Tag: Television (Fiction)

… to the mystery of Clara the Impossible Girl. And possibly a proper wrapping up of the River Song thing too, I could see a cameo or two after that, but not full episode appearances. (Added after talking about the episode with Tony: possibly one more story with River in it still to come – there’s that “spoilers” bit about not disappearing when Clara goes into the time scar, although that could still be related to the Doctor rescuing Clara.)

So “this will change the way you’ll see the Doctor” … and well, kinda? I mean, yeah this means there’s always a Clara off-screen “saving the Doctor”. Mostly from the Great Intelligence’s henchmen I imagine, but obviously not always (cf Asylum of the Daleks). And I guess she helps out the TARDIS in her stealing of her Doctor, too. But really? This doesn’t change much, it just gives them a canon deus ex machina to trot out in the future if they want to. I wonder if they did a bunch of green screen stuff with her for potential future use? After all, she says the Doctor doesn’t often hear her, so it doesn’t need to be interactive.

While I’m nitpicking about meta/hype did anyone else apart from me & J think it was a bit daft to have a whole “he’s me but he’s not the Doctor” thing and then have “John Hurt as The Doctor” come up on screen … The rumours I’ve seen are that Hurt fits between 8 & 9, which would make the stuff he did not in the name of the Doctor something to do with the Time War I guess. Which would make sense as a period of time where he might well do stuff that he wouldn’t want to contemplate or acknowledge later on (and Nine was pretty traumatised by the War and his part in it).

I liked the opening of the Doctor stealing the TARDIS, and Clara with all the other Doctors who couldn’t see her. And the fakeout where it looks like she’s telling One he’s making a mistake in stealing the TARDIS but then at the end we see she’s just making sure he steals the one who wants to steal him.

The conference call was neat – and I particularly like Madam Vastra’s practicality where she gives Clara the chance to light the candle but knows she probably won’t so impregnates the letter with the soporific too. The awkward with River meeting Clara was suitably awkward, and feeds into why I think the River Song story might be completely done with – the Doctor is doing his best to move on, not mentioning River enough to even point out she’s a woman, let alone that this is his dead wife. And on that subject – the Doctor really is rather selfish, isn’t he? He’d rather hurt River than acknowledge her and hurt himself. But in the end he does say goodbye, when circumstances force him to.

I liked that the reason the Doctor can’t go to his grave isn’t coz that’s when he’ll die (which seemed the obvious reason to avoid it to me), but that he will learn things about his future via this scar in time which is what his tomb actually contains. (And I shall just wave my hands about and accept the whole scar in time thing.) Obviously we don’t find out his name or why it’s a secret, and I hope we drop this again (after the 50th anniversary special, maybe?).

And the universe was in danger again – but this time it felt more small scale, if that’s possible. It’s like what the Doctor was saying to the little girl in Rings of Akhaten – she’s unique, there’s no-one else like her, and no-one can be who she is. And the same with the Doctor, he’s unique and despite his fears and his enemies rantings he’s done so much good in the universe that if he had never been then worlds would die.

The relatively personal disaster is also part of what made Clara’s arc feel satisfying, I think. She did what she did to save the Doctor, because he is her friend and she’s the sort of person who takes care of what needs to be done. And I liked the way her memories of the day that had never been (Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS) came back, and then once she knew she’d died to save the Doctor twice that he remembered she knew what she had to do. And did it even if she didn’t think she’d survive (dying to save the Doctor by dying to save the Doctor).

I was assuming that they got back out of the time scar at the end and so Clara will carry on being a companion, but I guess that’s not certain – we don’t see it happen, anyway. Roll on November to see what happens there … on which subject, interesting we got most of the Doctors appearing in this one. I’d’ve expected cameos in the actual special (and there’s no reason why there won’t still be some but I’d think it’s less likely now).

