I loved the new design for the Cybermen. The story was so-so, and had rather obvious flaws. The chief of these is that the Mondas-originated Cybermen at some point merged with the Cybus Cybermen, according to episode writer Neil Gaiman (who wrote the Series 6 episode "The Doctor's Wife"), but we never actually got to see this, nor was any mention of it made in the episode itself. So we end up with the Doctor managing to delay the Cyber-Planner's invasion of his mind with a gold ticket, a weakness the Cybus Cybermen never had, and no explanation as to why they have it.
The episode was saved somewhat by the incredible acting talents of Matt Smith and guest star Warwick Davis (of Star Wars, Willow, and Leprachaun fame), but neither of these two fine actors was given much to work with. Smith, by the way, has confirmed that he will be returning for Series 8.
I don't know why Moffat is letting such poor writing permeate the second half of Series 7, but the next episode, "The Name of the Doctor", is supposed to be freakin' epic and from all we've been given so far, it's going to be yet another monumental letdown. I don't know if Moffat is trying to get himself fired from the show, but if he is, a simple resignation would have sufficed.
Showing posts with label Series 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Series 7. Show all posts
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Review: Cold War
Alright, nothing bad really to say about this episode; I actually couldn't think of any major problems I had with it. I did enjoy it, so count this review as a positive one.
The year is 1983. A Soviet nuclear submarine is performing a launch drill somewhere near the North Pole when it is interrupted by Professor Grisenko (played funnily and brilliantly by David Warner). The first mate opines to the captain that the Americans' aggressiveness is an indication that the Cold War is about to become a hot one, and that they must continue with further drills. The older, less hot-headed captain informs him that the crew has practiced enough for one day and orders a stand down.
A little later, we see a sailor thawing out a block of ice in which some kind of specimen, thought to perhaps be a mammoth, is trapped. Suddenly an armored hand bursts through the ice and grabs the sailor by the neck. The submarine soon begins to sink, and it is then that the TARDIS appears on board with the Doctor and Clara exiting thinking they've landed in Las Vegas. And from there "Cold War" really kicks into gear as we get to see an Ice Warrior for the first time in almost forty years!
Doctor Who contributing writer Mark Gatiss did a very good job with this episode, and director Douglas MacKinnon handled the story quite capably. Gatiss had apparently been wanting to do one featuring the Ice Warriors, and after much begging finally convinced head writer Stephen Moffat to let him give it a go.
The rest of the episode revolves around trying — not always successfully — to negotiate a non-violent resolution to the crisis at hand, mirroring the handling of the Cold War itself. The Ice Warrior, a famous Grand Marshall named Skaldek, is compelled by Martian law to go to war against any who attack an Ice Warrior, and having been attacked upon waking after 5,000 years in a block of ice, he's understandably cranky. The episode really did a good job of playing on this as a reminder of the Cold War during the 1980s. Although it was actually winding down at this point, with Russia going bankrupt as a result of overspending on its military and growing disillusionment with Soviet-style communism, paranoia and rhetoric on both sides were still running high.
David Warner as Professor Grisenko illustrates this disillusionment with an almost carefree attitude and a love for American pop music, which he listens to through his headphones. By contrast, First Mate Stephashin is all too eager to see nuclear war break out, figuring that the Americans will launch their missiles soon so the Soviets might as well beat them to the punch. Captain Zhukov, played by Cunningham, represents the middle ground between these two extremes.
Also well handled was giving us, the viewers, for the first time, a glimpse of what the Ice Warriors look like underneath all that armor they wear. Although the CGI makes him look a bit silly, the practical effects are much better, and thankfully the CGI isn't used too much. Check this out and tell me what you think:
Actually looks kinda badass, doesn't he? The creative team wisely decided not to deviate too much from the classic design, opting simply to give him a gigantic size and body-builder physique (as opposed to the barrel-shaped costumes worn in the classic series). Actor Spencer Wilding, standing at 6'7", was the perfect choice to portray the Ice Warrior Skaldek, having previously acted the part of the Minotaur in "The God Complex" and the Tree King in "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe".
All in all, I give this episode a B+. For another take on "Cold War", Den of Geek's review.
The year is 1983. A Soviet nuclear submarine is performing a launch drill somewhere near the North Pole when it is interrupted by Professor Grisenko (played funnily and brilliantly by David Warner). The first mate opines to the captain that the Americans' aggressiveness is an indication that the Cold War is about to become a hot one, and that they must continue with further drills. The older, less hot-headed captain informs him that the crew has practiced enough for one day and orders a stand down.
