Saturday 26 June 2010

The Big Bang, Doctor Who series 5 final episode

"This is where it gets complicated!"

That wasn't an understatement, but there is a much better one right from the start. "Here we go". Speaking of the start that is where we go, right from the very first scene. Both in this episode and the story as a whole. It has long been a belief of mine that each series of new who has been one single adventure, but never before has this been so true. Up until this serise it's only ever been a single theme, or handful of words. Like "Bad Wolf" they cropped up in every episode like sign posts to the grand finale but that was it.

Russel T. Davis was wonderful at pulling plot develoment out of his arse. It was up to the Doctor to fire exposition at warp speed to cover the plot holes. It was fun but irritating in the long run. Steven Moffat has learnt from this mistake and crafted the whole series to the final moments.

Technology, like the Daleks robot professor in their episode and the faux top floor in the Lodger filler episode, relyed on intentions as much as actions. Ideas and concepts that have been brewing all year pay off in under an hour. Moments that made no sense at the time (the episode Forest of the Dead if you want to look one of the biggest up) were all set up to pay off in one epic episode.

We got it. No cheap ending or magic plot set macguffin. Yes there was a reset button, but it came from the story. It had a reason and made sense. It worked because of that. There was a deep understanding of the charicters. All of them, not just the Doctor.

Oh this was fun, not just good but fun. Entertaining, a whole series where you could be moved and enjoy events as they happened. It taxed your mind in ways other shows can't.

Ohh this was too good. Impossibly good. What a great show and a fantastic serise, it just gets better and better.

Though the best thing it's open ended. Like all good stories it leaves you asking what's next? What took control of the TARDIS? and just who is River Song?

Indiscraibably awesome. Now if you excuse me I have to watch it again!

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Imaination

Alright As you probably know I spend a lot of my time watching online reviewers. I love the amount of effort, planning and work these guys put in to it. For some people, like Spoony (AKA Noah Antwiler) and the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) it's their jobs. week in and week out they produce these things. Some are funny, some are thoughtful but most of all they are honest creative endeavours.

I enjoy their work immensely, so much so that every so often I try my own take and if you look hard enough you'll even find my prototype video here. The thing is among these people there is James Rolf, AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd and I occasionally watch his video's too. On monday he posted this and it reminded me of something. I've always been able to remember my first nightmare, and much like his it's inspired my creativity. Mostly through writing opposed to his video out put but it's on the same wavelength.

It was the first night in my own room, I have no idea how old I was at the time, I was so exited. I had a bed rather than a crib, I could stretch, throw myself about, roll, jump and do whatever I wanted. Naturally I conked out before five minutes passed by. The dream was absolutely uninspired, at the start, I just dreamed that the room was bigger. A lot bigger, like the walls had retreated away from me. The half light from the street outside my window cast orange shadows across the room and I began to see things moving in them. Dark terrible things clawing their way out of some unimaginable black void. Gargoyles warped and twisted out of the walls like monstrous cracks in the wall.

There I was, nothing but a blanket between me and stone faced minions of hell. I ran, I ran out of my room and into the hall but it wasn't my house anymore. I could still see the familiar familiar bookshelves and the stairs, but they had moved. Like a jigsaw puzzle that had been put together wrong. The imps and daemons came closer, pouring into existence like a disease. Their shadows in the half light withering paper and ageing it like the passing of aeons.

My parents room was gone, the only hope was to escape, but before I could one of the shadows touched me... and I woke up.

Needless to say I didn't get any more sleep that night.

It wasn't as impressive as Rolf's dragon, but it had a hell of an impact on me. I've grown to love that sort of imagery, the stuff that goes beyond what CGI can do and talks directly to your imagination, tapping into that primal thought deep within you. Not locked on the other side of the screen or imaginary pixels dancing to some program running across a hard drive. There always is and always will be something more physical about books and their connection to the reader.

Sunday 20 June 2010

Doctor Who:- The Pandorica Opens...

Well as much as I'd like to hide the spoilers I guess the cat's out of the bag for the first half end of the season two part-er. Hell, if I know about it you can be sure everyone else has heard. Being the last to know just about everything has some advantages.

Well to sum up: the Pandorica was a great big mouse trap, with Amy's memories, including Rory, as the bait. Fearing the greatest warrior and trickster in the known universe the Doctor's enemies have allied together to defeat him once and for all. Ironically it is his very incarceration that lets a mysterious force take control of the TARDIS and destroy it. Taking every star in the universe with it in a massive shockwave.

Oh and Amy's dead.

Yep that sums up the cliffhanger at the end of the twelfth episode the internet has been awash with speculation. Ideas range from "It's all a dream, it has to be the work of the Dream Lord!" to "Amy regenerates, she's really the Doctor's daughter!" and even "It's all a plan by the Master!" Quite frankly I'll be surprised if it's any of those. First of all it isn't going to be a dream. No chance, this isn't Battlestar Galactica or Lost, we're going to get a explanation that makes sense and isn't a total cop out. On that note Amy's still got a role to play, she might be resurrected somehow, but that's not what I mean. The fact her life has so many unanswered questions is going to be VERY important. I just don't know what and that's what I'm waiting for.