I’m sure I had more I was going to comment on, but this is probably long enough 🙂

J was a bit annoyed at the continuity announcer on the BBC spoiling the big bad of the episode, but then it was the cliff-hanger-esque end of the bit before the titles. So not that big a spoiler. I was amused by that, because of course because the Doctor reacted appropriately this wasn’t actually going to be a real live Cyberman by the laws of story logic. And this was a Gaiman written episode so it was definitely going to be well crafted. I don’t think I liked it as much as I liked Gaiman’s last one – the one last season with the TARDIS personified – but it was still a good episode.

Loved Angie. Such a teenage girl, so keen to pretend to be cooler & more sophisticated & more grownup than to actually enjoy any of this. Even though she clearly does enjoy things. And she’s also the only one (alive at the end) to figure out the Emperor before he reveals himself. So she’s actually paying attention under that veneer of cooler-than-thou. And that’s set up well too, although I didn’t notice that clue till she pointed it out at the end. I did call it that Porridge was the Emperor tho, based on the conversation with Captain Alice Ferrin – he had to be Emperor or Crown Prince or something of that ilk.

Liked the parallels with the Doctor & the Emperor, and call backs to what we know of the Doctor’s role in the Time War. Feeling like a monster for doing what needed to be done (because it was horrific), knowing what it was like to push the button & take the responsibility (and doing it again too), lonely on your own at the top. I wonder if the “you can’t run away forever” bit is significant for the finale? After all the Doctor is still busy writing himself out of the universe’s records (as this episode also reminded us).

I didn’t spot any Sixth Doctor references, did anyone else? Even tho I’m pretty sure I watched all of the episodes with Colin Baker as they came out I’m not sure how much I remember. Doctor fighting against a twisted version of himself referencing the Trial of a Timelord, maybe? I actually thought we’d got a Seventh Doctor era visual call back or two in this episode – Clara with the gun v. Cybermen/Ace with guns v. Daleks, Clara with the spiky mace/Ace with the baseball bat. But this might be coloured by the fact that I stood in Waterstones earlier this week & read The Remembrance of the Daleks, which is a Seventh Doctor/Ace story with the baseball bat & a rocket launcher. And Ace is still the best … what can I say, I was exactly the right age at the time and she blew shit up so she has to be the coolest 😉

References to loads of other things tho – Charlie & the Chocolate Factory for the whole set up, something Alice in Wonderland/White Rabbit-like about the dude who leads them off to be entertained, the Mechanical Turk, also the Borg & being assimilated.

Liked Clara being left in charge and rising to the occasion. She really was in charge, and doing as well as she could as were the other guys in the punishment platoon. Even the Captain was trying to do the right thing, even if it would’ve killed everyone including our heroes it was actually the right choice – how could she rely on the Doctor to pull off the impossible? Of course, because he’s the centre of the story we know he’ll save the day, but the Captain doesn’t.

I liked the Doctor & the Cyberplanner fighting against each other inside the Doctor’s head, although I think it went on a bit long at times. I did like the “only way to win is not to play the game” solution that the Doctor built out of the Cyberplanner’s sense of superiority & lack of flexibility. I also liked the way Clara can tell which one it is, that was amusingly done.

Nice touch at the end where we see that Clara is really carrying on her normal life, just going out on datesadventures with the Doctor every Wednesday night. I guess the TARDIS is co-operating with returning her properly to the right place & time each week. And maybe the adventures aren’t necessarily in the same order for the Doctor as for Clara.

And looks like we get are getting a proper finale not waiting till the special later this year. Wonder what will happen there 🙂 (Don’t spoil in comments anywhere please, J is extremely spoilerphobic & hasn’t even watched the trailer.)

