Loving Angels Instead

So, back on Monday I had a quick retrospective look at Mark Gatiss’ Dalek story with the full intention of returning on Tuesday to share thoughts about the next episode. Erroneously at the time and for reasons best not dwelt upon, my addled brain thought that the next episode in question was the Silurian two-parter whereas it was, of course, the Angel two-parter. However, I was distracted by the Radio Times on Tuesday and a combination of work, football and the pub meant that Wednesday’s blog was limited to the experimental embedding of two new videos from the Doctor Who website. So, here we are on Thursday night and I get to cast an eye over a whole three episodes of the rewatch. I have been watching the episodes you see, it’s just I haven’t been blogging about them. This entry will just cover the Angel two-parter, and I’ll try and come back tomorrow night to talk about both “Vampires of Venice” and “Amy’s Choice”

So, let’s talk about 2010′s first two-parter, “Time of the Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”. When I first watched these episodes I loved ‘em. It was everything that Steven Moffat’s new Who should be: sassy, funny, scary, clever and entertaining. I’ve seen it a few times since and it never fails to delight. Aside from the big, Angelic story elements, we do get more insight in to the Doctor’s uniquely wibbly-wobbly relationship with River. The little touches that litter the dialogue between them are a delight and the possible consequences for next week’s return of River are nowt but speculation. However, I do reckon, in terms of wrapping the story up neatly, that the Doctor’s last meeting with River will be her first meeting with him to mirror the events of the “Silence in the Library” and we also know that “Silence will fall”, so I wonder whether the library has anything to do with it too? There’s a big role for Amy here too. Getting up close and personal with the projected Angel early on affects her for the rest of the story till she pushes her relationship with the Doctor one step too far in the final scene. I also like the way that the arc-story with the cracks in the universe takes big steps forward in this tale. Rather than just liberally spread references through the series (a la Torchwood and Bad Wolf), we actually get progress and more information and something new to worry about. The Moff does this stuff so well. To wit, the section where the Doctor from the future (although unbeknownst to most of the viewer on first showing) pops up in this story to give Amy some much needed advice for the post-Pandorica scenario still to be played out. So, what do you we can learn from the Angels story about what Series Six holds?

 

Everyone Hates The Daleks

When Russell T Davies brought back the Daleks in 2005, after inordinate amounts of legal wranglings with the estate of Terry Nation about their use, then Who fans around the globe held their collective breath to see how their return (and the reaction to their return) would play out. Happily, especially for the producers of merchandise, everything worked out beautifully. A little resurgence of Dalekmania followed Rob Shearman’s Dalek masterpiece that was, er, “Dalek” and everything in Doctor Who’s garden was rosy. But then the metal meanies from Skaro returned again, and again, and again. Each time through “Parting of the Ways”, “Doomsday”, “…in Manhatten / Evolution of…”, and “Stolen Earth” the mystique seemed, by the vocal consent of what was probably a minority of fans, to get tarnished. It seemed to be getting harder and harder to find a good Dalek story. So, Steven Moffat handed script duties to the capable hands of Mark Gatiss, threw in World War Two and told him to create another Dalek masterpiece. What he got was controversy.

The thing about “Victory of the Daleks” is that the whole thing is overshadowed by the new paradigm’s Jony Ive style design. Gone are the rivets and metal and toughness and in come these tall, polished, hump-backed, primary-coloured monstrosities, looking more like Power Ranger variants than the most evil threat in the universe. And everyone talks about them instead of Churchill and the bunker and war-torn London and the Spitfires. I have to say, and I prepare to be shot down in flames much like Bracewell’s Ironsides, but I really enjoyed watching this again and – whisper it gently – I quite like the new Dalek design… hump and all. However, I fear that I am a lone voice in the wilderness on this issue and suspect, that if there was one decision that the Production Team down at Upper Boat wish they could change about the 2010 series, it would be new iDaleks.

I guess a few final words about clues are in order (that is after all one of the reasons for the re-watch of the 2010 stories): Firstly, the Daleks clearly escape in a way that sets up their return as inevitable but will they be back this year? Secondly, Amy’s crack makes another appearance (stop giggling at the back!) in the final frame of the episode for the second week running but the resolution for that has come and gone, hasn’t it? And thirdly, and most interestingly of all, Amy’s lack of recollection about the Dalek events of “The Stolen Earth”. Does this mean that all the events of this series happen in an alternative, now non-existent world and that the true events unfold complete with Daleks, and with Amy’s mum and dad, and with the reality that leads up the wedding in Big Bang? Or is there more jiggery-pokery in the offing that will clear this up in 2011? Answers on a postcard if you would.

 

Don't Forget The Beast

Day Two of the rewatch: and at its core the Beast Below has a premise that I found to be pretty much forgettable. When I originally posted my review I said I thought that it was better than its predecessor and, while a lot of the things that I loved about it remain true (the consolidation of the Doctor and Amy’s relationship, Sophie Okenedo, and some of the Big Brother-y elements – Orwell not Endemol, and even the Star Wars references), I actually disagree with that: it’s not as good as the season opener. It is true that I haven’t seen this one as much as Eleventh Hour and some of the details had been lost in the midst of time, but whenever I think about it I think, “There’s a Space Whale carrying a ship the population of the UK and no one knows about it?! Yeah, right!”. In terms of clues for 2011 though, I came up dry. One glimpse of a crack in the universe in the hull right at the end but nothing much continuity-wise as far as I could see. How about you?

