Wacky Reviews: Doctor Who

[CaptainWacky]

The Pandorica Opens - This is an intertaining episode. There are parts of the story that possibly don't hold up to analysis, but it's an enjoyable story while it's happening so I can let that pass. The only part I really can't let pass is the first scene. So Da Vinci's back in a scene with a totally different tone from Vincent And The Doctor. He's having a screaming fit. It's because he saw a vision of the TARDIS exploding in the future (which he's painted and we're told it's one of his very last works.) Basically it's implying that the reason Da Vinci killed himself was because of a fit of despair brought on by seeing the TARDIS explode, and that all his mental illness was down to such visions of the future. I hate this. Hate hate hate this. After Vincent And The Doctor did such a good job of portraying mental illness and how we can't really understand it in the end, here it turns out his illness is down to some sci-fi reason. It's totally pissing on that great episode and I find it almost disrespectful. Hate it.

At least the rest is good! River is back (and so are her breasts!) and she's not smug or even very flirty here, which I appreciate. Maybe it's because she knows how serious the situation is. Rory's back too and his plastic and Arthur Darvill is great. The scene where he realises Amy doesn't know him is great. The scene where she starts to remember him and then he stabs her is great. This is great stuff. Also the part with the Cyberman in pices attacking Amy and the Doctor is a great action scene and the scariest the Cybermen have been in new Who. And the Doctor's big speech is excellently done by Matt Smith (of course the aliens must only be pretending to be scared since they have this big plan going on tha thte Doctor doesn't know about yet.)

So the aliens went to adult Amy's bedroom and she had a (school?) book about Romans sitting there on her desk because she like Romans at school. Also there's a photo of Rory. Rory, the guy who at this point never existed. So how can there be a photo of him? (I'd also ask how River can exist when Rory's her dad and he never existed, but you'd just say "time wimey." I could add that River doesn't seem very suprirsed to see her dad as a Roman centurion but you'd just say "timey wimey spoilery woilery!" or something. I don't even know who you are anymore.) They recreate Rory as plastic using Amy's memories that linger in her bedroom(!?) even though Rory never existed and yes the Doctor says even when he's erased there's still some trace memory of them but I don't see how they recreate him (down to the point of even remembering how he died!) using echoes of Amy's trace memories. But like I said the Rory/Amy stuff works on an emotional level so it's okay.

(I also watched The Big Bang but I don't have time to review it right now.)

SCORE: 8.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Also I meant to say that I don't really know what the Alliance have to create the Romans when they have twelve thousand ships and could have easily just grabbed the Doctor and shoved him in the Pandorica without coming up with an elaborate Roman ruse. But I guess villains always need elaborate schemes!

The Big Bang - This is again a very entertaining, fast paced episode full of fun action and great acting from Matt Smith and the rest (including the return of Young Amelia, who's an excellent young actress.) So after the fun teaser the Doctor comes back in time to rescue himself by giving Rory the Sonic. It's very Bill And Ted and not a time travel method we see often in Doctor Who. I mean there's been plenty of times he could say "I have to remember to go back and save myself!" and then his future self shows up to save him...but the universe is dying. And he's using Captain Jack's sexy time band thing. So the rules proably don't apply. It's fun. Especially when he steals a drink form Young Amelia to give to Young Amelia who's thirsty because the Doctor stole her drink earlier. That's the right kind of wackiness.

I like how the monsters are frozen in stone in time like in Wind Waker and the stone Dalek is cool but not as good as the Cyberman in the previous episode. River killing it is a good scene and makes sense with her "ultimate assassin" backstory to be later revealed (even though I hated the episode where that was revealed.) The Pandorica can heal wounds because...that's a feature you'd put in the ultimate prison? Also it's really easy to get into. But the episode is so fast paced again that you don't really have time to think "wait, what" about things like that and they're not story ruiners or anything.

