The Name of the Doctor

Salutations, faithful viewer. If you’re looking for your good ol’ chipper Chance, I’m afraid to say you won’t find him here. Nope, she’s currently sunk in the depths of her bed, tapping desultorily at her keyboard, posting this recap through sheer force of will. You see, we’ve arrived at the series finale, and your intrepid recapper isn’t quite willing to accept the fact. It seems like we just started the series, doesn’t it? Thanks to that dratted hiatus we had from September to Christmas and then from Christmas to April. Just think about all the things that’ve happened over the course of this series! We bade farewell to two Companions and welcomed a new one; we cavorted with the Paternoster Gang (I’m thrilled that they officially have a name, incidentally); we met some wonderful new enemies and squealed with delight over the return of several older ones. After such a serial, jam-packed as it is and was with such marvelous adventures, it’s only fitting that we close out the serial with a Big Damn Show. I mean, it’s the rules: When you say good-bye to something awesome, you celebrate it with an awesome party. And that’s exactly what we’ve got here…except, of course, this is a Doctor Who party. The cake may be lovely, but the only party favor you’re likely to get is a broken heart.

If you’ve been following the show at least since Series 6, you no doubt are familiar with the name Trenzalore (and no doubt get cold shivers up your spine at the mere mention of it). But ever since it was first mentioned on the show, it has remained shrouded in mystery. Shrouded, that is, until now. In this serial, we find out the real significance of Trenzalore and the reason why the Doctor must never go there. Naturally, he goes anyway, and it’s up to Clara, the Paternoster Gang, and (in a stunning return) Professor River Song to save the Doctor and the Universe from being destroyed by the Great Intelligence and Its gang of Whisper Men. And in the process of doing so, we finally manage to solve the secret of Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl.

One thin that puts us at an advantage over other more casual/moderate Whovians, faithful viewer, is that we have more than a passing familiarity with classic Who, and so can reap more satisfaction from references to the old Doctors, with which this serial is rife. Now, when I say this, I do not mean to imply that casual Whovians (those who are only familiar with Matt Smith’s episodes) or moderate Whovians (only familiar with New Who, starting with Christopher E.) are less valid fans than we are: no matter the degree to which you know/love the show, the only thing that matters is that you do know and love it, because that’s what makes you a Whovian. I simply mean to say that a casual or moderate Whovian will probably not experience the same frisson of excitement at watching the First Doctor and Susan stealing the TARDIS (or any of the other myriad references) as we, the manic rabid obsessive extreme Whovians, do. Because let’s be honest: we did. We jumped up and down in our seats, we screamed and shouted like we were watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in February ’64. Myself, I did such an enthusiastic jig that I sent my coffee all over the carpet. I suspect that I shan’t get the stains out anytime in this decade. Worth it!

Incidentally, all those images we saw of past Doctors were, for the most part, actual footage from actual serials from the classic era! Oh, the show-runners treat us well, faithful viewer, don’t they? Except for when they tear our hearts out and use them to season their afternoon tea.

The latter half of this Seventh Series has been spiced up noticeably by the return of the Great Intelligence, that most classic of Who villains, dating from the Troughton era. Understandably, the GI has been gunning for the Doctor ever since his Beatle-haircut-and-recorder-playing days for screwing up all Its plans for world domination. This time, the GI is properly vindictive against the Doctor, and the hackneyed phrase “this time, it’s personal” couldn’t be more appropriately used. As a result, the GI has, I think, gone completely insane. The actions of the GI demonstrate that It is perfectly willing to destroy Itself and the whole Universe just to torture the Doctor. That’s right, faithful viewer, the GI is willing to disintegrate all of causality in a fit of pique. From where I’m standing, that seems to be a royally stupid thing to do, and all over an injury to pride? Tsk tsk tsk. Ah well, at least the GI managed to find some decent henchmen this time around. The Whisper Men are deliciously creepy, whereas the Yeti were just clumsy. (It must be said that the Snowmen and the Ice Lady the GI used in “The Snowmen” were also very cool).

Now, faithful viewer, as much as I would love to continue ragging on the GI, I must address something quite sad in nature. As I mentioned before, this episode sees the return of the sassy and serendipitous River Song. I was overjoyed at her return, needless to say; things are always just a bit more interesting when River’s around. However, my joy was swiftly turned to sorrow when it became apparent that this is River’s farewell episode, her swan song. I knew it would come eventually, but that did not prevent me from spilling several thousand heartbroken tears at her departure. No matter what anyone says to the contrary, River will always be one of my very favorite characters. She’s quick, confident, sassy, scandalous, and above all, strong. And yet, there’s always a part of her that is vulnerable and sad, which we only see when she’s alone with the Doctor, the man who she loves and who loves her. Forced to grow up too tough too soon, there will always be a part of River that represents the childhood she never got to spend. That’s the reason why I love her so much. As Whitman wrote, she “contains multitudes.” She inspires me every day to be the best at whatever I do, and also to be the most human human being I can.

Farewell, River. Good-bye, sweetie.

Truly, however, the Big Thing in this episode (besides finding out more about the nature of Trenzalore) is solving the mystery of Clara, the Impossible Girl. Since I still wish to be true to River, I won’t divulge any spoilers here. However, I will say that, right from the beginning, our Clara has always been two steps ahead of the Doctor, and for a very good reason!