A little later, we see a sailor thawing out a block of ice in which some kind of specimen, thought to perhaps be a mammoth, is trapped. Suddenly an armored hand bursts through the ice and grabs the sailor by the neck. The submarine soon begins to sink, and it is then that the TARDIS appears on board with the Doctor and Clara exiting thinking they've landed in Las Vegas. And from there "Cold War" really kicks into gear as we get to see an Ice Warrior for the first time in almost forty years!
Doctor Who contributing writer Mark Gatiss did a very good job with this episode, and director Douglas MacKinnon handled the story quite capably. Gatiss had apparently been wanting to do one featuring the Ice Warriors, and after much begging finally convinced head writer Stephen Moffat to let him give it a go.
The rest of the episode revolves around trying — not always successfully — to negotiate a non-violent resolution to the crisis at hand, mirroring the handling of the Cold War itself. The Ice Warrior, a famous Grand Marshall named Skaldek, is compelled by Martian law to go to war against any who attack an Ice Warrior, and having been attacked upon waking after 5,000 years in a block of ice, he's understandably cranky. The episode really did a good job of playing on this as a reminder of the Cold War during the 1980s. Although it was actually winding down at this point, with Russia going bankrupt as a result of overspending on its military and growing disillusionment with Soviet-style communism, paranoia and rhetoric on both sides were still running high.
David Warner as Professor Grisenko illustrates this disillusionment with an almost carefree attitude and a love for American pop music, which he listens to through his headphones. By contrast, First Mate Stephashin is all too eager to see nuclear war break out, figuring that the Americans will launch their missiles soon so the Soviets might as well beat them to the punch. Captain Zhukov, played by Cunningham, represents the middle ground between these two extremes.
Also well handled was giving us, the viewers, for the first time, a glimpse of what the Ice Warriors look like underneath all that armor they wear. Although the CGI makes him look a bit silly, the practical effects are much better, and thankfully the CGI isn't used too much. Check this out and tell me what you think:
 |
| "I floss my teeth with the tendons of vanquished foes." |
All in all, I give this episode a B+. For another take on "Cold War", Den of Geek's review.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Review: The Rings of Akhaten
I'm not quite sure what to make of this episode. A lot of it reminds me of "The Beast Below", meaning the alien marketplace set, the kid in distress, the new Companion saving the day instead of the Doctor. I hate it when Moffat recycles stuff. Can he not come up with anything new? On the other hand, there were moments I liked that made the episode worthwhile. And so, swiping Jayne Gudkov's format once again, here I go...
WHAT I LIKED
The Doctor stalking the latest incarnation of Clara through time as he tries to figure her out. His exclamation, "She's not possible!" revealed his frustration upon realizing who and what she might really be. It conveys once again that, as usual, the Doctor is several steps ahead of everyone else.
Showing how Clara's parents met, establishing before our eyes that, yes, she is — at least on the surface — pretty much what she appears to be: a normal human woman. That this stands in stark contradiction with what the Doctor might or might not know about her only adds to the mystery surrounding the character. I like a good puzzle!
The TARDIS doesn't seem to like Clara, much as it doesn't like Captain Jack Harkness (who is a fixed temporal "fact" because of the actions of Rose Tyler in her brief time as the Bad Wolf entity). The reason for this might seem obvious: this is a woman who has existed with the same body and name at three different points of space and time, for reasons yet to be revealed. The TARDIS, being temporally aware of the past, present, and future, knows who and what Clara is even if she and the Doctor don't. I can only guess, but she's got to be the product of an entity similar to Bad Wolf, possibly even Bad Wolf herself. Think about what the entity is capable of: fixing things and people throughout space and time as a message to the Doctor and her past self. Why wouldn't this be something along the same line? Is it possible that Clara or someone who knows her somehow morphed into Bad Wolf II by absorbing energy from the Time Vortex, just as Rose did, and orchestrated the events within the story by replicating Clara throughout time and space? If I'm right, it's Moffat recycling things that have already been done in recent memory, and it's a huuuuge cheat for which he may never be forgiven. On the other hand, depending on how it plays out, it could be epic. We'll just have to wait and see.
