So we have the final episode of Series 6 (Christmas Special notwithstanding), and it's craptastic. The Doctor pulled a switcheroo on everybody, and the oldest question in the universe is the name of the television show? Seriously?
The Doctor has a date with death at Lake Silencio, but before he goes he takes a few detours. One of those is a trip to the room where the Headless Monks -- who were featured in "A Good Man Goes to War" -- keep the heads of their members, to pick up the head of Dorium Maldovar. The blue-skinned bodiless head tells him the oldest question in the universe, prophesying that "the 11th will fall when the question is asked and answered." Stuff happens. River rises from the lake, encased in the astronaught suit against her will, and defiantly depletes her weapons pack, creating a dying timeline in which all of history happens at once. More stuff happens. The Doctor gets River to let things play out as they should, and everything turns out okay -- the Doctor having tricked almost everyone by hiding inside the shape-shifting robot piloted by miniature people, which is what Rory, Amy, and River actually saw being shot.
You know, there are times when I really, REALLY can't stand cheap writing, and this is one of them. After splitting Series 6 in two this year to help reduce production costs, you'd think Steven Moffat would have come up with something more dramatic, better written, and more epic. But this episode felt more like an afterthought tacked onto the end of a really mediocre season. And this alleged "slipping back into the shadows" thing, ostensibly to be less visible than he has been for more than two centuries, probably isn't going to last into Series 7, which may not even take place next year but in 2013, when the show reaches its fiftieth anniversary.
BBC, please please PLEASE replace Moffat with someone who knows how to write consistently well. That is all.
Showing posts with label River Song. Show all posts
Showing posts with label River Song. Show all posts
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Let's Kill Suspension of Disbelief!
Needless to say, I'm less than impressed with the semi-premiere episode of Doctor Who, "Let's Kill Hitler", that kicked off the second half of Series 6. It's like Steven Moffat decided to give a huge middle finger to fans out of pure spite. Not content with writing the insulting storyline of making River Song the child of companions Amy and Rory in "A Good Man Goes to War", the current head writer seems hellbent on doing even more to confuse and annoy fans with this episode, which was almost completely incomprehensible.
From the opening scenes showing some sort of human-sized, shape-changing android piloted by a miniaturized crew taking the place of an S.S. officer in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, to the climax of the episode showing the beginnings of River Song, "Let's Kill Hitler" never fails to fail to deliver. Are we to believe that 1.) A human-Time Lady hybrid who has, as stated in this episode, regenerated into a toddler, somehow makes it from 1969 New York to 1990s Leadworth in England, 2.) inserts herself into her future parents' timeline in order to get an opportunity to meet and kill the Doctor, 3.) oh-so-conveniently regenerates into her River Song incarnation when a stray bullet from Hitler forces her to change, and 4.), after poisoning the Doctor with one of her lipsticks, suddenly is inspired by her parents' devotion to him to save his life by offering up all her remaining regenerations, and by episode's end be inspired to go looking for him again?
Okay, yes, I just gave away the entire episode. Trust me, you're really not worse off for it. This episode was so silly in its premise as to be unworthy of even bothering with. For one thing, how can you have an episode called "Let's Kill Hitler" and then lock him in a closet and forget about him roughly ten minutes or so in — for the rest of the episode? A better title might have been, "The Start of the River" or something like that, because that's really the whole plot of this sorry excuse for a story.
And naturally, there's the throw-away characters in the form of a group devoted to protecting the Doctor from River Song before she can kill him, or avenge him afterward, while also killing history's most evil figures at the end of their timelines. Who are these people and where did they come from? How do they fit in with the effort by the Silence to kill the Doctor and bring about the end of all things? And really, is the explanation of the Silence as a religious movement using the bulbous-headed, mouthless aliens from episodes one and two as players in their game, worthy of Doctor Who as a series? Not even close.
Moffat's increasingly been rubbing me the wrong way ever since the premiere of Series 5 last year. He can't be replaced soon enough, in my opinion. I can only hope that his eventual replacement will go out of his or her way to clean up the storytelling mess he's made of things. It's natural to ask audiences to suspend disbelief when consuming fiction. But to ask us to toss it out the window and forget what was established just one episode ago, or earlier in a season, is just asking too much.
From the opening scenes showing some sort of human-sized, shape-changing android piloted by a miniaturized crew taking the place of an S.S. officer in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, to the climax of the episode showing the beginnings of River Song, "Let's Kill Hitler" never fails to fail to deliver. Are we to believe that 1.) A human-Time Lady hybrid who has, as stated in this episode, regenerated into a toddler, somehow makes it from 1969 New York to 1990s Leadworth in England, 2.) inserts herself into her future parents' timeline in order to get an opportunity to meet and kill the Doctor, 3.) oh-so-conveniently regenerates into her River Song incarnation when a stray bullet from Hitler forces her to change, and 4.), after poisoning the Doctor with one of her lipsticks, suddenly is inspired by her parents' devotion to him to save his life by offering up all her remaining regenerations, and by episode's end be inspired to go looking for him again?
Okay, yes, I just gave away the entire episode. Trust me, you're really not worse off for it. This episode was so silly in its premise as to be unworthy of even bothering with. For one thing, how can you have an episode called "Let's Kill Hitler" and then lock him in a closet and forget about him roughly ten minutes or so in — for the rest of the episode? A better title might have been, "The Start of the River" or something like that, because that's really the whole plot of this sorry excuse for a story.
And naturally, there's the throw-away characters in the form of a group devoted to protecting the Doctor from River Song before she can kill him, or avenge him afterward, while also killing history's most evil figures at the end of their timelines. Who are these people and where did they come from? How do they fit in with the effort by the Silence to kill the Doctor and bring about the end of all things? And really, is the explanation of the Silence as a religious movement using the bulbous-headed, mouthless aliens from episodes one and two as players in their game, worthy of Doctor Who as a series? Not even close.
Moffat's increasingly been rubbing me the wrong way ever since the premiere of Series 5 last year. He can't be replaced soon enough, in my opinion. I can only hope that his eventual replacement will go out of his or her way to clean up the storytelling mess he's made of things. It's natural to ask audiences to suspend disbelief when consuming fiction. But to ask us to toss it out the window and forget what was established just one episode ago, or earlier in a season, is just asking too much.
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