Matt Smith's forementioned excellent acting is on display in the time rewinding scene. This is great stuff becaues it's not just about the crazy science fiction but about the Doctor and Amy's characters. Then there's the wedding scene and the TARDIS appearing is a great moment. But then Amy's all "fancy a shag?" to the Doctor. Right in front of Rory. At their wedding. And she does it twice so if it's a joke I don't know why they repeat it. After 'Amy's Choice' and oh Rory waiting for her for two thousand years (can't believe I forgot to mention that!) this really seems like a character regression. Also Amy's parents come back to life but as far as I remember they're never mentioned again let alone seen and Amy is really happy to wave goodbye to the town at the end. It's a nice moment when she sees them but ultimately it's kind of pointless.

So I forgot to mention in The Pandorica Opens that there's an EVIL MAN'S VOICE saying "SILENCE WILL FALL!" What does this mean? Even with our knowledge now of what "silence will fall" means (it means stopping the Doctor from telling the Timelords to come through the crack, I think?) I don't really know why there's an evil man saying this. And why River apparently can't hear it. But anyway, after a season of "silence will fall" I think we were all expecting it to be explained here, but instead the episode ends with "who tried to blow up the TARDIS, and why now, and what's all that silence stuff...wait a minute, wacky phonecall, forget all that, DUM DUM DUM DA DUM DUM DUM DUM!" (that was supposed to be the 11th Doctor's theme or whatever the real name of it is.) Which is fine here because the episode is so good. But I do think I've detected Moffat developing some of the bad habbits that will be more evident later. And I'd like to discuss that further. But there's only one episode left on Netflix. So I won't be able to!

SCORE: 9/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

A Christmas Carol - There's been a lot of talk since Moffat took over as showrunner about his episodes being "too complicated." I don't think that's been the case so far in series 5, but I can kind of see why this episode may be confusing to some more casual viewers for one reason: it uses a time travel method we've never really seen before. The Doctor meets the mean old man and decides to go back in time and make him nicer. We see the old man watching projections of this and new memories appearing in his head as he does, and photos and things appearing before him. He even eventually meets his own younger self. Basically the Doctor just completely screws up this guy's timeline. We literally see him forming new memories and his life changing before our eyes whcih we've never seen before (or if we have it definitely wasn't like this.) "What's the problem with that, Wacky?" you might be asking. Well why has the Doctor never done this before? There's loads of episodes where it would have been helpful for him to go back in time after meeting someone and change something in their past. Whenever this issues has come up the Doctor's always said something like "I'm part of events now, I can't change the past!" or "I'm part of his personal timeline now!" But here it's perfectly fine for him to completely change events he's already part of just because "time can be rewritten" is a new catchphrase and mainly because it's Christmas. If it's okay for the Doctor to go back and change the old guy's past, why doesn't he just go back and tell the captain of the spaceship that's trapped in the gas cloud "hey, don't fly into the gas cloud?" Time can be rewritten, after all...

Having said ALL THAT it IS Christmas so who gives a fuck, really. It's the best Christmas episode yet (and possibly still the best one up until 2013 although Time Of The Doctor probably beats it even though I had problems with that ANYWAY) and it's good fun but also has an actual good story that some thought has went into. And there's steampunk people and flying fish and a funny parody of JJ Trek complete with lensflare. Michael Gambon is really good at acting. Katherine Jenkins is okay at acting (she's not really much of a character anyway) and really good at singing. So they both work to their strengths here.

There's a bit with a shark chasing the Doctor and the little boy that goes on too long, but then Katherine Jenkins sings to the shark and yeah she eventually saves the day by singing. It's Christmas! Oh, and she's dying. It's really quite obvious that the machine she's in is counting down to the day of her death and the Doctor doesn't notice it. That's kind of silly. I don't know if we needed to go all the way to her and young Gambon falling in love with each other (especially since she knew him as a child literally a couple of days before from her point of view) as it would have worked just as well with just a strong friendship. Amy doesn't do much until she shows up as a hologram and Karen Gillan is really good in this scene.

It's a good episode anyway. Not as good as a non-Christmas good episode but still not a bad way to end Wacky Reviews Doctor Who. Because yes THAT'S IT no more episodes on Netflix and I might watch some other stuff maybe (HINT IT COULD INOLVE ERIC ROBERTS) but my watching of every episode from Rose is at an end and I didn't even get to complain about Let's Kill Hitler.