WHAT I LOVED
That whole speech toward the end where the Doctor tells the monster about everything he's seen and experienced. Matt Smith revealed again just how awesome a choice he was to fill the role. I couldn't help but get misty-eyed.
WHAT I DISLIKED
You just know I'm gonna have problems with anything in a show run by Stephen Moffat, but this one is (relatively) minor. When the Doctor and Clara rush to an asteroid-based pyramid to save a little girl, they take time out to buy a space moped instead of using the TARDIS. HELLO! I understand Neil Cross, the writer of this episode, wanted emotional moments, such as Clara having to trade her mother's ring for the moped (the people on this planetoid use things that have sentimental value as currency). But really, this whole not using the TARDIS just because it makes things more difficult for the Doctor and Clara and allows the excuse of making the episode longer, doesn't work at all. Shame on you, Moffat, for letting this plot point be used.
WHAT I HATED
The smiley face on the monster gas giant. LAME. That Clara and the Doctor essentially snuffed out the star or "mother" planet around which at least seven inhabited worlds orbited and it had no apparent devastating effect (thanks, Jayne, for pointing that out). That, in defiance of the laws of physics and what we know of the vacuum of space, Clara and the Doctor are able to ride a hover-moped through space with no protection from the vacuum of space whatsoever and not freeze or die of asphyxiation. It is unforgivable that a science-fiction show completely ignores good science, and presents horrendously bad science, so frequently. Come on, people! You can do better than that!
QUOTES FOR THE WATERCOOLER
The Doctor: I've seen bigger.
Clara: Really?
The Doctor: Are you joking!? It's massive!
NEXT EPISODE
"Cold War", featuring an Ice Warrior on a nuclear submarine in the 1980s. David Warner guest stars.
WHAT I LIKED
The Doctor stalking the latest incarnation of Clara through time as he tries to figure her out. His exclamation, "She's not possible!" revealed his frustration upon realizing who and what she might really be. It conveys once again that, as usual, the Doctor is several steps ahead of everyone else.
Showing how Clara's parents met, establishing before our eyes that, yes, she is — at least on the surface — pretty much what she appears to be: a normal human woman. That this stands in stark contradiction with what the Doctor might or might not know about her only adds to the mystery surrounding the character. I like a good puzzle!
The TARDIS doesn't seem to like Clara, much as it doesn't like Captain Jack Harkness (who is a fixed temporal "fact" because of the actions of Rose Tyler in her brief time as the Bad Wolf entity). The reason for this might seem obvious: this is a woman who has existed with the same body and name at three different points of space and time, for reasons yet to be revealed. The TARDIS, being temporally aware of the past, present, and future, knows who and what Clara is even if she and the Doctor don't. I can only guess, but she's got to be the product of an entity similar to Bad Wolf, possibly even Bad Wolf herself. Think about what the entity is capable of: fixing things and people throughout space and time as a message to the Doctor and her past self. Why wouldn't this be something along the same line? Is it possible that Clara or someone who knows her somehow morphed into Bad Wolf II by absorbing energy from the Time Vortex, just as Rose did, and orchestrated the events within the story by replicating Clara throughout time and space? If I'm right, it's Moffat recycling things that have already been done in recent memory, and it's a huuuuge cheat for which he may never be forgiven. On the other hand, depending on how it plays out, it could be epic. We'll just have to wait and see.
WHAT I LOVED
That whole speech toward the end where the Doctor tells the monster about everything he's seen and experienced. Matt Smith revealed again just how awesome a choice he was to fill the role. I couldn't help but get misty-eyed.
WHAT I DISLIKED
You just know I'm gonna have problems with anything in a show run by Stephen Moffat, but this one is (relatively) minor. When the Doctor and Clara rush to an asteroid-based pyramid to save a little girl, they take time out to buy a space moped instead of using the TARDIS. HELLO! I understand Neil Cross, the writer of this episode, wanted emotional moments, such as Clara having to trade her mother's ring for the moped (the people on this planetoid use things that have sentimental value as currency). But really, this whole not using the TARDIS just because it makes things more difficult for the Doctor and Clara and allows the excuse of making the episode longer, doesn't work at all. Shame on you, Moffat, for letting this plot point be used.