“And here is the spoiler space for G+ because it picks a different paragraph for its preview”. It’d certainly be easier than thinking of something interesting to say to fill up the space 🙂

Lizard lady & friends! I like them. Like the way Madame Vastra is supposedly hiding, but really really couldn’t care less about being noticed. After all, who’s going to believe someone who says they saw a lizard lady? And the Sontaran is obviously going to be my sort of character – I was particularly amused by the bit where he’s saying what Jenny should be armed with if she’s going into Sweetville and then when asked why it’s a good idea he just says “well, in general”. Oh and getting all over-excited when he finally gets to shoot people.

From the trailer I’d expected this to be more of a Doctor-lite episode than it turned out to be. So I wasn’t at all expecting the blind girl’s monster to turn out to be the Doctor – J called it just before the reveal tho, so I guess if I’d not had my expectations set by the trailer then there were clues.

I’m not sure from this one if Clara remembers the events of the day that didn’t happen or not – she didn’t show much sign of it, but equally she & the Doctor seemed more at ease with each other than they had done up till now. Of course whether or not she remembers she’s definitely learnt this episode that she’s not unique – both in Madame Vastra & Jenny’s reaction & in the photo the kids have found from Victorian London (where she wasn’t).

The Fifth Doctor reference that I spotted was the one to Tegan (“trying to take an Australian back to Heathrow Airport”). Definitely seems like we’re walking our way through the Doctors in order … I hope the 7th Doctor references include Nitro 9 (Ace was definitely my favourite companion) 🙂 Thinking about it, having the Silurian woman in an episode where we’re looking for Fifth Doctor references is kinda appropriate – didn’t Adric die in the spaceship that’s the meteor that kills the dinosaurs? (And that happens in the Fifth Doctor’s time iirc.)

Best joke of the episode had to be satnav boy – went on just long enough and didn’t out stay its welcome. I also liked the fainting gentleman (and appreciated that this was the only true Victorian fainting we saw – the one woman who did so was faking it). And the morgue attendant, and all the different reactions to his declaiming of the name “The Crimson Horror”.

The plot itself was a bit “evil overlord Victorian variant” by the numbers – right down to explaining all her plans and previous evil schemes so that she could be foiled. But it did work, just about. I was thinking Bioshock references for the actual scheme, but I don’t think J agreed.

Only two episodes left in this half of the season. I wonder if we’re getting a proper finale, or if that’s saved for the special later this year?

Overall I enjoyed the episode, but it certainly started with a few wtf moments. Like – why did the Doctor bring the Van Baalen Bros onto the TARDIS in the first place? Well, I know why – it gave us a B plot for the episode, but it might’ve been nice if there’d been some attempt to lampshade it at least a tiny bit. Oh and it gave us some more monsters, too.

I guess part of what’s particularly irritating about it is that in other ways the episode seems very cleverly constructed with things set up in advance. The photo of the van Baalen family for instance, you see it right at the start and then at the end when you see it again knowing what you know it seems you should’ve known Tricky wasn’t an android. Even before the other hints – the Doctor has clearly figured it out immediately or at least at the point of the respirator scene, but we’re given enough hints that it feels like “of course” when the reveal happens.

There were other clever bits too – the remote being the answer to re-writing time again felt like it should’ve been obvious. After all, Clara catches “something” that the Doctor shortly afterwards takes out of someone else’s pocket (and tells us what it is). I spotted the words coming up on her hand early on even tho I didn’t figure out what they were, and the “big friendly button” reveal was kinda neat 🙂 That’s the other thing the van Baalens do for the story of course – they let us know the whole thing is erased (by their lack of memory and the very fact they’re alive) but that there are echos of the day that never was (the remains of one last shred of decency that the van Baalen brother remembers just as the Doctor told him to). And Clara dodges the Doctor’s question about feeling safe right at the end, I wonder what she remembers from her day. Other than just being as tired as if she’d gone trotting around the TARDIS.