This was, yet again, a fantastic episode, yes I do wonder how long Cybermen have been able to spit knock out darts and that whole sequence did feel like padding, but that was the only speed bump. What more than makes up for that is the wonderfully dark moment where the Doctor truly falls into the trap.

With all the ships of his greatest enemies flying around Stonehenge the Doctor, in an epic show of bravado, stands unarmed and alone slap bang in the middle of the greatest armada in all the universes. He forces them all to back down and retreat. Only the Doctor could do that and it's an epic moment. Right up until the twist ending, alright it wasn't much of a twist as even I saw it coming, but what I didn't see was the alliance. The Doctor isn't forcing them to back off, they're just waiting for the pandorica to do it's job. It's an epic moment that upon re-watching becomes a pivotal one, for all the wrong reasons.

One of the few complaints I've heard about the episode comes from how the Doctor finds out about it. We get a fun little opening where we visit all the Doctors previous encounters. Starting with Vincent VanGogh painting a warning, that's the key. The Alliance sends the message and while the TARDIS doesn't detect it the Doctor's friends do and they get it to him, but why doesn't he hear it earlier? Answer:- because the transmission happens as part of the Doctor's own timeline, and we follow that timeline. Simple, sort of. It is the same with Torchwood, it didn't happen or exist until it happened in the Doctor's timeline, even if that took him into the past. Time travel does that.

Another complaint is why some races, that don't really have a problem with the Doctor directly (Judoon and Silurian's for example), are involved. Sorry, but the universe is in danger, not just the Doctor's opponents. Of course they're going to do something about it. Like unite and use their combined knowledge and skill to build the ultimate prison. Don't forget the line about the amount of fear that went into building the Pandorica.

I won't go into Amy's death, mostly because I don't think it's the end of her story just yet and I'm going to do a massive review later, after season's end.

Which is next week, so roll on Saturday!

Oh...edit

I'm a bit irritatted that they used Pandoras Box to referance tha Doctor. I did that in Fan fiction three years ago!!!!!

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Doctor Who City of the Daleks and The Lodger

Alright let's get it over with, the avatars in COTD are awful. They look like wax work models that have been half melted out of shape. If this was five years ago there wouldn't have been much problem but now they just look bad.

Anything else, well yes as a matter of fact:- The game makes the Daleks half blind, you can quite literally stand ten feet from them and they can't see you. If they are stationary you can just run past them if you time it just right. Those that move are beyond stupid and will run into walls, until the warning is gone. After sounding the alarm they just mill around for awhile and then return to their patrol as if nothing has happened. Rather than lock the doors and hunt down their greatest enemy they decide to invite you up to the emperor for tea, biscuits and the revelation of their diabolical plot. These Dalek drones have all the wit and power of a Voyager era Borg, you could defeat them by knotting a string.

You're forced into the liner environment, meaning that when you try something outlandish like thinking it hamstrings you. Forcing you to crawl between the Daleks rather than just go around them. Even when the only thing in your way is a little pile of rubbel. Events are scripted in such away that the most difficult puzzle is a breeze if you outwit the programers (hack the console under the eye second, that way when it speeds up on the furthest console you can just nip past it and Bob's an uncle).

Amy is more of an annoyance here than anything else. She's always lagging behind getting shot and when she's not pointlessly dragging along side like a boat anchor at sea she's telling you things you already know. The one witty puzzle (smash the boards with a old taxi) is pretty worthless with her blurting out the answer every time you turn around. Often running into her. Another way to drag the game along is the pointless collectables. Where hidden across the maps are cards to collect, rather than giving me a sense of accomplishment I'm left asking who the hell left these things behind?

The plot has more holes in it than a fourth rate Fan fiction story. Where did the Time Lords get this Eye of Time from? How did the Daleks find it if it was lost in the vortex with the destruction of Gallifrey (that was never destroyed only lost in a subspace dimension)? Most importantly what happens to it at the end of the story? Wouldn't the Doctor pick it up, rather than let the Daleks try and find it again? What is the repercussions of having the Core of the Time Vortex out there?

Why, if the Daleks wanted to exterminate the human race, did they not just vaporise Earth? Fire it into the sun or use one of the million or so Bio-weapons they have stored up? If Sylvia is the last human how come she is so clean, well fed and has access to high explosives? Why are the Daleks hunting her when it would be far easier to just obliterate the city from orbit? How do we know she is the last human? How is she sane?

Have I finished. No. If there are these great chasms in Trafalgar Square how do we go down to the underground? Why is the power still on when there is only one human left in the world?

This whole game is one long mess from beginning to end. At times Karen Gillian sounds like she was just phoning in the lines. Hello, your very existence is being removed from time, Earth has been utterly conquered and the most dangerous race in the universe has access to the very core of the big bang, things can't be much worse! Matt Smith tries, but he still hasn't a clue what's going on. Hello, you're in the Dalek's capitol city and it sounds like you're on a trip to Tesco's. You can tell the two of them were locked in a cupboard with a microphone and a handful of lines with no clue what they were doing.