WHAT I HATED
The smiley face on the monster gas giant. LAME. That Clara and the Doctor essentially snuffed out the star or "mother" planet around which at least seven inhabited worlds orbited and it had no apparent devastating effect (thanks, Jayne, for pointing that out). That, in defiance of the laws of physics and what we know of the vacuum of space, Clara and the Doctor are able to ride a hover-moped through space with no protection from the vacuum of space whatsoever and not freeze or die of asphyxiation. It is unforgivable that a science-fiction show completely ignores good science, and presents horrendously bad science, so frequently. Come on, people! You can do better than that!
QUOTES FOR THE WATERCOOLER
The Doctor: I've seen bigger.
Clara: Really?
The Doctor: Are you joking!? It's massive!
NEXT EPISODE
"Cold War", featuring an Ice Warrior on a nuclear submarine in the 1980s. David Warner guest stars.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
A Crappy End to Great Companions
I have to say that The Angels Take Manhattan could be considered one of the worst send-offs I've ever seen on Doctor Who. Okay, yes, it was a tear-jerker and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the episode. But the ending was incredibly weak, which is what we've come to expect from a bad writer like Stephen Moffat.
The story opens being narrated by a two-bit gumshoe in 1920s New York, Sam Garner, who is hired by wealthy mobster Mr. Grayle to investigate statues that move on heir own. Garner thinks Grayle is full of it but for the money offered he isn't going to complain. Going to a hotel called the Winter Quay, he finds a room with his name on it, an elderly version of himself inside, and Weeping Angels stalking him. He manages to escape to the roof of the hotel when he turns around and sees the Statue of Liberty, which has been transformed into a 'Weeping Lady Liberty'.
Then it's on to the credits followed by a visit to modern day New York where the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are hanging out enjoying themselves. The Doctor annoys Amy by reading aloud from a book, and he notices that she's wearing glasses, disturbed by the realization that the first face his current face saw is getting older.
The Doctor tears the last page out of the book, a cheap dime store detective novel, saying he hates endings and that by tearing the last pages out of books the stories can go on forever for him. Remember this for later. Rory goes to get more hot dogs or something and is hunted by a cherub-like Weeping Angel who zaps him back in time. We then see Amy reading from the book, and she and the Doctor realize that Rory has somehow made it into the story. They quickly deduce that somehow Rory got trapped in the past and the very book they're reading must have been written specifically for them so they can go back and find him, having realized that the female detective illustrated on the cover must be River Song, Amy and Rory's daughter and the Doctor's wife.
Unfortunately, the TARDIS bounces off of 1938, the year Rory has apparently been sent to, and they need help to do it. River creates a temporal beacon for the TARDIS to home in on by having the Doctor go back and alter ancient Chinese vases at their creation so that they can get to Rory in the past.
From there all pretenses of actual plot fade and we end up with a monster-in-the-house story wherein the Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory must survive the Weeping Angels. Apparently a bunch of them have created the hotel as a sort of pantry by trapping visitors inside and sending them into the past to feed off the time energy generated from this. How they got there is never explained, as is typical of Moffat's inexcusably poor storytelling, but they're there and they've seemingly inhabited pretty much every humanoid statue in New York.
As a fan of time travel stories, I am constantly irritated by the disrespect so many of today's storytellers give the genre — especially in the area of paradoxes. Very few have handled such tales well: Robert Zemeckis' Back To the Future trilogy and Eidos' Legacy of Kain video game series being only two that come to my mind. Moffat is arguably the worst of the lot of bad storytellers who disrespect the material, which is even more infuriating seeing as how he's head writer for a show that features time travel and its consequences as its central theme.
SPOILER ALERT: Our heroes escape the Weeping Angels by creating a fatal paradox that zaps the Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory back to the present — in a cemetery. And it is here that the final, tearful goodbyes are said to Amy and Rory. It's also where the story is at its weakest. We're supposed to believe that once the future is known a fixed point in time is created and Bad Things Happen when anyone tries to change it. But just minutes before in the episode we saw a "fixed point" created and prevented from ever existing, and in Series Six the entire story arc revolved around the Doctor getting around a fixed point in time and space to outwit the creatures trying to kill him and escape certain death, so obviously this new "fixed" point should mean absolutely nothing to the Doctor or to Amy.
What's more, there's also the cat, namely, Schrödinger's cat: the paradoxical moment before opening a box with a cat inside it following some random event that either kills the animal or leaves it alive. Since we can't know whether the cat is alive or dead until the box is opened and we can observe it, this means the animal is in a state of temporal flux; is it both alive and dead, or neither alive or dead, until someone observes it.