Before I sign off, I want to address something troubling that several of my Internet friends have been saying lately, regarding the lovely Miss Clara. They are of the opinion that the next Companion on the show (heaven forbid Clara leaves any time soon and with any gratuitous level of tragedy) should be utterly ordinary. No mystery surrounding them, no special relationship to the space-time continuum, nothing of that sort at all, in the hopes that the Doctor remembers that ordinary people can be intriguing too. This, faithful viewer, strikes me as a very hurtful and untrue statement, and I’ll tell you why. Firstly, I can’t think of a single Companion the Doctor’s ever had that can be described as “normal” or “ordinary.” Secondly, the statement presumes that the Doctor has, for some time now, been selecting his Companions based on the big dramatic mystery surrounding them, when in fact (apart from River and Clara), the Doctor has been doing no such thing. He travels with the people he chooses because he thinks they’re clever or special in some way. From Susan to Clara, that has always been his main motivating factor. And remember: if Clara was insufferable, rather than as brilliant as she is, you can bet the Doctor would’ve dropped her like a hot Sontaran (pardon me, I meant potato) and found another way of solving her mystery. Just because a girl’s impossible, that doesn’t mean she gets to be the Doctor’s Companion.

Additionally, I just love how Clara chose her impossible nature. (I hope this isn’t creeping into spoiler territory). By creating the mystery that surrounds her, she shows an agency that is rarely seen in female characters. Thus, she shows that my English teacher (who is of the opinion that Steven Moffat is incapable of writing decent female characters) is dead wrong. Well really, I think I could pick any one of Moffat’s female characters on this show to prove my teacher wrong, but I think Clara Oswald is the final proof. Oswald for the win!

And that’s it for me, beloved viewer. Join me again this November, when we celebrate Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary (!!!) and hopefully find an answer to the question that the Harry Potter and Merlin fandoms are no doubt screaming at their television sets. What question is troubling the Potterheads and Excalibites, you ask? This: what does Ollivander and the Slash Dragon have to do with the Doctor?

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, where we celebrate fifty years worth of flying in a blue box and running through corridors…Geronimo!

Nightmare in Silver

I can only imagine, faithful viewer, how much Steven Moffat must have jumped for joy when Neil Gaiman agreed to write an episode for our prolific show. I don’t know how familiar you are with him or his work, but for the record, Mr. Gaiman is pretty much the name in the modern fantasy genre. With such works as “The Sandman,” “American Gods,” and “Coraline” to his credit, the fact that he has deigned to attach his name and his verbiage to Doctor Who not once, but twice, is a huge feather in the cap for our old friend The Moff. Incidentally, I have the fabulous fortune of going to see the Great Man this summer (cue my spastic dance break) so I suppose I’d better be extra-complimentary about this episode, just in case he knows it’s me when I go to stare at him with slack jaw and wide eyes this summer. Boy, what a trip that would be, if he were to stumble across this humble little blog! In case you are, in fact, reading this, Mr. Gaiman, I’m still reading “The Sandman,” it’s utterly marvelous, and I never expected to admire Death so much in my entire life, so…thanks for that!

Now, this episode steps off precisely where the last episode left: with the jarring realization that the two children for whom Clara serves as a nanny have discovered her temporospatial larking about with the Doctor and thus demand to come along for the ride. Upon arriving at a disused amusement park on an alien planet in the far-future (which is the perfect, oh-so-Gaiman mix of creepy and charming), the Doctor discovers a group of Cybermen, in hiding and recuperating from a massive war. Of course, we all know that Cybermen are as allergic to death as Larry King and Hugh Hefner put together; how many times has someone on the show claimed that the Cybermen are extinct, only to get their shoulder squeezed by a steel hand that then proceeds to snap their neck? Ergo, we also know that it won’t take long for the entire Cyber-force to become fighting-fit once again. So, with the help of a local punishment platoon (read: “band of misfits”), and a mysterious fellow known as Porridge (and played by the ultra-magical Warwick Davis), the Doctor and Clara must save the Universe from a fate worse than death: conversion to Cybernetic form. Not to mention the added threat of the Cyber-Planner: a loud-mouthed, self-assured smart-aleck who also happens to be one of the best villains we’ve had for some time and who has designs on the Doctor’s incomparable brain.

One of the common complaints about the Cybermen, voiced by modern viewers, is that the Cybermen are too clumsy to be scary. They move slowly and loudly from place to place, leading one to believe that one can save oneself from the Cyber threat by hopping on a modestly-powerful Vespa and getting the heck out of Dodge while stopping for fro-yo on the way. Well, faithful viewer, one thing’s firmly certain: a trick like that will not work against these Cybermen. Able to move from A to B in the span of time it takes me to gobble a Saturnalian chocolate cookie (about .4 seconds, give or take a nibble), the Cybermen are slowsters no longer. Not to mention their new ability to detach body parts, upgrade themselves to neutralize attacks on the fly, and their newfound silence (letting the Cyber-Planner do all the talking); all combining to make the Cybermen some of the baddest cats in the sky. And then we have the Cybermites (apparently the 2.0 version of the Cybermats), which are ridiculously creepy, supremely gross, and about which I can’t think without shuddering, so let’s move on.

Let’s move on, in fact, to the Cyber-Planner. Faithful viewer, how cool is the Cyber-Planner? Normally, I don’t dig a villain who talks too much (actions scare better than words, after all), but in the case of the Cyber-Planner, I don’t mind because It establishes right from the get-go that It is perfectly capable of walking the walk in addition to talking the (extremely verbose) talk. But what’s best about the Cyber-Planner is that It forces the Doctor to act in a way that is the polar opposite from how the Doctor should act. From digging out old catchphrases to hitting on Clara, the influence provides ample opportunities for great acting on the part of Matt Smith, great direction on the part of Stephen Woolfenden, and great anxiety on the part of us, the faithful viewers.

