Stranger Things (mild spoilers)

This is a Netflix science fiction series set in the 80s, where the disappearance of a young boy and the arrival of a girl with mysterious powers are linked to strange happenings at a shadowy research facility.  Think Firestarter combined with Super 8.

Like Super 8, there's a small group of boys involved, and a solid chunk of the story is about their friendship.  There's also an older sister who has a boys-related plot, which morphed into something better.  And a Sheriff who never really recovered from losing his daughter.

There's not a lot of...original in this story, but it's fairly gripping in parts (I'm a shameless skipper-ahead when there's boring scenes).  And there was stuff that, inevitably, annoyed me.

The boyfriend related stuff I simply found tiresome, even though they were clearly attempting to deconstruct some of the usual beats of that tale.  But what I disliked about the sister's plotline was where the sister's less-attractive best friend ended up.  Painfully predictable outcome.

I appreciated some of the brave and logical things 'frantic Mum' did.

One of the things that bugged me most, though, is that these D&D-playing, SFF-loving kids, have zero imagination about 'Eleven', the mysterious girl.  They are genre-savvy and she's clearly an escapee, clearly traumatised, has powers...and they are constantly attacking her for being 'creepy', for not explaining things clearly.  The same goes for the two older teens - at times they seem to be acting not out of bravery, but a complete failure to have any awareness of horror narratives, even after seeing more visual proof of creepiness than anyone else.  Who crawls through mucus-filled holes in trees and doesn't expect to find anything horrible on the far side?

It kept my interest to the ending, but then I was again rolling my eyes at the "reset to normality but not" final beat.  So a partial recommendation: some good suspense, a couple of occasions where girls got to step outside expectations, but we're definitely going back to the 80s with this - not anywhere new.

Doctor Who: Closing Time (mild spoilers)

Overall this was a solidly-paced, fun episode. 

Good points:

- The old cybermat to the throat.
- Funny.
- Great odd couple dynamic.  Craig makes a fun companion, and it's a pity we didn't get to see him take a regular stint in the TARDIS.
- Craig making the straightforward point that the Doctor doesn't so much BRING danger, as save people from danger which already exists.

Bad points:

- The power of love saves the day.  Again.  I need some more "the power of science and ingenuity saves the day" episodes or "bravery and determination saves the day".  [And not the power of the magic sonic screwdriver that can do anything.]
- The Doctor visiting his companions before he dies.  Again.
- The audience totally knowing that there's no way the Doctor is going to really die.

I was a bit 50/50 on the advertisement with Amy.  It certainly echoed Amy's waiting theme.  But it's also a perfume ad, linking her back to "the goal of the girl is to find her man and get married".

Then, of course, we move on to River Song - a youngish River Song who has lost all her ability and chutzpah in the process of obtaining an archeological degree.  And then on to next episode, and it finally occurs to the Doctor to have a look into who these people who are trying to kill him are, and why they're doing so.

Why he didn't do this in the two hundred years he's apparently been travelling, I couldn't guess.

I am presuming this will be a timey wimey cyclical episode where the Doctor's investigation into why these people are trying to kill him will actually be the primal spark which causes these people to try and kill him (because otherwise we haven't really seen the Doctor do anything nearly epic enough to justify all this).  Not even the moon landing hypnotism to kill the Silents can be the explanation, since their kidnapping of baby Melody predates that.

There's no doubt that the Doctor will find some way to not die for real this time for sure, even though this is supposed to be one of those fixed moments in time (just one he happened to be ignorant of).  There's no tension in that part of the story, so what we are waiting for is the how and the why.  Why do these people want to kill the Doctor, and how will he stop them?  Will he make a big speech about how scary he is, causing his enemies to hesitate at a critical moment?  Gather all his allies to make a big distraction while he sneaks in the back?  Get his flesh copy to die in his stead?

My biggest problem with this season is without doubt the fact that Amy, Rory and the Doctor are no longer desperately searching for infant Melody, that they're okay with her living a torturous infancy being brainwashed by the Silents in an orphanage, and then living on the streets before inserting herself into her parents' childhood, simply because that leads her to grow up to be River (after, mind you, a life of crime and defiance which can no doubt be linked directly to how she's been raised).