Nice to see some insides of the TARDIS too. The Library was awesome, and of course Clara forgets the danger to go poking around seeing what she can see. I’m intrigued by the Gallifreyan Encyclopaedia in the bottles – and wondering if there’ll be effects from Clara breathing in some of it (that last past the day that never was). And we’re reminded again that the Doctor has a name that is not “The Doctor”, in case anyone had forgotten. The Eye of Harmony as power source of the TARDIS manages to be both a Fourth Doctor reference and an Eighth Doctor reference. (I had to use wikipedia for that tho – I had a vague feeling it was a Fourth Doctor one but that was all.) Anyone spot any other Fourth Doctor things?

The monsters as time leaks of the future was also well set up – J spotted the focus on the hand of the Clara one, I thought mebbe she was hallucinating the monster at the time. But then in the console room with the head tilts it became clear J was on the right track. And then it built up inexorably to the revelation. Again my problem was with the van Baalen brothers – why didn’t the Doctor or Clara help up the one that fell?? (I didn’t pick up which name was which brother of the real ones.) If so, then maybe they would’ve survived … but then they did coz the time reset so it didn’t matter, but the Doctor didn’t know that at the time.

And now the Doctor knows Clara doesn’t know she’s anything but a real girl. Of course, that doesn’t answer if she’s a real girl but it means she’s not complicit in it. Probably. Nah, I’m pretty sure she’s what she seems to be now … but maybe that won’t stay the same. If she isn’t what she seems to be, that is.

So, yeah, overall a good episode …just why the Van Baalen Bros?

And not only that, but the script had to gloss the terms “Cold War” and “Mutual Assured Destruction”. Because there are adults alive today who were born after the 80s. To be fair the first current affairs event I remember really paying attention to was the Berlin Wall coming down so really I’m post-Cold War in my adult paying-attention life. But the (recently-written) science fiction I consumed in the 80s was often post-apocalyptic “what life is like after the nukes have done their job”, so there was definitely some of that sense of being only one button press away from The End of the World. Just one ideologically sound soldier’s reaction away from doom.

They conveyed that well, I thought. The second in command(? political officer?) with his fanatical fervour, and the claustrophobia of mind to go with the claustrophobia of the reality of the submarine. And the way the two superpowers are facing each other down and all the rest of world can do is hold their breaths and hope – nicely paralleled with the Ice Warrior & the Doctor (both incomprehensibly powerful beings) facing off at the end of the episode.

Awesome casting having the guy who played Brutus in Rome (TV series on HBO) being the fanatical officer, who even tries to conspire with the alien to bring about the destruction of the US. And that also ties back into the theme – “I’ll destroy us if I have to, if that’s the only way to stop you”. Overt from the Doctor, implicit for the Soviet submarine crew.

Dead mothers last week. Lots of father/daughter stuff going on this week. Both actual and metaphorical. Interesting partly because I felt Clara’s characterisation was “off” but the stereotyped hole she was filling wasn’t so much “every man’s desire” but “every man’s daughter”. She’s looking for fatherly approval from the Doctor (“did I do OK?”) and the Professor treats her like a daughter. And in the final stand-off she reminds the Ice Warrior of his daughter, both literally by talking to him about his daughter and metaphorically (it’s her singing that impels him to mercy).

But her characterisation did seem a little shaky, which is a shame. One thing I did like tho, was that she was shown having to come to terms with the actual reality of life travelling with the Doctor. Not just the traditional “whoops, not where we thought we’d be”, but culture shock (language, culture, history can change so we could die here and the world end) and most of all that people would die and die messily. And it all just got real. And for a change we see her having difficulty processing it (and I felt that was presented sympathetically – it’s outside her experience so of course she finds it difficult to cope with).

Singing was important again as well – the Professor diffusing the tense drill by bursting in singing (badly) along with “Vienna”. Then the Ice Warrior & his fond last memory of his daughter. And the Professor trying to get Clara to sing “Hungry Like the Wolf” with him. And of course, the singing Clara does right at the end to remind the Ice Warrior that the Earth is full of people’s daughters. It’s probably coincidence, but having this episode straight after The Rings of Akhaten did make the singing stand out.