In a way, the Doctor reacting to the Cyber-Planner reminds me of the Tenth Doctor’s turn as the mad-as-a-March-hare Time Lord Victorious. The same level of manic enthusiasm, coupled with the sense of dancing right on the edge of blowing up the world.

My one problem with this episode (my apologies to Mr. Gaiman, if you’re still reading this at all) is the characterization of the children, Angie and Artie. They don’t have much in the way of personality, honestly. They’ve got catchphrases (Angie’s is “stupid,” Artie’s is “actually”), but beyond that, they’re not very engaging characters. In a way, this contributes to another cool aspect of this episode: the fact that it seems to be a large, colorful game of chess. Taking place in a small, beautiful, perfect little Gaiman-style world (a chessboard), the Doctor is the king (his sacrifice means the end of the game), Clara is queen (the piece with the most agency), Porridge is the bishop (able to move slantwise through the game and provide unexpected help), and all the rest of the minor characters are pawns, positioned as needed to capture other pieces or get sacrificed strategically to best support the endgame. However, the trouble with treating the children like pawns is that they both have too much identity as characters to be relegated with the rest of the minor characters. So, yes, that’s my biggest issue with this episode. Certainly not a big enough issue for me to not like it, since there are so many other thrills and chills to capture my attention, so I hope you’ll forgive me, Mr. Gaiman. You’re still the Fantasy King in my book.

In conclusion, I’d just like to talk a bit more about the idea of a small, perfect world. We noticed this in the other Gaiman episode of Doctor Who, “The Doctor’s Wife.” Both episodes take place in isolation from the everyday world and feature quiet little characters with their own quiet histories and their own quiet goals. Watching a Gaiman episode of Doctor Who is a bit like peering into a music box. The rules of the world are the gears and cogs, which make the little statuettes (the characters in the story) turn and spin and dance to the sparkling, mysterious, beautiful music. And the music…the music is the dialogue. Neil Gaiman’s words are meant to be read aloud; they practically leap off the page and into the air when you try to read his work silently. But when they are spoken, they hang in the air like dew-drop covered spiders’ webs. Sparkling. Mysterious. Beautiful.

Stay tuned ‘til next time, faithful viewer, where we close out this series with a grandiose, dramatic, heartbreaking, raised-stakes, all-bets-off Big Damn Finale…

The Crimson Horror

Heya, faithful viewer, what it is! It’s prancin’, romancin’ Chance here, and boy oh boy, have I got a cracking recap for you today! Apologies for the delay in recapping, but my weekend was mainly spent indulging in many adult-type beverages with my nearest and dearest and I didn’t fancy trying to put together a quality Doctor Who review after a good old round of Appletinis. Incidentally, I almost watched this episode while under the influence; the number of times that mortician guy croaked “The Crimson Horror” in his thick-as-Yorkshire-pudding accent made a drinking game all but inevitable. Only the knowledge that I had homework yet to be done that evening kept me from hitting the peach schnapps in retaliation to his blatant over-dramatization. I may try out some warped-out writing in the future, though. Perhaps for a season premier/finale?  I could become carousin’ Chance the bashed blogger! Although, I can’t help but think that I’d be in a bit of a pickle if I can recap while I’m pickled, so who knows? If that’s something you’d like to see, let me know in comments. (Oh I’m in trouble now; what have you got yourself into this time, November?)

Anyway, enough with my medicinal musings, let’s get on with the show!

Mark Gatiss, the king of the strange, has served up this little tale for us. That’s right! The man who spends an increasing amount of time as the preternaturally-svelte Mycroft Holmes created this episode, which has all the elements of a really good Victorian-era penny dreadful. However, this penny is far from dreadful; it’s a mysterious, deliciously creepy, and above all, really psychologically interesting. When I wasn’t attempting to tie cherry stems with my teeth this weekend, I was pondering all the metaphorical and psychological resonances inherent in this episode. And very cool they were, too!

Our story begins with our good old Victorian Gang on the job once again. They’ve got wind of mysterious scarlet corpses turning up in the North of England and the Doctor is already embroiled in the case. They soon discover that the slime behind the flim-flam is an elderly lady by the name of Mrs. Gillyflower, who (along with her silent partner Mr. Sweet) is planning to set up a “New Jerusalem” at the expense of the entire human race!

In the interests of continuity, it’s definitely a good job that the Victorian Gang showed up to meet (the new) Clara. Seeing as how they’re some of the Doctor’s best mates, they definitely need to keep themselves up-to-date on the Clara Situation. Incidentally, these guys need an official name, they’ve turned up enough times, they need a proper moniker. Victorian Gang’s all very well, but surely we can do better; we’re Whovians, after all! If you’ve got any suggestions, leave them in comments! (AN: The fandom has decided that this conglomerate of colorful characters shall henceforth be known as the Paternoster Gang! Marvelous!)

Now, I did say that this was a very cool episode, with lots of cool things in it. However, I was a little bugged by how little the Doctor actually did this time around. I mean, Matt Smith got some very cool acting opportunities here (upon none of which I shall elaborate, because they’re packed with spoilers–satisfied, River?) And his brief Yorkshire accent was hilarious, if slightly alarming (we haven’t heard the like since “The Rebel Flesh”/”The Almost People,” faithful viewer). And his final confrontation with Mrs. Gillyflower consisted of some very finely-written dialogue indeed. Well, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the man who wrote Sherlock and Moriarty’s confrontation scene in “The Great Game,” which I will maintain to my deathbed is the greatest nine consecutive minutes in the history of television. But as far as actual agency is concerned, the lion’s share was done by the Companions. Well, I suppose the Doctor needn’t do everything by himself, and as “Mission to the Unknown” and “Blink” have demonstrated, it’s possible to have good Doctor Who even when the Doctor isn’t the main player.