My one hope for this season is that the Doctor will actually regain some of his competence and recover baby Melody.  Which will mean that River, the River sewn through the last three-four seasons, will cease to exist.

And, you know, I'm good with that.

Doctor Who: The God Complex (Spoilers)

Very atmospheric and creepy with an unexpected tie-in to larger themes revolving around Amy's faith in the Doctor.

Good points:

- Creepy!
- Rita.  Great character.
- The link to the Nymon - nicely done.
- The suggestion that the TARDIS/loss of the TARDIS was what was in the Doctor's room.

Bad points:

- A policewoman who shrieks.
- Rita.  She was so good it was inevitable she would die.
- Putting the untrustworthy character in a position of trust.  It would have made infinitely more sense to leave the guy tied up there alone.
- "Amy Williams" used as an affirmation that Amy's faith in the Doctor is now broken.  As if Amy wouldn't have stayed Amy Pond even if the Doctor wasn't a factor in her life and that without a "second man" to confuse their loyalties all women would automatically change their names to that of their husband.
- Rory's jokes about Amy hitting him.  Not funny.  If she is seriously hitting him, then he should leave her.
- THE BABY THE BABY THE BABY THE BABY!!!!!!

The made-up-as-you-go-along explanation for River Song's origin destroyed this episode.  I'm sorry, but Amy has complete faith in the Doctor because the Doctor has never failed her?  Not only does this come off the back of an episode of the Doctor failing Amy, but making Amy okay with losing her baby because she one day turns into River is...just not on.

The Doctor failed Amy massively.  He failed to stop her kidnapping.  He failed to stop the baby's kidnapping.  He failed to retrieve the baby.  But because the baby one day grows up to be River Song, we're supposed to believe that Amy still maintains complete faith in the Doctor?

No.  Suspension of disbelief has gone SPUNG.

Additionally, the theme of faith in the Doctor is undercut by the Doctor's actual history with his companions.  The Doctor has always been an incredibly arrogant guy, who has a tendency to leave his companions behind when they bore him, and sometimes snaps into self-righteous judgmentalism (of the genocidal level) which is part of the reason he needs his companions "to tell him to stop".  But he now for some reason seems to be genuinely acting on the belief that most of his companions die.  Unless he's had a whole heap of companions "off scene", then this is far from true.  For the most part they have gone on with their lives enriched by a precious experience - sometimes very annoyed with the Doctor, but with an overall net of exciting adventures.  Often they only had lives at all because he came along at an opportune moment and saved them.  And, big picture there, SAVED THEIR WORLDS.  And yet the Doctor is tormented by his endless failure for all those companions whose lives he transformed, enriched, broadened, and kept whole?

I feel like I've been watching "Doctor Who and the Endless Guilt Trip" for two seasons (and several specials) now. 

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited (Spoilers)

Good points:

- Apart from the hand wavey convenience of the start (why the hell didn't Amy just go back to the Tardis room?), this had something resembling a coherent plot.
- It was very powerful emotionally.
- The garden was lovely.

Bad points:

- This is a plot we have seen before.
- Girl companion being rescued once again.
- It kind of sends a message of "old" = "disposable".
- This meme of "The Doctor lies" is really beginning to disturb me.  I lost respect for the Doctor in this episode.

"The Girl Who Waited" is basically "Turn Left" without the (Donna) nobility.  Alternate version must be sacrificed so that "right" timeline can be resurrected.  But where alternate Donna - horrified, agonised - stepped into the breach, alternate Amy - bitter, betrayed - demands to be saved as well.  And the Doctor agrees, the Doctor lies, then the Doctor shuts the door in her face.

It's one of the worst things I've ever seen the Doctor do.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler (Spoilers)

There are a few ways you could handle a Doctor Who episode called "Let's Kill Hitler".  You could take the Indiana Jones approach and lightly mix derring-do, deadpan seriousness, witty lines and moments which remind you that the backdrop of the story is something awful (see "The Last Crusade" during the book burning scene) to produce a heart-felt adventure.  Or you could use it as an opportunity to deeply examine why the Doctor hasn't killed Hitler, why all the horror and degradation and heartbreak that pathetic little man caused is somehow necessary to Earth's history (a fixed moment in time) which he cannot change.