SCORE: 8/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Doctor Who (1996) - I remember watching this when it as first on the BBC (1996 I guess) because I vaguely remembered Doctor Who from my childhood. I probably forgot about it as soon as it finished. It's not very memorable.

It starts with some planet (Skara I guess) and a really quick voiceover. Like it just instnatly goes into a voiceover speaking really fast saying something about the Master and running out of lives and Skaro and then a guy explodes. It's just confusing.

It feels weird having so many Americans around. And actually played by American actors. Sylvester McCoy is in it at the start but he gets shot by Chinese gangsters before he gets a chance to say much or make any kind of impression. I'm sure I would have been upset by his death if I'd watched his episodes (okay I did watch some of them but I can't remember them very well) but this episode doesn't give you a reason to care about him. Then he regenerates into Paul McGann. It takes quite a while to get to this point and I don't know if it's really needed. Couldn't they have just started with McGann and skipped the regeneration that takes up too much time and it isn't really that much of a surprise when he changes faces because he already mentioned something about having twelve lives in the voiceover. Also the Master isn't dead. He's an invisible snake thing and he takes over Eric Roberts. He wants to open the Eye of Harmony on the TARDIS and he can do that by making a human look into it. I guess the TARDIS being kind of alive wasn't a thing at this point (or was ignored in this episode.) Otherwise surely it wouldn't open the Eye. Also opening the Eye will destroy Earth or something vague.

There's parts with the Doctor driving about in a bike and the Master chasing in an ambulance. They don't feel very Doctor Who.

About 40 mintues in the episode finally almost starts being intersting when the Doctor and Grace are trying to figure out who he is, but this should have come much earlier in the episode. Like look how quickly 'Rose' made the Doctor seem interesting.

Paul McGann is good with what he's given, but I don't really like some of how the Doctor is presented here. Sure he's got two hearts and he can regenerate and he acts a bit weird, but generally he could just be an eccentric human rather than an alien. The episode twice references him being "half human" as if it say "see he's not some weird alien he's just like us but a bit odd!" It's a poor choice I feel. I like the part where he points the gun at himself rather than the cop. He doesn't make as good an impression as Christopher Eccleton, but again Eccleston has better material. Eccleston's relationship with Rose had an honesty to it. This Doctor and Grace...they're alright together. But we don't get much sense of seeing the Doctor through the companion's eyes like we did in 'Rose' and even after she knows he has two hearts and can walk through glass and change his face she still thinks he's a mental patient and meh I didn't really like this (or most of the episode.) There's nothing like the scene where Eccleston told Rose about being able to feel the motion of the Earth all the time (or whatever the exact line was YOU KNOW THE PART I MEAN.)

Eric Roberts is fine as generic evil badguy. His deadpan delivery of "you want me to kil you?" was the only line that made me laugh. The problem is there's no sense of any history between him and the Doctor. He's just some evil guy and yeah I liked his EVIL CLOAK. Also he was supposed to remind us of the Terminator right?

Grace? She's okay. The actress is fine. But again you just have to compare her to Rose in 'Rose' to see where she falls short.

There's also a kid called Lee who is really passive and emotionless for most of the episode. Near the end the Doctor starts pleading to him about how the Master is actual a badguy and not good like Lee thought, though up until now Lee only seemed to care about stealing the Doctor's stuff and partying and shooting at people. His neck is snapped...

The Doctor goes back in time a day to bring Lee and Grace back to life after they died. Seriously. Maybe there's some technobabble about the Eye of Harmony making it possible, but I think this is a really poor use of time travel in this episode (and it is the only use of time travel too.)

So yeah this is interesting to watch as a curiousity and there's some entertaining moments, but I totally see why it didn't go to series.

SCORE: 5/10

 

[whisky]

You missed out the annoying comedy fat guy, and the annoying comedy professor, and the police bikes brakes failing purely so he could ride straight into the tardis, scream, and ride back out.

 

[The Tomtrek]

Two important things about the TV movie:

1) On the whole, the TV Movie isn't that great. It has some excellent parts, but in general it kind of doesn't work.
2) I love the TV Movie.

Yeah, so, the TV Movie was an excellent "What not to do when reviving Doctor Who" guide for Russell The Davies to work from.