 

Eleventh Hour Revisited

When I first reviewed the Eleventh Hour back in April last year, I felt the need to pick at some the more niggly moments that had bothered me a little during the show: Some of the effects weren’t quite up to the standard I had hoped (something which pains me to say yet still holds true) and the Atraxi ships and Prisoner Zero looked a little naff (although the Atraxi thing makes more sense to me now… it would have added far too much unnecessary guff to proceedings if a new alien race had to leave their ships and interact with all and sundry. Far better to give the ships themselves a bit of personality and get on with things). However, this really is a story that holds up well to a rewatch, to the extent it probably seems closer to an 8-out-of-10 than the 6.5 I’d have given it first time round.

The intricacy of the plotting and the attention to detail is really impressive with barely a second of screen-time being wasted.  The new theme composition now feels like an old friend rather than a new, funky imposter that grated on this viewer twelve months ago. Of course, the object of the exercise in this re-watch season is twofold. One, to start to get in the mood for the new series: Job done. And two, to see if we can gain any clues. On the latter point, there are two obvious elements to pick out… “Silence will fall” gets its first mention although we still have no idea what this will mean, and also there is the mysterious figure in little Amelia’s house that rushes by the window while Amelia waits in the garden. I’s still not sure whether that figure is supposed to be just Prisoner Zero, the Doctor, River Song, or an as yet unknown character. But at least we know we’ll be getting some more details on the Silence (or Silents) in the next few weeks.

So what have you picked out of the 11th Doctor’s first full adventure?

 

Amy's Choice – A Review

My Favourite Peruvian Folk Band

Okay, okay, I know that I have missed a week and failed to post up a review of the Vampires of Venice. It is coming soon I promise, but first I wanted to get my thoughts about the latest episode that aired at the weekend, Amy’s Choice. And in the words of the Doctor himself… this is going to be a tricky one. Events kicked off with a very Jam and Jerusalem opening. There was rolling countryside, picture postcard cottages, free-range geese and sit-up-and-beg push bikes. There was even a distracting Miss Ellie-style soft focus shot of the very pregnant Amy, while she baked her cakes (which sounds like a euphamism but isn’t). It was

 

Flesh And Stone – A Review

Someone Looking At You

So, where were we again? Oh, yes, everybody jump. The art of the cliffhanger in new Doctor Who is always a challenge but Steven Moffat has had a couple of cracks at it already (cracks… geddit?!). Firstly, in 2005′s Empty Child and secondly in the Silence In The Library, so it was with some anticipation that I tried to work out what the gun-firing thing was all about as I looked forward to last night’s Flesh And Stone. I have to admit the resolution was a really nice touch, even the little bit of technobabble about the updraft can be easily forgiven. It was the first of many nice touches in what might well become one of my favourite Who stories. It turned out that

 

The Time Of Angels – A Review

Angels With Dirty Faces

Well, if last week’s return of the Daleks wasn’t quite the unmitigated success that everyone had hoped for, then this week’s installment saw two returns for the price of one but the question was, could they live up to the hype? The answer: a resounding “Yes” and the pre-credit sequence alone was worth the price of admission. First up, and making the most memorable of returns was Alex Kingston, clearly having a whale of a time repising her role as the Doctor’s bickering future “love interest”, River Song. Not qualified as a professor yet, this version of Song was obviously younger than the one we saw at the end of her real-world life in The Forest of the Dead two years ago. Devising an ingenious escape from a starliner

 

Victory Of The Daleks – A Review

Prime Minister In His Sights

Our heroes are summoned to blitz-torn London by none other than Winston Churchill who, concerned about his new found “Ironsides” that were helping the war effort, decided to call upon his old friend, the Doctor to give a little support. I loved the way that Churchill and the Doctor had the bond formed already off-screen and the way that the PM had the ability to call the TARDIS directly. It was a clever little device that allowed the rather wonderful Ian McNiece and Matt Smith to side-step a whole bunch of exposition and get straight down to buiness. However, after the phone call and in another example of the Doctor not quite getting his timing right, he arrives a whole month later, by which time Churchill

 

The Beast Below – A Review

Basically, I Rule!

So, The Beast Below should have been The Moff’s difficult second album. We appear superficially at any rate to be following a familiar formula. Like “Rose”, “End Of The World” and “The Unquiet Dead” at the start of the RTD era, here we get “Eleventh Hour” as the contemporary companion introduction, “The Beast Below” as the trip in to the far future, and next week’s “Victory of the Daleks” as the trip in to the past, this time set in WWII (and, I think coincidentally, penned by Mark Gatiss too). On the principles that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery coupled with the fact that if ain’t broke don’t fix it, I think it’s a perfectly fine path to tread. However, other than a gentle nod to the penultimate scene in The End of the World,

 

Eleventh Hour – Review

New Everything, That’s Weird

Do you remember that other fellow who used to play the Doctor: David, erm, something-or-other? No?! Me neither. Matt Smith was electric last night. It will be interesting to see how he develops into the role but the post-regenerative debut that he gave in the “Eleventh Hour” was fascinating. At first, he was a melee of arms and legs, struggling to come to terms with his new body. The eating scene raised a smirk, which is quite an effort on my part because I usually find that kind of base comedy a little off-putting: my inner snob gets released for a moment. But as he settled down, especially after the face-to-eye encounter with the Atraxi on the rooftop, I think we got to see a little bit more of how our new, favourite