Or you could make Hitler completely irrelevant to the plot, shove him in a cupboard and get on with having an overwrought melodrama with yet another the-Doctor-is-dying fake-out.

While I don't consider World War II, and the question of Hitler, something you can never do stories about, it just came across as unnecessary.  Completely unnecessary, "let's give the episode a shocking title to gain attention" unnecessary.  Beyond a mildly sniffy comment, we don't even examine the idea of people from the future coming back in time to torture war criminals but not, you know, save anyone.  It says something for how badly this episode was executed that the ONLY person I felt any kind of sympathy for was the Nazi commander who was killed off by the robot in the opening scenes.  Successfully conveying the horror of meeting a duplicate of yourself, then being transported somewhere inexplicable and hunted down - and wasting it on someone we should hate...why?  If they'd made us hate the guy first, then maybe it could have worked and we would have been happy to see his horror and fear.  But we are merely TOLD he is bad and thus the scene has completely the wrong impact.  [One of the best examples of the problems of show v tell I've seen this week.]

The story is primarily the second part of River Song's origin story, and gives us a transition for Melody Pond from kidnapped baby to brainwashed 'bespoke' assassin (one who wedges herself into her parents' timeline as a childhood friend) to the birth of the identity known as River Song.  The bones of this story is good.  The execution is terrible.  The moments of poignancy and loss involved in the terrible life this child has led, her strange and warped relationship with her parents, are completely deflated and ignored.

The Doctor apparently has been unable to track down Melody-the-baby, and there's a strong implication at the end of this episode that we're no longer hunting for the baby, and that River must grow as an identity on her own.  Can the Doctor (let alone Amy and Rory) really be okay with the result of this story?  Are we really supposed to believe that the guy with the time machine can't get to that baby?

Other problematic issues with the episode:

- Retconning a childhood friend in for Amy and Rory.  This above all else suggests that none of this story was planned.  Because, hell, we met River before Amy.  If she grew up as Amy's childhood best friend PUT HER IN THEN NOT NOW.  "Mels", who is black, steals cars and is in and out of jail but I guess we can shrug that off because after all that's "just River".  [I was actually thinking during her scenes - why are they adding another obnoxious character who behaves just like River?]

- Ouch, the slippery slope of sexism.  The Doctor actually suggests that River is being so insane and contradictory "because she's a woman".  And while River is certainly a woman who is proudly appreciative of herself, and might be expected to enjoy looking and feeling good, her preoccupation during and after regeneration on: (1) her waist size, (2) her weight and (3) finding some sexy clothing, was just...gob-smacking.

I just cannot get over how bad this season has been.  Only a single stand-alone episode has captured the magic of Doctor Who at all.  Fortunately the preview suggests that next week's episode might be viewable.

Doctor Who: "A Good Man Goes to War"

Some fantastic characters we've not met before, and will probably never meet again (even the ones who weren't killed off).  A few cool lines.  A touch of overacting/unnecessary smirking, but otherwise really hitting some sweet spots among the support characters.

 

But.

 

- We had the whole guilt trip for being a dangerous person to know, plus the Doctor on the verge of letting anger take him into evil plot in Waters of Mars.  Far too soon to do it again.

- The final revelation is not only obvious to the viewer at that point, but involves the Doctor being completely blind and incapable of thinking things through.

- For pity's sake, stop with all this "did the Doctor somehow have sex with Amy" double-faking.  Every second episode...  [At least we didn't have an OMG, they killed Rory moment this time round.]

Doctor Who gains some of its strength from constantly reinventing itself, but hand-waving and hyper-drama just doesn't seem to suit my tastes.

Doctor Who: "The Doctor's Wife"

Loved this.  Loved 'Idris', loved the 'Thief'.  The actual plot was a lot of running about, don't think too much about it, but didn't matter because "Idris and the Thief" hit right to the core of one of the best things about Who.

Doctor Who: "The Curse of the Black Spot"

Astonishingly stupid on almost every level.

Next episode looks interesting.