So surely, having not actually seen Amy and Rory die in the episode's final moments, and having not seen the Doctor scan the ground underneath a headstone bearing Amy's and Rory's names, the Doctor can actually go back in time and rescue them, or just send River back to bring them out of the past, and as long as the headstone bearing his friends' names is still there, everything will be fine. It's so obvious to anyone who has devoted even a casual amount of consideration to paradoxes that Moffat should have thought of it from the start and just filmed those extra few seconds' worth of footage showing an elderly Amy somewhere in the past. Yet he doesn't seem to have bothered, having completely dismissed the intelligence of us viewers.
In any fictional story there is always a certain amount of disbelief that must be suspended, especially in the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. But one can only suspend so much disbelief, and then a poorly written story just becomes insulting. That's what Moffat does: he regularly insults the intelligence of his audience, not caring one bit as long as he gets his paycheck.
Oh, and that last page of the book that sent them to 1938 to face the Angels in the first place? River tells the Doctor she'll have her mother write an afterword for him, prompting him to rush back to Central Park to fetch and read it. And Amy asks the Doctor to do something they both know he can never do: go back in time and tell Amy's younger self, the one who sat outside waiting for the Time Lord all night, all about her future adventures with the Doctor. What. The. Hell? No assurances that she and Rory found each other, no request for the Doctor to tell their families their kids are all right (albeit trapped in the past), but Amy asks the Doctor to violate laws of time to tell her younger self what will happen to her in her future.
BULLSHIT on a stick.
Doctor Who has given some crappy endings to companions' stories before, but this one arguably tops them all. Not only is it an insult, but it shows just how wasted were the considerable talents of Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan. Darvill especially was much stronger in his role as wet blanket Rory than Gillan was as lead companion Amy, and both actors have had to struggle to make their characters' stories work. Matt Smith has shined as the 11th incarnation of the Doctor, but with so little for the main cast to work with, no thanks to Moffat, the two and a half seasons of Smith's run have fallen far short of what they could have been.
Now, having written all this, there is one thing I did like a lot about this latest story involving the Weeping Angels: the notion that they are not strictly corporeal beings, but can and do inhabit existing statues and from those fashion themselves bodies with which to hunt their prey. It's a very interesting concept and should be explored a bit further — but not by Moffat, who can only mess it up with some stupid throw-away explanation that he'll just toss out the window later on.
We fans should start a letter-writing campaign to have the BBC remove Moffat as head writer before he completely screws up the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
For an alternate take on The Angels Take Manhattan, see Jayne Gudkov's review.
The story opens being narrated by a two-bit gumshoe in 1920s New York, Sam Garner, who is hired by wealthy mobster Mr. Grayle to investigate statues that move on heir own. Garner thinks Grayle is full of it but for the money offered he isn't going to complain. Going to a hotel called the Winter Quay, he finds a room with his name on it, an elderly version of himself inside, and Weeping Angels stalking him. He manages to escape to the roof of the hotel when he turns around and sees the Statue of Liberty, which has been transformed into a 'Weeping Lady Liberty'.
Then it's on to the credits followed by a visit to modern day New York where the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are hanging out enjoying themselves. The Doctor annoys Amy by reading aloud from a book, and he notices that she's wearing glasses, disturbed by the realization that the first face his current face saw is getting older.
The Doctor tears the last page out of the book, a cheap dime store detective novel, saying he hates endings and that by tearing the last pages out of books the stories can go on forever for him. Remember this for later. Rory goes to get more hot dogs or something and is hunted by a cherub-like Weeping Angel who zaps him back in time. We then see Amy reading from the book, and she and the Doctor realize that Rory has somehow made it into the story. They quickly deduce that somehow Rory got trapped in the past and the very book they're reading must have been written specifically for them so they can go back and find him, having realized that the female detective illustrated on the cover must be River Song, Amy and Rory's daughter and the Doctor's wife.
Unfortunately, the TARDIS bounces off of 1938, the year Rory has apparently been sent to, and they need help to do it. River creates a temporal beacon for the TARDIS to home in on by having the Doctor go back and alter ancient Chinese vases at their creation so that they can get to Rory in the past.
From there all pretenses of actual plot fade and we end up with a monster-in-the-house story wherein the Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory must survive the Weeping Angels. Apparently a bunch of them have created the hotel as a sort of pantry by trapping visitors inside and sending them into the past to feed off the time energy generated from this. How they got there is never explained, as is typical of Moffat's inexcusably poor storytelling, but they're there and they've seemingly inhabited pretty much every humanoid statue in New York.
