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'Tis a good weekend to be a Whovian.
In case anyone has missed it: The Mind of Evil is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I am both sad, strangely proud and extremely embarrassed that this means I will own every Pertwee serial on DVD come june...
While waiting for a stream of The Bells of St. John to come online last night, I accidentally ended up watching the first two episodes (serials?) of The Sarah Jane Adventures on YouTube, only to discover that the only streams I could find afterwards were from season 4... which was a bit upsetting, as I really liked what I'd seen (everyone is so cute and this pleases me).
I was also very amused to realise that the preview for Eye of the Gorgon struck me as very familiar... Wiki soon revealed to me that SJA actually aired on the Swedish children's channel a couple of years back when I was still in eighth or ninth grade. I must've caught it some day when I was home sick (I was sick a lot in those days) because I clearly remember there being... nuns. Evil nuns. And monasteries and green lawns.
As for when I actually got around to watching the new episode it was way, way too late. Curse you, daylights savings. But I watched it anyway, and actually found it... surprisingly enjoyable?
- Not off to the best start, I'll admit. The introduction is good enough, but the Doctor having retired to a monastery to obsess over ~*the mystery*~ that is Clara Oswald is... actually super-creepy. Also kind of counter-productive, you'd think, given that he has ALL OF TIME AND SPACE at his disposal.
- A woman. Can we not with the casual sexism, Moffat? It's been old from the very beginning.
- That being said, Matt Smith is a delight and he gets some lovely moments in this episode; the jammy dodgers and the quadricycle in particular comes to mind. Also he looks good in purple (vintage bow tie!).
- I'm... still very lukewarm about Clara, but I think this is the best I've liked her yet. For all that her being a ~*mystery*~ is played up at least this episode places her in a context, and hopefully I'll be able to get a grasp of her now she'll be travelling with the Doctor rather than file her away as another of Moffat's feisty and flirty female protagonists. They're going to have to flesh her out quite a bit more to get away from the implication that she's a walking plot device for the Doctor to solve, though.
- This episode is narratively sound, which is good but not a guarantee with Moffat. That being said, some plot turns feel very awkward and shoe-horned in for added ~*mystery*~; Clara repeating the wi-fi code is probably the most glaring one. Others, however, actually feel rather natural and understated (also not something Moffat is very good at usually). The Doctor hacking a spoonhead is one.
- Speaking of wi-fi, WHAT KIND OF 24-YEAR OLD WHO'S APPARENTLY GONE TO UNIVERSITY DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO USE WI-FI?! And even if you don't, it's... really not hard to figure out. There are icons at the bottom of the screen. If you hover the pointer over them they'll tell you what they are. Come the fuck on.
I can forgive the kind of iffy plot of people being HACKED! AND UPLOADED! SOMEHOW! Because this is Doctor Who and just a couple of hours earlier I watched Sarah Jane lament the fact that the sun had turned cold. But wi-fi? There is a limit to how thin you can spread the suspension of disbelief over the toast that is a Doctor Who episode.
- The Spoonheads aren't scary, but they're not as stupid as the name implies either. Though frankly I'd prefer a Yeti (CAN WE HAVE YETIS ON NUWHO??).
- The anti-grav motorbike! I DON'T CARE THAT WE'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL AGAIN, THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF RIDICULOUS AWESOME I LIKE. I'm so sorry. I'm also a fan of superhero comics.
- RICHARD E. GRANT! Annnd the Great Intelligence is back. This is a good thing, except - what was actually the point of it? Why did it want all those minds? To feed on, to exploit, something like it apparently (possibly there's an overaching plotline here)-- except that's not really something that the Intelligence has done before? In both The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear, its final goal was to gain a corporeal existence. Hmmm.
- If the boss (did she have a name? If so it escapes me) had been capable of and willing to download Clara again... I doubt the Doctor would've been off her back. And yet him specifically asking for Clara to be freed makes it sound like that. Yes, many of the minds wouldn't have bodies to return to, but they would be allowed a death rather than being locked up in terror to be exploited. So that poor wording kind of made the climax feel a bit off.
EDIT: I forgot to write that not to mention apparently the Great Intelligence has the power to control ALL OF HUMANITY via wi-fi as remote control? Isn't that... kind of a big deal, especially considering how the Doctor reacted to the Silence influencing mankind - by turning all of humanity into mass murderers and making us commit genocide (this will never sit right with me). And with the Silence he didn't even has a more concrete reason than "FREE WILL!1". Which makes him singling out Clara to be saved even more odd. Eugh.
- The boss being reverted to her pre-Intelligence state was chilling.
- The "you won't abandon the people you care about" moment is a nice moment.
- The preview for The Rings of Akhaten looks quite neat; I'm a sucker for lush alien cultures. Hopefully it will be more substance and less flash than the preview itself though.
TL;DR it's far, far from perfect... and yet I still rather enjoyed it. Perhaps because there were no major characterisation issues that bothered me? I can't judge Clara yet, and I do like Eleven (I'm just not fond of a lot of the writing of his era). So I'm looking forward to the next episode. And the episode after that, because ICCCE WARRIORSSSS. Even Ice Warriors written by Mark Gatiss...