References abounded – if last week was all Star Wars & Star Trek, this was Hunt for Red October and Alien in aesthetic. And J said some of the sounds were fairly Predator-esque. And all with that claustrophobic one-push-of-that-button-and-we’re-dead thing.

Things I didn’t like: The mcguffin that got rid of the TARDIS. I mean, I know it had to be gone to make the plot work, but that was lame. The “oh give us a lift” at the end – obviously the captain of the submarine so, so, so can’t do that. But how the hell do they get there without him? Also, and less nitpicky-ly, I didn’t like the way Clara barely does anything but “be a daughter” and do what she’s told.

Overall I’d rate it “reasonable”, whilst still enjoying it (a large part due to that whole Cold War thing, and the way they paralleled that across the plot and the setting).

I also liked the call backs to previous (New Who) companions second stories – Rose & Nine silhouetted against the exploding sun, Amy & Eleven finding a little crying girl and that hooking them into the story (the Space Whale one). So I had to look up some other companions second stories – Donna’s second (er, if you don’t count her Xmas special appearance) was the Fires of Pompeii, and I did think the market place was reminiscent of the start of that episode and there’s the priestesses in red with their god. But unfortunately Martha’s second episode was the Shakespeare one, rather than Gridlock (with the singing). Oh well. Lots of resonance with early trips with companions anyway. I think that’s part of what made it feel epic, it gave it a feeling of being part of something bigger without hitting you over the head with it.

I thought they did a good job at keeping Clara’s characterisation right there in front of you in a natural seeming way – she doesn’t walk away from people, not her new friend, not her prior obligations (witness going home at the end of the trip). I hope when she eventually stays on the TARDIS it’s because she takes care of those obligations, rather than an accident (a la so many Old Who companions).

On that note, is the “came here with my Granddaughter” bit referring to an actual story or is it just a reference? Doesn’t much matter which it is, tho. I’m just curious about it.

Back to Clara – also we saw the personality traits that are why she’s looking after her “friends of the family”‘s kids and why she was a nanny in Victorian times. Her response to the scared girl felt like someone who likes kids and knows how to deal with kids, and who can’t pass a child in distress by.

Those scenes also tied into the larger theme of the episode – which is a cliché really, but still a good one: True courage is being scared and doing it anyway. Or maybe it’s that everyone’s scared and at a loss for what to do sometimes, but the Right Thing To Do is to try your best anyway.

Some things that drew our attention to the season arc (in more subtle ways than the opening sequence) – the Doctor explaining to Merry how she’s unique and special (just like everyone else). But of course, there’s 3 Claras so far (or are the two we saw first later in her timeline – I don’t know that we’ve seen enough during those episodes to believe that it’s not someone who already knows the Doctor but knows he doesn’t know her). Also, we had that bit where Clara was trying to take Merry to the TARDIS to hide. I heard it one way (“I don’t think she likes me”), J heard it another (“I don’t think he likes me”) but either way the scene drew our attention to the fact that this Clara doesn’t have a TARDIS key – the Doctor doesn’t trust her quite enough yet (unlike the Victorian Clara), coz what on earth is going on here with the three Claras? Like I said, J & I heard it differently – so I was also wondering why the TARDIS didn’t like Clara. Not actually sure who’s right (this week we didn’t have subtitles, last week they were stuck on coz we’d paused live TV and that seems to make our PVR put the subtitles on).

Also of note – lots of dead mothers/mother-type-things. Clara’s mother is dead, she’s nanny to a family whose mother is dead, Victorian-Clara is nanny to a family whose mother AND nanny are dead. Oswin’s mother wasn’t dead – wonder if that’s significant. And Merry was chosen when the last Queen of the Years was dead. Which feeds into me wondering about “Oh my stars!” as an expression – awfully odd, and first Ellie (Clara’s mother) uses it, then Clara herself. And Clara has inherited her mother’s travel book. Not sure where that’s going though. “Oh my stars” is still odd tho. So maybe significant? I liked the leaf/parents/origin story. Tho I was a bit surprised the leaf was “used up” quite so early in the story arc for the season.