The episode being mainly driven by the Victorian Gang and Clara, then, it was a good opportunity for us to see the lot of them acquit themselves admirably in the face of Mrs. Gillyflower’s atrocious actions. However, the real star of this episode was Mrs. Gillyflower’s daughter, Ada. Played by Rachael Stirling, Ada was struck blind as a result of some very poor parental choices and all but abandoned by her black-hearted mother. Holding herself in contempt in the face of her mother’s ideas of human perfection, Ada’s story is one of aching, heartbreaking tragedy. Her nickname for her dearest friend, who is the only living thing with whom she can identify, is very telling: she called him Monster, and I can only imagine what she called herself in return. For a girl to identify as a monster due to rough treatment by her family…well, it’s a tale I’ve heard often from a great deal of my dear friends, not to mention a tale that only by the sheerest of good luck I have managed to not call my own. Should any of my dear friends read this recap, I say this: watch this recap and pay attention to Miss Ada. You could find inspiration and salvation in her broken eyes. I know I did.

Going off of Ada’s saddening situation, I’d like to talk for a bit about the mater improbus of this episode, Mrs. Gillyflower. Quite frankly, faithful viewer, I don’t think I’ve encountered a character this deplorable since I was a young lassie reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the first time. Mrs. Gillyflower is right on a par with Delores Umbridge for grotesque, domestic evil, and one of my favorite things about Mrs. Gillyflower is her relationship with her partner, Mr. Sweet. It’s a symbiotic one, faithful viewer, in every sense of the word, and that’s as much as I’m willing to elaborate. Boy, it’s a good thing I chose to sober up before writing this recap; if my tummy had still been full of Appletini, I have a feeling I’d be seeing it again in a minute, just at the mere thought of the…*ahem*…connection between Mr. Sweet and Mrs. Gillyflower. But just because it’s squicky doesn’t mean it’s not interesting, faithful viewer, because it is. Mrs. Gillyflower has abandoned her daughter in order to “nurse” Mr. Sweet. All sorts of depraved and decidedly fascinating things can be said on the nature of motherhood by Mrs. G’s actions in this episode. And thus, it’s eminently appropriate for me to publish this recap on Mothers’ Day in memory of all our favorite scary muthas that we’ve seen in media over the years. Whether she’s wielding wire hangers, chasing cockroaches, or loving leeches, the Sick Mommy is an endlessly and terrifyingly fascinating character, no matter what name she bears. Many happy returns, Mrs. G, and a profound thank-you to my own darling mater for being her polar opposite.

Well, that’s it from me, faithful viewer. Be sure to eat your fish fingers and custard, and I’ll see you somewhere in time and space!

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, where we take a glimpse of the steel-clad hive mind of the Cybermen through the eyes of that sage of sci-fi, Neil Gaiman…

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Happy Star Wars Day! Different fandom, perhaps, but we’re all geeks and nerds together! And May the Fourth be with us as we embark on our newest Doctor Who adventure!

It’s not often that actual aspects of the show get called out in the title, faithful viewer, and it can usually only mean one thing: this episode is going to be very heavy with obscure bits of continuity. That’s the thing about having a show last as long as this one has. The tendency for self-reflexivity is almost unavoidable. I suspect that the really hardcore fans might get more enjoyment out of this episode than the casual fans, although the episode is still brilliant and fun to watch either way. That said, I don’t think anybody who frequents this blog can be counted among the “casual” Doctor Who fans. Don’t you agree, faithful viewer? I mean, if we’re willing to sit through “The Underwater Menace,” I think we’ve bypassed casual by about eleven exits by now. Thus, let us celebrate fifty years of glorious continuity as we journey to the centre of the TARDIS.

Yes, centre. British show, British spelling, faithful viewer.

According to post-production lore, this episode was Steven Moffat’s wish-fulfillment fantasy for a reboot of the 1978 episode, “The Invasion of Time.” We have yet to discuss it here, but apparently it was a brilliant notion for a serial that was sabotaged by a limited budget and cheap sets. Well, there’s certainly nothing like that to be found here! I’ve never seen such brilliantly rendered corridors for running down anywhere else in the entire series, and I’ve certainly never seen such strange and wonderful things at the end of those corridors. This is a wish-fulfillment which would set anyone’s mind at rest, so a big thank-you to the Moff is in order. And who else would be able to make such a fantasy come to life but that master of the written word, Stephen Thompson himself! The Sherlockians who read this will know who he is: he’s the devilish criminal mastermind who penned “The Reichenbach Fall.” But I digress; back to the episode at hand! There’s trouble in this episode, faithful viewer, serious trouble; and it all starts with a trio of pirates (they call themselves a salvage crew, but they don’t exactly seem to have a preponderance of morals, so pirates it is) with some very troubling family dynamics trying to put the TARDIS out of flight. They succeed, but in doing so, they put our beloved TARDIS in a dangerous state of disrepair. Now the Doctor has to find a way to save himself, Clara, and his precious TARDIS from certain destruction. And all the while, strange faceless zombies snarl from the depths of the TARDIS, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they don’t signify anything good.