Don't have a regeneration in the middle of the episode. It seemed like a cool idea at the time, and the idea of not having Sylvester McCoy seemed pure sacrilege. But with hindsight, and after seeing how RTD did it, yeah it was really dumb. If you didn't know who Sylvester McCoy was, you had no time to care about him dying, and then you had even time to get to know the new Doctor - so the end result is just confusing for new viewers.

Don't pander to existing fans with meaningless references.

"It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy the Master was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil was read and sentence passed. Then he made his last, and I thought somewhat curious, request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take his remains back to our home planet, Gallifrey."

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??? Of course I know what it means, because I'm cool, but to anyone else it means nothing. Less than nothing. And worse still they're just meaningless, shallow "hey here's a thing you remember!" references. Yeah, you can throw the Seal of Rassilon all across the TARDIS but that won't make the script better.


Plus you have other weird things. Like the Terminator-Master, which is mainly Eric Roberts' fault. Originally you were supposed to see The Master's snake (they should be cheetah) eyes throughout the whole thing, but Eric Roberts didn't like wearing the lenses, so that was nixed and he just wore sunglasses all the time. Also, after The Master had possessed Bruce's body, the body was supposed to gradually decompose throughout the episode (reinforcing the idea that he needs to get The Doctor's body ASAP) but again, Eric Roberts didn't want any prosthetics on his magical face, so that was cut. The only part of that which remains is the now totally out of place scene where he rips a fingernail off and flicks it away.

And yeah, Chang Lee's character is nuts. There's a great mini-documentary thing on the DVD where they point out that Chang-Lee's relationship with The Master goes from "Help me or I'll kill you" to "Help me and I'll make you rich!" to "YOU LIED TO ME, MASTER!!!!!!" for no real reason.

BUT YOU KNOW FUCKING WHAT?

PAUL MCGANN, THAT'S FUCKING WHAT.

Paul McGann is great and if you think otherwise you're wrong, sorry. Yes The Doctor he plays here is more "crazy Englishman" than "crazy alien" (something which is fixed in his audios) but he's still great and his shoes fit perfectly and that's great.

And the TARDIS looks amazing. For what it's worth, the concept of the TARDIS being alive was introduced in the very first episode ever, and reinforced in the third story every back in 1964. And it is actually referenced here, what with it "really liking" Chang-Lee for reasons of plot.


But the "travel in time makes people come back to life!" thing never made sense.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Well they should have known better than to ask Eric Roberts to look ugly. You wouldn't hire George Clooney then dress him up as a Slitheen. And I can only judge Paul McGann based on this episode and he was good but I wouldn't say great SO THERE HAHAHA (I think it would be hard for anyone to be truly great in this.)

You missed out the annoying comedy fat guy, and the annoying comedy professor.

Urgh, the part where the professor kept popping his cheek made me want the world to end in whatever vague way it was going to end.

 

[whisky]

He sure went from "oh no, my worlds most accurate clock is destroyed" to "lets party!" really quickly.

 

[CaptainWacky]

And we're back. Netflix has added series 6 so there will be 14 more reviews at least!

The Impossible Astronaut - The first half of the episode is all about Amy, Rory and River seeing the Doctor be killed by someone in a spacesuit. It's good. We don't know what's gonig on at all and it's certainly an interesting mystery. Of course since I know how this all ends I can point out that the Doctor shouldn't start regenerationg when he's shot as he's on his list regeneration, but it's not really the Doctor being shot and maybe he programmed it to regenerate because other people didn't know he was on his last regeneration. I mean it doesn't matter really, it's not the kind of detail that would spoil the story (those come in part two!)

Then we go back in time to 1969 and there's Nixon and Badger from Firefly (not Badger from Breaking Bad though) and I kind of like how Nixon is just a bit silly rather than being totally evil. There's some "Americans like guns" jokes and a gay reference about the founding fathers fancying the Doctor. Take that, Americans! That'll teach you for letting us film in your country! The concept of the Silence are introduced in a good scene with Amy in a bathroom. Then a Silent blows up a woman. Just for fun, I guess. They're pretty evil, you see. The Silence. They certainly don't seem like evil priests or anything here. They just seem to be about evil.