New Who has been a bit fast and lose with continuity but Skaro was destroyed by an exploding star. There is nothing left! You can't just rewrite that, it happened. If the time war did alter history that much the universe would have spun off it's axis. The whole point of the Time Lords banishment from existence and the Time Lock is to stop that from happening!

I need to calm down. I'm going to watch The Lodger again.

Alright The Lodger wasn't that bad. It wasn't as good as recent episodes but it was on par with the Beast Below. Good acting from the guests and regulars as ever.

I don't want to give away to much but I'm getting a bit antsy about technology that needs emotion to operate. There's also little things, like why is there no hole in the roof when the ship goes. Where did the money come from? and finally where does the time ship go?

Right no more questions. This was a good episode, if a little out of continuity.

Coming next The Pandorica.

Sunday 6 June 2010

Doctor Who Catch up

Alright I've been meaning to keep up with the Doctor Who reviews, but work and a massive new fan Fiction project has gotten in the way. So here's a quick catch up

Vampires of Venise
This really was the first time everything came together this serise. Editing, acting, direction and script all fit, I can't pick holes in any of them. Some of the set pieces were fantasic and with Vampires we were back to the old horror idea.
Recently Terry Pratchett wrote an artical pointing out that while Doctor Who is fun it's not Sci-Fi. I agree, and the best episodes prove that. Doctor Who is Horror / fantasy with Sci-Fi eliments. This is why Russel Davis missed the point and Steven Moffat has hit it.
Doctor Who is victorian horror stories carried on to the twenty first century. The Doctor is very much a Sherlock Homes charicter, taking the outlandish and fantastical and braking it down into the explainable. His assistant is, of course, the Watson. The Proxy for the audiance so that we can keep up with him.
Vampires of Venise took that and brought it back to the front, while I would have liked more historical villians (Vampires have been kicking around Doctor Who for decades) there's always room for a nice bit of development.
Five out of Five

Amy's Choice
Again an amazing episode. This proves that good drama comes from good charicters. The relationship between Rory and Amy, up until now, felt like one of convinence. Here, for the first time, we really the impression that Rory is not only a good guy but fantastic for Amy. The team comes together a lot stronger than before.
The acting here deserves special note, these people are going to clean up at the awards this year, and they deserve to! Matt Smith brings a lot to the Doctor this episode and now he's made the charicter his own he's haveing a lot more fun. Up until now he's been playing it over the top and very Tennent like. Now he's bringing some more sublty into the role it's getting a lot more intersting.
The villian is the truly evil Dream Lord, I can't say too much about him without spoilers but what a bad guy. Knowing that even defeated he's still going to be haunting the Doctor for years is a wonderful thought.
Five out of Five

Cold Earth
Once again we dive into the underground world of the unhappy Silurians, and once again it's the Humans that are the villains here. The Silurians and the Sea Devils are amongst the most well balanced of all Doctor Who aliens. A race of evolved Dinosaurs that went into hiding against a cataclism that never happend. This is litteray like leaving home beacuse you think there's going to be a flood and coming back to find the cats have taken over and made a right mess of the place.
You have to love the Silurians beacuse they make us address our own actions a hell of a lot better than BSG and SGU. Put simply they are us, but look different. You've got racism, alienation and all the grubby little bits of ourselves highlighted in our actions against them and theirs against us.
That's what we get is this awesome two parter. While the more balanced and better angels of our nature grope towards a promising and posive future fear and ignorance ON BOTH SIDES push us into confict. From this alone we get the five out of five
Then Rory dies. I'm sorry but straight after Amy's Choice he dies, not as a cop out but as an important development. That's right the Arc plot once again rears it's head and gives us a slap across the face. Not only is Rory dead but technicaly he doesn't exist and this is because of the Doctor's curiosity. This is how develop stories, actions having repocusions leading to further actions. All reasonable and in charicter.
Six out of five

Vincent and the Doctor
How do you follow up what is possibly the most intelligent and well thought out two parter in recent Doctor Who? Why take a gimmick filler episode and turn it into a indepth an frank examiantion of abstract depression and mental illness. Urm, hang on, what? Yep after four years of gimmick episodes with people like Agatha Cristie, Charles Dickings and Shakespere we move on to Vincent VanGogh and instead of using it to just fill up the episode count we have a tightly written and well exicuted story that, while a little heavy handed, is worth every emotional twist and turn. VanGogh was a fantastic artist, who's work is a lot more impressive when you see it in person rather than some tiny photo in a book.
The reprocusions from the last episode are still being felt (ahh continuity keep it away, that might reward views with consistancy and god forbid development!) and the Doctor's guilt (once again a hold over from Amy's Choice) is a wonderful touch. You can see it in his eyes, a subtle bit of acting that almost makes you hurt in sympathy.
Five out of five

All in all these last few episodes had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that while the early season was shaky (victory of the Daleks annoyed me so much I went and designed my own Daleks for god's sake) the show is just going from strength to strength. I can't wait for more

Coming soon:- City of the Daleks review. Just as soon as it comes out for my Mac I'm downloading it!