I’m going to talk about the bits of the episode I liked best in a moment, faithful viewer, but first, I’d just like to say this. Clara, our beloved new Companion Clara Oswald, is so freaking adorable in this episode, I can hardly stand it. I mean, there’s never a time when Jenna-Louise Coleman isn’t the prettiest girl in whatever room she happens to be, but in this episode? With that beautiful dress and that cool hairdo and the awesome brown boots she wore (always nice to have a Companion who knows to wear practical footwear), she’s absolutely irresistible. Or at least, she is to this poor, besotted girl, typing away at this recap. Oh, how my Whovian heart’s a-fluttering for beautiful beautiful Jenna-Louise!

Like I said before, the best part of this episode (besides the hair-raising thrills and spills that are inherent in an episode of this nature) is all the little bits of continuity to be found. This continuity takes the form of physical objects (the Doctor’s cot from “A Good Man Goes to War,” the toy TARDIS last seen in “Let’s Kill Hitler,” the magnifying glass from “The Unicorn and the Wasp” and “The Power of Three,” and the umbrella that the Seventh Doctor (apparently) used in “Paradise Towers”), short scenes (a look at the telescope from “Tooth and Claw,” the much-touted Eye of Harmony as initially featured in “The Deadly Assassin” and most recently in “The Enemy Within,” as well as the famous library/swimming pool), and audio clips. Oh! How cool were those audio clips, faithful viewer? Let’s see, there were bits from “An Unearthly Child,” “Colony in Space,” “The Robots of Death,” “Rose,” “The Beast Below,” “Smith and Jones,” “The Doctor’s Wife,” and “The End of Time,” if my homeboys and homegirls on the Internet tell me true. Oh, I could listen to those audio clips for hours…or at least, I could if I hadn’t spent the better part of a year doing just that with all those blasted reconstructed episodes. Boy am I glad I don’t have to do that anymore! But anyway, very very very cool stuff here, as I’m sure you agree, faithful viewer!

I mentioned before that there were some very troubling family dynamics happening with the “salvage crew” in this episode, and boy are they distressing. If you’ve already seen the episode, you know of what I speak, and if you haven’t…let’s just leave it that if ever if ever a douche there was, then Gregor van Baalan is one because…because of the terrible things he does. Good thing the Doctor managed to set him straight!

Or did he? Now, here’s the part of the episode with which I take issue, faithful viewer. Here come some spoilers, incidentally; forgive me, but they are necessary! By the end of the episode, Clara forgot pretty much everything she saw and learned over the course of this episode. Probably a good thing, since she apparently learned the Doctor’s name, and all about the Time War; we’ve never had a Companion find out about the Time War on her own before though, which is pretty cool–I always knew our Clara was special! But the thing is, Gregor van Baalan didn’t seem to forget anything he’d learned over the course of the episode. Why is that? Was it because he was outside of events and wasn’t affected in the same way (similar to Amy’s reaction to the Crack in Time in “Time of Angels”/”Flesh and Stone”)? Or was it because the Doctor specifically told him not to forget? I dunno…unless someone can explain it to me, I’m going to proceed under the assumption that the thing was fudged in the end. This isn’t something I want to thing, faithful viewer, so if you can explain it to me better, please do! I await your edifying comments at the end of this blog!

All in all, not a bad little adventure. I can hardly wait for the next one!

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, where we journey to an Industrial Paradise, where not all is as it seems…

Author’s note: Whew! I’m finally caught up with the modern episodes! I do apologize for my lateness, faithful viewer. Now if only I can get the classic episodes’ recaps back up to snuff…patience!

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Now, faithful viewer, it’s only because I think you are so very fab that I am writing this recap at all. Had I my own way, I would remain where I am BEHIND MY SOFA. I must say, it’s been a long time been a long time since I’ve been so spooked by Doctor Who that I’ve had to take refuge behind my furniture. My “thing” about haunted houses is not quite as severe as my coulrophobia, but it’s still pretty darn strong (you can blame Steven Spielberg for that, along with the rest of the cast and crew of Poltergeist). You could, I suppose, dismiss this episode as just a live-action Scooby-Doo mystery with a TARDIS, but I don’t recall any Scooby-Doo mystery being so tense! I suppose it didn’t help that I made the decision to watch this one for the first time at around midnight; not my wisest move. Not to mention the fact that in order to psych myself into writing a paper earlier in the evening, I imbibed about seven-and-a-half cups of coffee, with the result that I was hopped up on enough caffeine to make a hummingbird fly to Guam and back, sitting in my little room watching this freaking episode at midnight, an hour most commonly associated with horrible supernatural things happening to fanciful youngsters such as myself. As I say, not my best life choice. But! I’ve resolved to come back into the world for you, faithful viewer, and bring you the best I have to offer for Doctor Who recapping.

Like I said, this episode is a story of a haunted house. I always think it’s very cool when Doctor Who decides to cover a plot that is rooted primarily in mysticism. We get a scientific explanation of why a so-called “supernatural” event occurs, which might detract from the magic of the myth, but hasn’t yet managed to do (it could do, but I haven’t seen it happen yet). In my opinion, legitimizing a supernatural occurrence using science always improves the mythology of that occurrence, because it makes it seem more real. Since most of the plot is riddled with spoilers, I’ll talk instead about the writer of this episode, a man by the name of Neil Cross. He’s a highly prolific writer, with several books and television credits to his name (he was the lead scriptwriter for the highly-popular British show Spooks for two years). However, what interests me is that this very episode is Mr. Cross’ very first one that he wrote for Doctor Who! And “The Rings of Akhaten” was his second! While “Rings” was very good (as you and I both know from my recap the other day), but this one, while not a perfect specimen of a television episode, is (in my opinion) a scarier episode than both “The Empty Child” and “Blink.” Now, you’re perfectly free to disagree with me on this (I am the one with the “thing” about haunted houses, after all), but I think this episode is the pinnacle of scariness for Doctor Who so far. And honestly, if this neophyte Doctor Who writer can out-scary Steven “King of Nightmares” Moffat himself, I’d say there are great things in store for this man on our show.