Also it should be noted that the a little girl calls Nixon looking for help and the Doctor sets off to help her. Because no Doctor, especially not Matt Smith's Doctor, is going to ignore a child looking for help...

The episode ends on a series of cliffhangers. It's an entertaining set-up episode. I didn't think it was as good as previous Moffat two-parter first parts but it there was always something going on at least.

SCORE: 7.75/10

The Day Of The Moon - So we skip forward in time three months and only see the cliffhangers resolved in flashback (actually River and Rory just come running back out of the room full of Silence I guess.) Isn't this breaking a rule of tv or something? The opening sequence is fun if completely silly. They really didn't need to skip three whole months. I'm guessing it was just so the Doctor could have a beard...

Look, the thing about this episode is that yeah, it does have cool things in it. But it's like the story is only there to move us from one cool thing to the next, rather than the cool things actually serving the story? Amy in the children's home is cool, yeah. Which the pen marks appearing on her. But why did the Silence have to put young River (as we know the little girl is) in a children's home staffed by humans? Couldn't they have kept her in their secret underground lair of evil?

Oh yeah, the Silence have been on Earth manipulating events for THOUSNADS OF YEARS by the way. We don't really get any details on how they've been manipulating humans or how many thousands of people they've killed (it really must be a lot if they blow up women in bathrooms for fun.) The idea of evil aliens who we can't remember manipulating human history is a good one...except it turns out they did it all for a spacesuit.

Really, they did all this for a spacesuit.

There was no other way for them to get a spacesuit, apparently. Even though they come from the future. And are part of a huge religious order with many species as memebers. They had to travel back in time thousands of years and manipulate all of human history to get a spacesuit.

It's stupid.

So Amy is captured by the Silence and I was thinking "this is when they replace her with a Ganger." But earlier in the episode Amy had told the Doctor that her pregnancy was a false alarm. So Amy must have already been replaced by the Ganger before she's kidnapped here? It's kind of confusing then what the Silence were doing to her in that chair if they already had her human body. So we get another "Rory realises Amy loves him and not the Doctor!" moment out of this and I thought that was all resolved with 'Amy's Choice' last year but I guess not.

The Doctor and River rescue Amy and River starts acting annoying as fuck. Like if you go back you'll see I actually didn't find River annoying in her previous appearances. But here she's so smug and all "did my fella see" and argh.

The Doctor made it so that when you watch the moon landing there's a Silence telling you to kill his entire race. It's a clever solution, but...like, the Silence are pretty good fighters. They can blow people up. If humans attack any Silence they see (and it's implied that there's lots of Silents all over the world) wouldn't the Silence fight back and blow lots of them up? And why are they sticking around on Earth anyway?

Remember the little girl who asked for help? The Doctor kind of mentions her in passing, but then says it's time to move on to another wacky adventure. And I can forgive a lot of things but what the fuck? The Doctor literally just ignores a little girl in need because the story requires it? That's bad. Come on. You've got to admit that's bad.

Then she regenerates and it's another good mystery ending but it's going to result in 'Let's Kill Hitler' so I can't get too excited.

(Oh and I'm not sure if it even makes sense that everyone can remember the Silence and the events of the episode as the end but...)

SCORE: 7/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Curse Of The Black Spot - It's the pirate episode. It's not very good. It starts with the crew listening to a psiren sing. Except there's the usual Murray Gold music drowning out the sound of the psiren singing, so that's a potential creepy opening ruined! The pirate ship looks pretty small. It doesn't help that I've been watching Black Sails that has really good looking pirate ships. The part where the pirates are scared of dying after a single cut is a decent set-up for a mystery? Matt Smith is good but he always is. Were we supposed to like the lead pirate guy? Because we're told he's killed thousands of innocent men. And even if that's not true all his friends seem like dicks and he is a pirate. But hey he's got a son he abandoned so I guess that makes him a good guy...

