars for August 27th, because that's when Doctor Who returns to finish up Series 6.  The BBC has helpfully dropped some hints as to what we may expect.

Keep watching for more updates on Doctor Who and more!