For me, there are two things about this episode that really serve to send the ol’ chills up my skinny spine. Besides all the scenes with mounting tension culminating in something unexpected jumping out and scaring the bejeezus out of your intrepid recapper, the two things that really “got” me were the desperate nature of the ghost, and the Crooked Man. For the ghost, I think my anxiety just stems from my studies of various foreign languages; lemme tell ya, faithful viewer, you don’t know panic ’til you spend five minutes getting talked at in German about a project that is worth 30% of your grade before the information starts to sink in (was für ein Alptraum!), so I tend to get very tense about conversing with people when neither of us can understand each other. And as for the Crooked Man (as he/she/it is called in the credits)…well, just the name alone is enough to inspire fear on my part. I just remember that line from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: “But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that’s going to Human and isn’t yet, or used to be Human once and isn’t now, or ought to be Human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.” A creature called the Crooked Man sounds like it falls right under that category. Not to mention the fact that the thing spends its life inspiring fear in other living creatures and moves like a spider or a scorpion does. I read that they filmed the Crooked Man’s segments backwards and then played it forwards again during post-production, giving the thing a sort of jerky quality of movement. Jolly good, say I from my place behind the settee.

Once again, my favorite character in an episode is a professor of some kind, and this time, it’s Professor Alec Palmer that’s caught my attention. He reminded me a lot of the character of Kahler Jex in “A Town Called Mercy” earlier in the series, in that he’s doing what he’s currently doing in order to atone for atrocities he’s committed in the past. The difference, of course, is that the Professor doesn’t hide from his past, and freely admits his crimes to the Doctor when asked, while Jex takes shelter in omitted truths. I’m guessing that’s why the Doctor doesn’t react as negatively to the Professor as he did to Jex. Although, I’d be lying if I said that my favoritism of the Professor was based entirely on mental/emotional reasons. Whereas I liked Professor Grisenko because he was a sweetheart and because he loved music a lot, I think I like Professor Palmer mainly because he’s hot. Everyone of the persuasion of fancying guys, I think, will agree with me on this. He’s bloody gorgeous, with a slight Scottish accent, and that’s more than enough to make my fanboygirlheart race. Ah!

As brilliantly scary as this episode is, however, and as attractive as the cast is, I don’t think it’s as good as it could have been. The reason for this is the treatment of the empathic psychic, Emma. I think we can agree, faithful viewer, that she had a tough job in this episode. She started out trying to make peace with a potentially-hostile and certainly-creepifying ghost, as well as manage her feelings for her incredibly attractive co-worker. By the end of the episode, she was strapped into a machine (that sounded as if it caused her a great deal of pain and anguish), trying to manipulate a pocket Universe into doing what she wanted so that she could bring the ghost home again. Essentially, what she was doing could be construed as an allegory for childbirth (especially considering who the ghost turned out to be). And for those kinds of emotional hurdles, I would expect some kind of intrinsic reward for her at the end; a passionate kiss from the Professor would be enough! What does she get? Nothing. At all. She’s a limitlessly sympathetic character; everyone she encounters demands the world of her (though in a “nice” way), and she gives and gives and gives. And she gets nothing in the end. I guess Mr. Cross, though he handles notions of godhood very sensitively in “The Rings of Akhaten,” needs a lesson in balancing strife with reward when it comes to characters. I would even venture to say that the allegory of motherhood as it applies to Emma’s character can be extended to include this oversight on the part of Mr. Cross. Emma is turned into a mother by a group of selfish boys, who demand that she fix everything that’s going wrong and don’t even thank her when she does. We as humans tend to do this a lot to our mothers, which, if you think about it, is rather shabby. So on behalf of all the selfish children in this episode, this selfish girl would like to apologize to Emma. And to my own mother, I say this: Thanks for everything, Mom. I love you a lot.

Back to the episode, however. Some interesting developments concerning our Clara, faithful viewer. It would appear that the TARDIS doesn’t care for her as much as we do. This reveals some cool character development for Clara, certainly: it appears that she tends to lose her temper when pushed. But the big question here is this: whywhywhy is the TARDIS acting this way? I’m not sure. Ostensibly, it’s because Clara’s a temporo-spatial anomaly, like our old friend Jack Harkness. But is she? We still don’t know why it is that the Doctor has run into her three times now. Until the truth is revealed, we’ll just have to wait and hope that the TARDIS doesn’t treat Clara too rudely in the meantime.

Because she really is cool, our Clara, isn’t she? I loved her speech that she gave after seeing the life span of the Universe. It’s not every Companion that gets to see that, certainly; I think the last one we had that did was Rose. (Though the Doctor’s motivations for showing Clara and Rose the death of the world were very different; Nine was trying to frighten Rose and to force her to empathize with him as a man without a planet, while Eleven just plain didn’t think about what seeing a dead planet might do to Clara). But like I said in “Rings,” it’s always a good thing for a Companion to have a complicated relationship with the Universe, and honestly, if time travel with the Doctor doesn’t provoke some kind of existential crisis, I don’t know what will. The fact that Clara did have one marks her out as one of the good ‘uns, in my book. She’s just awesome, faithful viewer, don’t you think?