Lily Cole is a good choice to play an alien mermaid thing. She doesn't have to do much acting or anything. The "alien medical system malfunctions and doesn't know how to repair itself/humans" thing has been done several times before and always better than this. Rory dies again because that's what Rory does and I guess it's an easy way to make us sad (I felt nothing!) Oh and one of the crewmaen disappears without being taken to the alien then reappears at the end and where was he on the tiny pirate ship? Ah, who cares. It's not a terrible episode but it's dull.

SCORE: 6/10

The Doctor's Wife - This is more like it! I enjoyed the pre credits scene more than the whole of the previous episode. I like the junkyard planet. It feels like something that would be in Doctor Who. I like the creepiness of Aunty and Uncle. There's an Ood again and it's a shame they didn't have the budget for a new alien but the Ood are a cool design anyway. Michael Sheen has a good evil voice as the evil voice.

So the TARDIS has been with the Doctor all along and it's always been hinted that it's kind of alive (well since 2005, I don't know how far back it goes in the original series) so what would it be like if the TARDIS could talk? Turns out it would be a lot of fun! Suranne Jones does a great job playing the TARDIS in a quirky but never annoying way. Matt Smith, of course, is great playing off her. They make you care about the relationship. When she dies it IS sad because the sadness is earned.

The Doctor flying a TARDIS made from junk is a cool thing to have happened.

Amy and Rory are used well too. Okay I guess you could say there's another "Rory dies" scene but it's a million times better than the previous episode. Again it's a shame they could show more of the TARDIS due to the budget but they get a lot out of those corridors.

There's lots of funny lines throughout and it's creepy and touching and Doctor Who-y and Amy and Rory sleep in bunk beds and this is what you'd want out of a Neil Gaiman scripted episode of Doctor Who. Or just out of an episode of Doctor Who.

SCORE: 10/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

So the TARDIS has been with the Doctor all along and it's always been hinted that it's kind of alive (well since 2005, I don't know how far back it goes in the original series)

About 11 minutes into the very first episode, if you want to get specific about it.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I did, as a matter of fact!

Is the thing about the TARDIS choosing the Doctor contradicted when we find out one of the Claras told the doctor which TARDIS to take?

 

[whisky]

Yes, just another reason why Moffat is a dick, he must stamp his mark on all of the Doctor history, overwriting what countless others did before him.

Some people stand on the shoulders of giants, only Moffat would piss on them while he was up there.

 

[The Tomtrek]

Well, no, because the only reason Clara had to tell The Doctor to get in another TARDIS is because she was fixing what the Great Intelligence had done.

There was an audio story released for the 50th, The Beginning, which is about when The First Doctor finds the TARDIS and leaves Gallifrey for the first time that makes reference to both Clara and the Doctor being "chosen".

 

[whisky]

And what did the great intelligence do, tell him to steal the third one on the right?

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Rebel Flesh - I like the teaser for this episode. It's good. It makes you think "why don't they care that that guy died and hey that guy's still alive!" I like that it has a more serious science fiction plot. The Gangers are good because they look do look creepy and distrubing but they don't act overly evil (well not in this part anyway) but you can understand why the humans would find it weird to have duplicates of themselves. I liked that Rory got a subplot that didn't involve him dying and that they didn't go down the "jealous girlfriend" route with Amy when he went off with the girl. But the boss woman just pretty much murdering one of the Gangers kind of felt a bit much? Like it didn't seem like she panicked or anything or that it was an accident, she just murdered him. That could have played out in a more "no one was really at fault" kind of way and I think it would have been better if it had. But a good first part.

SCORE: 8/10

The Almost People - I felt the second part was kind of a let down in some ways. The first set up some interesting questions but none of them were really explored beyond characters saying "we have to kill them all!" again and again. And Ganger Jenny. What happened there? I liked her stuff with Rory in the first part but it turns out to be kind of pointless as she just goes all out evil and monstrous. Which kind of defeats the whole "the Gangers aren't monsters!" thing. Also the whole two Doctors thing: the scenes between them are funny and Matt Smith is good, but so much more could have been done with it. It just turns into "aaah, see, Amy, gangers are the same as us!" (except when they turn into crazed monsters.) And someone actually said the line "who's the REAL monsters here!" at one point. I don't know, it wasn't a bad episode, it just didn't do anything all that interesting with the great set-up material. But it was still watchable and plenty creepy (the room with the discared flesh...but did the thing with the eyes in the wall make any sense?) And the ending was a great twist. So yeah. Decent two-parter.