And re-reading all of this – I really don’t watch Doctor Who for the plot, do I? 😉

So, a computer/hacking based TV story that I felt actually worked. OK, so if you stare too closely at the seams then you’ll find the holes to drive the truck through (and I did have one moment where I felt they tried to get too specific & thus the suspension of belief wobbled). But overall I thought they managed to be vague but truthy enough to make it work. (Truthy as in not necessarily true but sufficient for the story to convey the weight and heft of truth.)

I like the way the upgraded Clara & the Doctor complemented each other – he was “old-fashioned and hacked technology” and she knew that the people are always the weak link in a security system. Of course everyone had their workplace on facebook or some other social media site … mind you, that does constitute a bit of a plot hole – high security workplace might be expected to tell people they need to be careful about social media. But the other side of it (that you’d think the top people would be aware of what their employees were doing) is probably fair enough – they’re hacked & running software based on what the Great Intelligence wants/understands so I’m not surprised they were flawed in their understanding of human nature.

And we didn’t see the Great Intelligence coming across as particularly intelligent or able to deal with people in the Christmas special either. Thinking of that – I liked the way that sure the GI knows who the Doctor is and has Miss Kizlet watching out for him, but it’s personal and small scale. It’s because 150 or so years ago it met the Doctor, not because he’s some sort of universe wide saviour figure.

On that note, who is “the woman in the shop” who gave the “best in the universe helpdesk” number to Clara? Presumably that’ll turn out to be a plot point, once we get further into the who is Clara mystery. Still hoping that works out more emotionally true than previous Moffat mysteries, but still refusing to speculate (well, as much as I can help).

Seemed odd that the title of the episode turned out to be just that one early pun – the bells of Saint John being the TARDIS telephone. Incidentally, according to google and to wikipedia a longer version of Oranges & Lemons Say the Bells of St Clements than the one I know has the verse “Pokers & tongs, say the bells of St Johns”. Who knows if or how that’s relevant … last verse of the nursery rhyme is “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”, ominous? Probably not.

I didn’t really buy Clara’s complete cluelessness about computers & the internet, but I did think they did well at showing how the computer skills package changed her. Even if the Doctor flagged it up by pointing out her joke about twitter, it still came across in the way she changed around the computer. I do hope the complete cluelessness isn’t a plot point tho (ie it has something to do with her previous Victorian incarnation), that’d feel a bit tedious I think.

I thought they did a good job of drawing out what’s the same about the various Claras – quick witted (with or without computer knowledge), sure of herself, and cares about other people. I also liked how her reaction to the Doctor’s invitation was “what, does that ever work??”. She’s not putting the Doctor up on a pedestal of “oh so special”, so even tho I’d rather it went down the Donna/Doctor friends route it feels less icky than, say, Doctor/Martha.

The end for the Great Intelligence’s human minions was pretty chilling. Well, for most of them it was just an awkward few years of amnesia. But for Miss Kizlet, the woman in charge it was horrific – she’ll grow up now, I guess, into a middle-aged woman’s body with a lot of her physical life behind her. I don’t think the actress quite pulled off the reversion to early childhood though (but she did a good job during the rest of the episode of making us think of a less ethical M-as-played-by-Judi-Dench). And the Great Intelligence not only got away scot free, but the Doctor doesn’t even know it was the same Big Bad as it was when he met the previous Clara.

Oh, and was I the only person who thought of the human Daleks when the sound effects for the twisting head started on the first spoonhead? So another reminder of previous Claras. The book the camouflage for the spoonhead came from was a nice shoutout to the Ponds too, understated but there for those of us who were paying attention.