I’d like to sign off this time, faithful viewer, with my favorite line from this episode. When surveying an ad-hoc mechanism the Doctor put together to help make contact with the ghost, Professor Palmer (drool drool) remarked, “Isn’t this all a bit…make-do-and-mend?” My response, my dear viewer, was this: Yes. Yes it is. Welcome to Doctor Who.

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, where we find out exactly what lies at the heart of the TARDIS…

Cold War

I have a feeling, faithful viewer, that I’m going to have a complicated relationship with this episode. The reason for this is because the first time I watched it, I became so involved in the wonderful plot and sheer excitement of this newest development in our beloved show that I missed a very important IRL appointment; the upshot of which was that I came within a cat’s whisker of losing my job. I’m pleased to report that I do remain employed, which, as you can imagine, is a relief for me. Not only does it mean that my coffee-and-Saturnalian-chocolate-cookies habit can proceed apace without interruption, but that this excellent slice of television won’t go down in my own personal history as my least-favorite episode of Doctor Who because it cost me my job.

Well, at any rate, you don’t want to hear about boring old me! Let’s get to the recap!

This delicious episode, as we are rather aware, is one fantastic bundle of hair-raising thrills and spills, twists and turns, fish and fowl…but best of all, this classic Base Under Siege-plot-based episode can easily be summed up in one awesome comparison: The Hunt for Red October meets Alien. But does the spectacularity stop there? No-siree-bob, because this episode also features the return of…wait for it…

THE ICE WARRIORS!

Though we haven’t discussed it yet together, according to my notes, the last time the Ice Warriors appeared on Doctor Who was in a serial called “The Monster of Peladon.” And fittingly enough, for the post-40-year-hiatus appearance of these classic alien menaces, a serious reboot and redesign was in order. So, faithful viewer, in 40 years, we have gone from this:

To this:

A marked improvement, no? Sleeker and more modern, while still remaining true to the original. Even better than that, however, is this: for the first time on Doctor Who, we get to see what an Ice Warrior looks like outside of its armor. Yee! I would post a picture of it here, but I think the sheer terrible awesomeness of the sight would crash your computer and mine, faithful viewer, so let’s let the big fella stay in his episode, hmm? You can always go back and watch again and bask in the glory. But I think getting the Ice Warrior out of his armor was a very smart move. The thing becomes instantly more buyable as a terrifying enemy if he can move around with some dexterity and appear to possess some peripheral vision. Looking like a humanoid tank is all very well, but after a while, you stop being scared of something that moves with the grace of an IKEA bookshelf.

I must say, when I heard that this episode was going to be set in the Cold War, I felt a little flicker of giddy-schoolgirl-excitement. If you’ve been following this blog for a long while, faithful viewer, you’ll know that the Cold War is a period of history that I find endlessly fascinating, and I was delighted to discover that Mark Gatiss (the writer of this episode) felt the same way! So, the two main features of this episode (Cold War tension and a big scary alien cracking skulls in a submarine) are, in my opinion, a beautiful combination; as beautiful, I would say, as the combination of coffee grounds and water, or that of Saturnalian chocolate and cookie dough. Delicious, zippy, and guaranteed to make me stay up all night. Hats off, Gatiss!
My favorite character, I think, in this episode, was Professor Grisenko. I mean, come on! He’s an adorable human being and I really identify with him; like the good Prof, I also have the habit of snapping on the ol’ headphones when the world gets to be too much. He’s so sweet, in fact, that I can’t even bring myself to make fun of his music taste. I can give him some points for Ultravox, but Duran Duran? Oh dear dear dear. Not to mention the fact that the gentleman who plays Prof Grisenko, David Warner, has one impressive resume. He’s been in everything from Time Bandits to The Man with Two Brains to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (my personal favorite of the series); oh, and he was also in this little indie film: Titanic. Holy icebergs, Batman! This guy’s been around! This almost beats that one time when we had The Amazing Spider-Man on the show!

As befits an episode like this, there are lots of little obscure continuity pieces featured here. The first mention of the TARDIS’ HADS system since “The Krotons” occurs, which is cool (forgive me for the tautology, faithful viewer); as does the advent of the sonic screwdriver’s infamous “red setting.” You know, faithful viewer, for a fact that was only mentioned once in the entire run of this show, the “red setting” has become remarkably famous. Lastly, I feel that I must address something about the conspiracy theories are already clacking on their keyboards. Ever since Jenna-Louis Coleman’s debut on the show, there have been some very interesting little details surrounding her. In her two episodes before she became Clara, a rose was featured prominently (Oswin wore one in her hair and Clara the Governess/Barmaid worked at the Crown & Rose). Clara, in her current incarnation, got the Doctor’s number from “a woman in the shop.” The “most-important-leaf-in-the-world” apparently originated from a Norway Maple, and in this episode Clara, in a tense moment, hums a few bars of Duran Duran’s classic, “Hungry Like the Wolf.” If you’ve been watching the show even slightly-more-than-casually since the second series, faithful viewer, you know to what all those clues might point.

Rose might come back, faithful viewer. By George, she might come back.

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, where we journey through a haunted mansion the likes of which even Walt Disney could not have conceived…

The Rings of Akhaten

Heya, faithful viewer! It’s charming, changeable Chance here, with another fantastic journey through the wonderful world of Doctor Who!