Doctor Who: "Day of the Moon"

Um.  Well.  Yes.

There was a moment in this episode which suggested that it was all a dream.  I'm going to cling to that, because so much of this made little sense, was just cool scenes cobbled together, relying on action and the big revelations to stop us from questioning the sense of it all, or noticing how many elements have been re-used from the previous series.

There's a point where all the hand-wavey just falls down.  I think I'll be watching this series for the one-off episodes, rather than loving the whole thing.

Doctor Who: "The Impossible Astronaut" (Pt 1) and some general Whovian thoughts

"The Impossible Astronaut" has some great parts, most notably Canton, the FBI agent with an attitude, and the special ability of the aliens.  And some great visuals.

Increasingly, though, I'm feeling resistence to the series.  I like (with some reservations) the companions, I like the latest Doctor, but Doctor Who has become an increasingly frenetic experience, with the focus on pace, pace, pace, a hook of mystery, and the ever-building mythos of the near godlike Timelord - such a far cry from the straightforward tales of the scientifically superior man with a time travel machine.

Each season the Doctor has become more special, the stakes have risen higher, the magical element increased.  We're no longer saving mere Britain, or Earth, but the entire Galaxy!  The entire universe!  All of the Universes!  And, uh, all of the universes AGAIN!  And, oh no, the Doctor has died properly this time!  Not.  But he's dead this time!  Maybe.  Timelords are so SUPER SPECIAL that dozens of alien civilisations would invade Earth just to get a few cells of his body.

It's not that Doctor Who has become a bad show.  Or even a different show.  It's been reinventing itself for years, and it's only right that it should constantly grow and change.  But it's become a purple show, some of the melodrama just doesn't work for me, and the season arc feels intrusive rather than ticking over with the current episode's plot.  [I can cope with River Song, but only by mentally editing out certain portions of her.  Rory redeems Amy for me, and I've given up thinking about how much more interesting the story would be if Amelia was the one travelling in the TARDIS.]

All this makes it sound like "The Impossible Astronaut" was a bad episode.  It's not - it was fun, with a big hook of mystery and complexity.  But I hope they take a step back from melodrama.

The Role of the Girl...

The role of the girl is to:

• Be kidnapped, and rescued.
• Be kidnapped, and not rescued, providing endless angst for the real characters.
• Be told it's too dangerous for her to come along, and be told to go home.
• Be told it's too dangerous for her to come along, but to come along anyway and cause problems.
• Ask questions, so someone can explain.
• Fight the female villain.
• Bestow her favours as a reward for victory.
• Heal.
• Make sandwiches.

This post was sponsored by "Professor Layton and the Unwound Future" and the new series of "Hawaii 5-0".  While there are now many many glorious stories which don't fall within these examples, it's just so tedious for me when the sole girl in the party gets kidnapped and has to be rescued.

Post-Apocalyptic Character Inversion

In the aftermath of natural disasters, the news is always filled with stories of human bravery. Of people coming together, helping each other. Being the best that they can be.

If you broke down the character of those who live today, some would be monsters. A few paragons. But most would be a mix of minor faults, self-interest, and general 'good' traits. In a crisis, some would quail, some would cower, and a solid portion would try to rise to the occasion.

Where, in post-apocalpytic shows (Survivors, Day of the Triffids), have all these people gone? Why do the pyschopaths, the would-be dictators, and the lunatics have such a superior survival rate?

Yes, yes, they serve the purpose of drama. But I find these post-apocalyptic stories _least_ interesting when it's all about people being horrible to people - that is already part of this world.

Adaptations

Fan of Agatha Christie that I am, I looked forward to a new spate of adaptations on tv. But while I never expect an adaptation to be exactly like a book, this series seems determined to mess around with the stories - to add sexed-up sub-plots and to remove other ones. "The Clocks" was the last adaptation, and they do random things like change two boys to two girls, and to completely remove any reason for liking most of the characters.

Doctor Who: "Vincent and the Doctor" (no spoilers)

One of the best episodes of Doctor Who, ever. Brilliant on so many levels.