SCORE: 7.25/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

A Good Man Goes To War - I remember being slightly confused the first time I watched this one when the Doctor gets help from some "old friends" who haven't appeared before. It doesn't help that the same woman plays every female Silurian and that all Sontarans look alike. There's also a two second cameo from the pirate guy and his son that literally no one in the world wanted to see. But Vestra and Jenny (why are there so many Jennys in Doctor Who?) are good characters and Strax is amusing here and not as comically thick as he would become.

So this episode is about the Doctor rescuing Amy and the baby and maybe we'll also learn some secrets about River and what the Silence are up to at last! It was the mid series final when it first aired and I remember finding it disappointing and watching it back now...I haven't changed my opinion. I just find it an easy episode to complain about.

It's never boring and there's some good lines. I liked the "Captain Runaway" bit and the scene where the Doctor, Rory and Amy reunite with the baby and the Doctor talking to the baby is nice and the about the only emotional part of the episode that worked on me. Lorna Bucket is an interesting idea but she gets so little screentime that it's not really as sad as it should be when she dies.

The Headless Monks really aren't one of Moffat's better creations. They're just monks without heads.

There's a forced "we're gay in the future where it's still unusual apparently!" introduction to two characters then one of them dies and we don't see the other again so I don't care?

So, River appears at the start and says the Doctor "will never rise higher and never fall further" or something to that effect. The Doctor rescues the baby and Vestra says "my friend, you have never risen higher!" (how would she know anyway?) I mean it's good that he rescued the baby and everything but he's literally saved the entire universe before. Then the baby turns to goo and the everyone's sad for about a minute. But again I'm sure the Doctor's been in much worse situations than is and it's not really played like it's the worst thing to ever happen or anything. So that annoyed me.

Then River shows up and is completely insufferably smug. She's all "HOW GOES THE WAR DOCTOR" and "WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME" and I'm like "really, what's he done that's so bad?" Yeah okay three people died. That's sad. But the blue guy died because he suddenly decided to go and hug the evil killer monks. And he's not really dead anyway. Strax was happy to die in battle. And he's not really dead anyway. And Lorna...okay, but she chose to join the evil clerics so she must have had an idea this could happen. So if the point is that they're all dying because of the Doctor it's pretty easily countered with "yeah well literally everyone would be dead if not for the Doctor." Maybe if River had appeared right after the Doctor blew up loads of Cybermen just to be a "badass" then she would have had a point. But she doesn't seem to know about that and no one cares (funny that it's the kind of thing that got Harriet Jones kicked out of Downing Street.) But at this point it seems the episode wants us to think "the Doctor is SCARY!" even though he isn't.

(Oh and who's River to lecture someone about violence when the last time we saw her she was spinning around almost having an orgasm while she shot the Silence.)

BUT THEN there's a sudden tonal shift again and we find out who River is and the Doctor's all happily and giggling and it's like "yeah, fuck Lorna Bucket, the Doctro's off to get the baby back!" It's that thing Moffat does in his writing sometimes where he has you think one thing then suddely says "actually, another thing was the REAL thing!" It happens in Sherlock too and I'm not really a fan of it. So are we supposed to be happy at the end of the episode? Are we supposed to forget the "Doctor's a monster!" thing? And why is the revealation about River's identity made to be all about the Doctor while her parents Amy and Rory are just kind of standing there like spare parts?

So yeah I think there's some pretty bad writing here. Also the big fight between the Doctor's allies and the Monks is pretty poor but I guess fight choreography isn't something Doctor Who is known for. So yeah I keep saying "so yeah" and again this episode is watchable all the way through and better than RTD's finales (well except the first one, that was way better than this) but it's also pretty flawed but hey maybe the next one will make up for it and really delve into how Amy and Rory feeling about losing their daughter!

SCORE: 7/10

 

[whisky]

The postenater gang seemed like interesting one off side kicks here, but the constant need to shoehorn them back into the series every three weeks or so, made them really get on my tits.