This is a special episode we’ve got here, and I’ll tell you why. It’s the first time Clara’s traveled to another planet with the Doctor, and those episodes are always vital to the development of a Companion as a character. With Rose, we had “The End of the World;” with Martha, we had “Gridlock;” with Donna, we had “Planet of the Ood;” and with Amy, we had “The Beast Below.” What’s important about the first “space episode” is that it doesn’t only provide the Companion (and by extension, the audience) with a strange and visually stunning setting, but it’s also a good time for the Companion in question to learn what it really means to travel with the Doctor; away from all the trappings of life on Earth, we have the opportunity to get to the bits of space-time travel that really matter. This doesn’t happen so much in the classic series, simply because the show didn’t know what it wanted to be yet; this is very much a New Who phenomenon, but it does happen. There’s lots of adventure and hair-raising escapades, there’s some serious heartbreak (inevitably, the first time the Companion goes to another planet with the Doctor is when they find out what happened with the Time War), and ultimately the first space-travel adventure proves to be a test of the new Companion’s courage and compassion. Aside from Adam, no Companion has failed the test, which just proves that the Doctor really does only take the best.

And that certainly holds true in this episode, the first time Clara goes off-planet with the Doctor to Akhaten, a small planet in orbit around a massive star to which the people of Akhaten pay homage as a god. After exploring a splendid market (seriously, I get chills just thinking about that gorgeous thing), we meet a little girl who is charged with a monumental task and a monumental title. She is the Queen of Years and she must sing a lullaby in an effort to keep the Old God of Akhaten asleep and stop him from devouring the souls of every life-form in the Universe. This Old God, which makes the Living Sun in “42″ look like a cuddly puppy, feeds on the stories and culture of Akhaten as a leech feeds on everything from A+ to O-, and the Doctor (naturally) will not stand for it. Proving that a god who feeds indiscriminately on the products of its parishioners without appreciation or love is no god at all, the Doctor resolves to free Akhaten from the shadow of the Old God, with the help of his new Companion, Clara.

One thing I feel that I must say before we go any further is that the little girl who plays Merry Gejelh, a young lady by the name of Emilia Jones, is absolutely wonderful. With her expressive blue eyes and voice like a butterfly soaring above the planet Venus, she is a significant highlight of this episode and I am confident that she has a brilliant career ahead of her. Just you watch, faithful viewer; this Emilia Jones is going to loom large in our legends.

Something I thought was very cool about this episode (out of about fifty-three zillion cool things I found in this episode) was the kind of juxtaposition of the lovely Merry and the scary-as-all-get-out Vigil. Um, faithful viewer…FROM WHAT FRESH HELL DID THESE GUYS EMERGE? These are some freaky muthas, and make no mistake! With their black eyes and metallic faces (I refuse to believe they wear masks, because I’m certain that whatever might lie beneath them would be equally terrifying) and their deep rasping voices that make them sound like the unholy progeny of Darth Vader and a Dementor, they are easily the most terrifying new monsters we’ve had on the show since the Silence! When I think of those scary dudes chasing after little Merry…ooh! I’ve gotta say, hats off to Neil Cross–the writer of this episode–for successfully scaring the stuffing out of this poor Whovian.

As far as production is concerned, faithful viewer, I think we can agree that this one was visually stunning. That market is definitely something that I feel should exist just down the street from my house (the town of Salmondale is, sadly, lacking in anything in the way of awesomeness). The space-scapes were entirely drool-worthy and I don’t know about you, fair viewer, but every location in this episode was made twenty-six times more delightful by that incidental line by the Doctor: “I came here years ago, with my granddaughter.” Oh, my goodness me, faithful viewer. Not only does this mark the first direct reference to the original Companion, our incomparable Susan, but it created a lovely picture in my mind of the First Doctor and Susan bopping around in that fabulous market. Of course, you’d never actually see something as splendid as that market in the classic series, but thanks to that little line, I can let my imagination run wild.

Susan: Oh, Grandfather, it’s so beautiful here! Oh, what’s that over there?

Doctor: Yes yes yes yes, don’t rush about, my child! Goodness gracious me! Now, we must meet my old friend–

Susan: Grandfather, help!

…And then Susan gets captured by the Vigil or some other sort of alien, and the Doctor must, as ever, save her. Ah, memories.

Now, it’s well-established by this point that Clara is a girl of some significant mystery. As part of the cold open of this episode, we get a montage that ostensibly explains how she came into the world. Her parents met through an act of utter serendipity, in a way that reminded me of that lovely little Pixar short, “Paper Man.” (If you haven’t seen it, faithful viewer, you definitely should because it’s one of the most adorable things you’ll see this month). Of course, this “origin story” doesn’t tell us beans about how she was able to be a prisoner in the Dalek asylum, a barmaid-turned-governess in Victorian England, and a hip-Brit-chick from the twenty-first century. However, it does tell us that our Clara has had a very complicated relationship with the Universe for her entire life; not quite as complicated as Amy Pond’s, but then I would hazard to say that that’s impossible. But at any rate (as we see in the episode), if it weren’t for a series of “crazy random happenstances,” she wouldn’t exist, a fact of which she’s probably been aware since she first became aware of herself. In any case, a complex relationship with the Universe is always a plus for any Companion, not only because it’s something the best ones usually have. Having some kind of working knowledge of the utter and immense serendipity and symmetry and unpredictability and the sheer wibbly-wobbly nature of the Universe is just good common sense for any would-be traveler in time. And if Clara has anything resembling that in her skill set, then I think we’re in for a great trip with her in the TARDIS. Geronimo!

Stay tuned ’til next time, faithful viewer, when we plunge to the depths of the ocean and get reunited with an old enemy…