Doctor Who: "The Hungry Earth" and "Cold Blood"

Moral of the story - joining the military equates to having a lobotomy. But idiocy is not limited to the armed forces. Interesting (and probably deliberate) that all the aggressors/transgressors in this story were female.

There were some strong Rory-related moments in this double episode, and we finally had an explanation for the season arc, but I was frankly bored halfway through "Cold Blood" and inclined to skip to the end.

Next episode is the Van Gogh one and it looks strong from the preview. [The Doctor pronounced Van Gogh "Van Goff" - I always thought it was "Van Go".]

Doctor Who: "Amy's Choice" (no spoilers)

Finally an episode that didn't come across as weak and contradictory! I liked the solution of who the mystery man was, I liked Rory and Amy's interaction, pace was good, humour was good. About time.

Doctor Who: "The Vampires of Venice" (no spoilers)

Intended to be comedy, I think.

Another episode which had an interesting idea at its core, and _looked_ impressive, but fell down due to weak contrivances of plot (and sections which read like several pages of the script had been left out - the Doctor and the 'vampire queen' talked as if they'd built up a strong connection, but there was no basis for it).

So many of the episodes in this season include references/homages to major various movies. The next one appears to be Nightmare on Elm Street.

Doctor Who: "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" (No Spoilers)

Nice pacing, fun story to watch, better than most of the season, but undercut by changing the rules on which the Angels are based. But "Bob" was fantastically creepy. And Amy is a hoot.

I held off on watching these episodes because of River Song, who I am trying so hard to like, but it's an uphill slog. She improved marginally toward the end of the second episode, but she unfortunately falls into one of my most-hated literary devices: making a woman appear strong by undercutting a man, instead of just being strong.

River's exchanges with the Doctor (unlike Amy's, which work considerably better) revolve around making the Doctor less competent, by having someone know more than him about the things he should know most about. Exchanges with River make the Doctor less than who he usually is. I should love River - she's strong, she has a sense of fun, she's competent, she's complex. But she's annoying as hell, and it's because of her belittling interactions with the Doctor.

My litmus test for whether these exchanges 'work' is whether, if the Doctor was female, I would accept that behaviour from some unknown new male character who knew how to fly the TARDIS better than she does, who can work her other devices better than she does, who calls her by a pet name she doesn't like, who knows all this stuff about her future, and as Amy points out, treats the Doctor like a dog that can be called to heel.

I think River's characterisation is a little inconsistent, and I am hoping that if we meet a 'young', pre-smug River I might find her a good deal more likeable. [And, to be slightly spoilerific, I'm starting to wonder if River is not destined to be the Doctor's wife, but rather his death.]

The story arc for the season sounds like one which could be fantastically annoying. Foreshadowing retcons? Seriously?

My immediate thought was "what does that mean for Donna?".

Doctor Who: "The Victory of the Daleks" (no spoilers)

Mm - worse than last week's, feeling laboured and foolish, with far too many inconsistencies and questions. In this I think that the one-episode plots are working against the stories. And awful dissonance between the jokey 'fun' and the fact that this is set during the Blitz and that so many millions will die and the Doctor is refusing to help as if that's all a lark.

Plus the Doctor periodically appears to forget that he's a time traveller.

The over-emphasis on the season arc appearing at the end of every episode is beginning to annoy me. They should have it appear in the background at some point during the episode rather than this laboured underlining. The Master becoming Prime Minister arc in the earlier season worked so much better.

Doctor Who: "The Beast Below" (no spoilers)

Fifty-fifty on this one. Britain is already a very technologically advanced nation. I found it very hard to swallow a Britain of the future which had somehow reverted in the appearance of its technology (presumably deliberately) to something out of the 1950's. But it was interesting and creepy to look at.

Liz 10 was fun - and her identity instantly apparent the second you heard her name.

The premise fell down too much for me, however. What very black and white options. What absolutes. And evidently no-one in Britain's future is a fundamental PETA member.

I also had problems with the question of what will be used as food in the future, which isn't discussed, nor is any moralising done about the fate of the 'dregs' of society previously. Let alone why they bother to 'drop chute' dumb children if they're not yet useful.

An interesting idea done badly, but prettily.

And for some reason lots of Star Wars allusions.