While waiting for a stream of The Bells of St. John to come online last night, I accidentally ended up watching the first two episodes (serials?) of The Sarah Jane Adventures on YouTube, only to discover that the only streams I could find afterwards were from season 4... which was a bit upsetting, as I really liked what I'd seen (everyone is so cute and this pleases me).
I was also very amused to realise that the preview for Eye of the Gorgon struck me as very familiar... Wiki soon revealed to me that SJA actually aired on the Swedish children's channel a couple of years back when I was still in eighth or ninth grade. I must've caught it some day when I was home sick (I was sick a lot in those days) because I clearly remember there being... nuns. Evil nuns. And monasteries and green lawns.
As for when I actually got around to watching the new episode it was way, way too late. Curse you, daylights savings. But I watched it anyway, and actually found it... surprisingly enjoyable?
- Not off to the best start, I'll admit. The introduction is good enough, but the Doctor having retired to a monastery to obsess over ~*the mystery*~ that is Clara Oswald is... actually super-creepy. Also kind of counter-productive, you'd think, given that he has ALL OF TIME AND SPACE at his disposal.
- A woman. Can we not with the casual sexism, Moffat? It's been old from the very beginning.
- That being said, Matt Smith is a delight and he gets some lovely moments in this episode; the jammy dodgers and the quadricycle in particular comes to mind. Also he looks good in purple (vintage bow tie!).
- I'm... still very lukewarm about Clara, but I think this is the best I've liked her yet. For all that her being a ~*mystery*~ is played up at least this episode places her in a context, and hopefully I'll be able to get a grasp of her now she'll be travelling with the Doctor rather than file her away as another of Moffat's feisty and flirty female protagonists. They're going to have to flesh her out quite a bit more to get away from the implication that she's a walking plot device for the Doctor to solve, though.
- This episode is narratively sound, which is good but not a guarantee with Moffat. That being said, some plot turns feel very awkward and shoe-horned in for added ~*mystery*~; Clara repeating the wi-fi code is probably the most glaring one. Others, however, actually feel rather natural and understated (also not something Moffat is very good at usually). The Doctor hacking a spoonhead is one.
- Speaking of wi-fi, WHAT KIND OF 24-YEAR OLD WHO'S APPARENTLY GONE TO UNIVERSITY DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO USE WI-FI?! And even if you don't, it's... really not hard to figure out. There are icons at the bottom of the screen. If you hover the pointer over them they'll tell you what they are. Come the fuck on.
I can forgive the kind of iffy plot of people being HACKED! AND UPLOADED! SOMEHOW! Because this is Doctor Who and just a couple of hours earlier I watched Sarah Jane lament the fact that the sun had turned cold. But wi-fi? There is a limit to how thin you can spread the suspension of disbelief over the toast that is a Doctor Who episode.
- The Spoonheads aren't scary, but they're not as stupid as the name implies either. Though frankly I'd prefer a Yeti (CAN WE HAVE YETIS ON NUWHO??).
- The anti-grav motorbike! I DON'T CARE THAT WE'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL AGAIN, THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF RIDICULOUS AWESOME I LIKE. I'm so sorry. I'm also a fan of superhero comics.
- RICHARD E. GRANT! Annnd the Great Intelligence is back. This is a good thing, except - what was actually the point of it? Why did it want all those minds? To feed on, to exploit, something like it apparently (possibly there's an overaching plotline here)-- except that's not really something that the Intelligence has done before? In both The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear, its final goal was to gain a corporeal existence. Hmmm.
- If the boss (did she have a name? If so it escapes me) had been capable of and willing to download Clara again... I doubt the Doctor would've been off her back. And yet him specifically asking for Clara to be freed makes it sound like that. Yes, many of the minds wouldn't have bodies to return to, but they would be allowed a death rather than being locked up in terror to be exploited. So that poor wording kind of made the climax feel a bit off.
EDIT: I forgot to write that not to mention apparently the Great Intelligence has the power to control ALL OF HUMANITY via wi-fi as remote control? Isn't that... kind of a big deal, especially considering how the Doctor reacted to the Silence influencing mankind - by turning all of humanity into mass murderers and making us commit genocide (this will never sit right with me). And with the Silence he didn't even has a more concrete reason than "FREE WILL!1". Which makes him singling out Clara to be saved even more odd. Eugh.
- The boss being reverted to her pre-Intelligence state was chilling.
- The "you won't abandon the people you care about" moment is a nice moment.
- The preview for The Rings of Akhaten looks quite neat; I'm a sucker for lush alien cultures. Hopefully it will be more substance and less flash than the preview itself though.
TL;DR it's far, far from perfect... and yet I still rather enjoyed it. Perhaps because there were no major characterisation issues that bothered me? I can't judge Clara yet, and I do like Eleven (I'm just not fond of a lot of the writing of his era). So I'm looking forward to the next episode. And the episode after that, because ICCCE WARRIORSSSS. Even Ice Warriors written by Mark Gatiss...