As a fan of time travel stories, I am constantly irritated by the disrespect so many of today's storytellers give the genre — especially in the area of paradoxes. Very few have handled such tales well: Robert Zemeckis' Back To the Future trilogy and Eidos' Legacy of Kain video game series being only two that come to my mind. Moffat is arguably the worst of the lot of bad storytellers who disrespect the material, which is even more infuriating seeing as how he's head writer for a show that features time travel and its consequences as its central theme.
SPOILER ALERT: Our heroes escape the Weeping Angels by creating a fatal paradox that zaps the Doctor, River, Amy, and Rory back to the present — in a cemetery. And it is here that the final, tearful goodbyes are said to Amy and Rory. It's also where the story is at its weakest. We're supposed to believe that once the future is known a fixed point in time is created and Bad Things Happen when anyone tries to change it. But just minutes before in the episode we saw a "fixed point" created and prevented from ever existing, and in Series Six the entire story arc revolved around the Doctor getting around a fixed point in time and space to outwit the creatures trying to kill him and escape certain death, so obviously this new "fixed" point should mean absolutely nothing to the Doctor or to Amy.
What's more, there's also the cat, namely, Schrödinger's cat: the paradoxical moment before opening a box with a cat inside it following some random event that either kills the animal or leaves it alive. Since we can't know whether the cat is alive or dead until the box is opened and we can observe it, this means the animal is in a state of temporal flux; is it both alive and dead, or neither alive or dead, until someone observes it.
So surely, having not actually seen Amy and Rory die in the episode's final moments, and having not seen the Doctor scan the ground underneath a headstone bearing Amy's and Rory's names, the Doctor can actually go back in time and rescue them, or just send River back to bring them out of the past, and as long as the headstone bearing his friends' names is still there, everything will be fine. It's so obvious to anyone who has devoted even a casual amount of consideration to paradoxes that Moffat should have thought of it from the start and just filmed those extra few seconds' worth of footage showing an elderly Amy somewhere in the past. Yet he doesn't seem to have bothered, having completely dismissed the intelligence of us viewers.
In any fictional story there is always a certain amount of disbelief that must be suspended, especially in the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. But one can only suspend so much disbelief, and then a poorly written story just becomes insulting. That's what Moffat does: he regularly insults the intelligence of his audience, not caring one bit as long as he gets his paycheck.
Oh, and that last page of the book that sent them to 1938 to face the Angels in the first place? River tells the Doctor she'll have her mother write an afterword for him, prompting him to rush back to Central Park to fetch and read it. And Amy asks the Doctor to do something they both know he can never do: go back in time and tell Amy's younger self, the one who sat outside waiting for the Time Lord all night, all about her future adventures with the Doctor. What. The. Hell? No assurances that she and Rory found each other, no request for the Doctor to tell their families their kids are all right (albeit trapped in the past), but Amy asks the Doctor to violate laws of time to tell her younger self what will happen to her in her future.
BULLSHIT on a stick.
Doctor Who has given some crappy endings to companions' stories before, but this one arguably tops them all. Not only is it an insult, but it shows just how wasted were the considerable talents of Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan. Darvill especially was much stronger in his role as wet blanket Rory than Gillan was as lead companion Amy, and both actors have had to struggle to make their characters' stories work. Matt Smith has shined as the 11th incarnation of the Doctor, but with so little for the main cast to work with, no thanks to Moffat, the two and a half seasons of Smith's run have fallen far short of what they could have been.
Now, having written all this, there is one thing I did like a lot about this latest story involving the Weeping Angels: the notion that they are not strictly corporeal beings, but can and do inhabit existing statues and from those fashion themselves bodies with which to hunt their prey. It's a very interesting concept and should be explored a bit further — but not by Moffat, who can only mess it up with some stupid throw-away explanation that he'll just toss out the window later on.
We fans should start a letter-writing campaign to have the BBC remove Moffat as head writer before he completely screws up the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
For an alternate take on The Angels Take Manhattan, see Jayne Gudkov's review.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Who News!
Check it out! Nonamei Scribe provides the voice commentary for this video evaluation of the upcoming first half of Series 7. Tip of the hat to Jayne Gudkov for linking to the blog on The Doctor Who Zone blog.
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