The Doctor isnt stranded with UNIT any more, there is no reason in all of time and space to keep running into these arseholes.

Also shame the whole "I'm off to get your baby back" was completely forgotten, and all we got was Lets kill Hitler.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Let's Kill Hitler - This episode first aired three months after the previous one. Even then it still felt like a glaring change in tone. Watching them (almost) back to back I'm still completely baffled about what Moffat was thinking. This episode is so over the top that it times it comes across as a parody episode. Like not just a regular episode with good comedy, but an out and out comedy episode for most of its lenght. And yet it's an episode with some supposedly huge plot developments. It's just too bizarre.

So the previous episode ended with the Doctor all happy and saying "I know where to find your daughter!" Now it's I guess months later and...he hasn't found her. He still doesn't have a clue where she is. Why we he happy at the end of the last episode? I don't know. The episode only plays lipservice to Amy being worried about her missing cihld, giving her a few lines mentioning it but you never really feel anything from it. How does Rory feel about it? The episode doesn't care at all. After his awesome (and perfectly delivered by Arthur Darvill) "shut up, Hitler!" line he's just kind of standing around again.

So, Mels was River all along and she was best friends with Amy and Rory despite seemingly being pretty fucking annoying and it makes no sense. Surely Amy and Rory would have mentioned her by now. Surely since Mels is arguably even more obesessed with the Doctor than Amy is Amy would have went straight to her when the Doctor showed up for real in The 11th Hour. Or called her. Or mentioned her. And surely if Mels exists to kill the Doctor she would have tried to be in town one of the times the Doctor visted it prevoiusly (at least three times now.) Oh, and she escaped from the Silence at the end of Day Of The Moon, right? So she was conditioned to kill the Doctor before then. So how come she didn't try to kill him when she met him in that episode?

I like the idea of the little men in the big shapeshifting robot suit. I would have probably enjoyed a light-hearted episode about them. Of course they're pretty dumb. Like how did they not know they were in 1938 until right when they were standing in front of Hitler? Surely if they were going to take him right at the end of his life they should have expected him to be in his bunker? And they went to punish River for "killing" the Doctor even though of course we know that the Doctor doesn't really die and the whole universe knows it eventually too (certainly by The Thing Of The Doctor trilogy?) Or maybe they come from a time right after he fake his death but before he gave up on faking his death.

Anyway, River is at her most River here. Like completely. She murders some Nazis just for a laugh or something. She says she's a psychopath because she was conditioned to kill the Doctor (surely if you condition someone to do something they shouldn't be aware that it's down to conditioning?) but I doubt Mels was murdering people all those years she spent with Amy and Rory. I don't blame Alex Kingston because she has done good acting before. It's just clear Moffat wanted River to be every type of character ever at once and I don't think any actress could make her likable in this one. At least she looked pretty fucking hot throughout (she does, let's just admit it!)

There's a bit where some past companions appear to the Doctor but he says he's fucked up all their lives. I don't really like that? Shouldn't travelling with the Doctor be seen as a fun, if risky, thing? It seems to be part of the loose "the Doctor is dangerous!" arc this series but I don't remember there being much payoff.

So River ends up giving up all her Regenerations to save the Doctor because she...find outs that she'll love him in the future. That's kind of my problem with the whole River/Doctor relationship, I think. We don't actually see them fall in love. We just see them telling each other (usually River telling him) that they'll love each other one day and that one day they'll understand why they're so special to each other. It's hard to get emotionally involved in it!

So yeah. This episode has some funny parts (the Hitler stuff) but I hate the tone of it. I hate how Amy and Rory's actual feelings about losing their daughter aren't part of the story (or maybe the story's saying they don't have any feelings about it.) I hate the Mels idea. I don't care about the River/Doctor stuff as much as I'm supposed to. It's the worst thing Moffat's written at this point.

SCORE: 5.25/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

The good parts about "Let's Kill Hitler":

The title "Let's Kill Hitler"
The concept of a time travelling shape shifting robot filled with tiny people who go around punishing history's worst people except they're not really very good at it
The fact that the episode wasn't really about Hitler
This shot: