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#savetheday

futurekind — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 22:59:38 GMT

Haiii, welcome to my zombie LJ,
I haven't blogged in ages (blogging's sooo 5 minutes ago) so please excuse the even-worse-than-in-times-yonder quality, but I MUST SQUEE ABOUT THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR RIGHT NOW WITH SPOILERS APLENTY and I'm too polite to do it on Twitter/Failbook on the off-chance that some of you haven't seen it yet.

So instead, I'm writing a tl;dr blog post where I don't have to be vague and sophisticated (IKR, I keep using that word, but at least I didn't say 'coherent' or 'intelligent' or something).
I'm also doing you the favour of highlighting the important bits so you don't have to read the whole shitty thing

As much as I've been counting down the minutes to The Day of the Doctor as much as the next person, I had mixed feelings towards it. Yes, namely, I was dreading that whole Tennant/Piper part. Simply because throughout the RTD years I gradually grew entirely bloody sick of Rose Tyler and her lovey-dovey relationship with the mopey-dopey Tenth Doctor, and I've been thinking Moffat and Matt were the best thing that could possibly have happened to Doctor Who in 2010. Plus I thought it genuinely unfair that Rose, who'd already got like three crappy exits, was to return yet again while better companions were left out.
But all my fears were proven wrong because this was brilliant. Tennant was as great as he was in the 2006 series and Piper was actually pretty cool in the role of DoomsdayWeapon!Rose.
And the next best thing was how Moffat took that shitty Elizabeth I piece of canon that I've been ignoring since 2009 and made it HILARIOUS. The whole plot was ludicrous and stupid and funny and awesome, and I really wish I knew how long it took the Moff to come up with so much awesomeness. I loved the dialogues, I loved the bickering and I loved all of it, and did I mention THEY BROUGHT BACK GALLIFREY?
I've been waiting for them to bring it back all along, ever since I got hooked in 2005, ever since I first saw Nine mourning, ever since I first watched episodes of the classic series, I've been patiently waiting for it. And then of course RTD committed that crime against humanity otherwise known as The End of Time and I wholeheartedly loathed it for reasons I won't repeat now (yes I know I could just link them but I don't really expect anyone to have got this far in the post). And I was hoping the Moff would some day go back there and fix it and bring Gallifrey back properly as it should be. And oh my gods didn't he do just that with style.
It was so bloody great. I would've loved it as it were if they had actually pressed the big damn button, because it was so sad and so great, but THEY DID IT, THEY SAVED IT.
John Hurt was bloody awesome too, but then it was obvious he would be.
And there was Tom Baker, in a totally great scene. And there were all of them, in two totally brilliant scenes.
And there's one more thing, PETER FUCKING CAPALDI, I bloody KNEW he was gonna have a surprise cameo, I've been wondering about it since he was announced, I was thinking how fantastic it would be if he had a cameo because this is the bloody 50th anniversary, it's huge, and he is the next Doctor so it wouldn't be fair to leave him out, but I still cried out loud when they said "not twelve, thirteen". And now I'm totally psyched for Christmas and I can't wait, because as much as I'm still depressed about Matt leaving, for he is the Doctor himself and absolutely brilliant in the role and (in my smug opinion) the best Doctor since Hartnell, I can't bloody wait to see Malcolm fucking Tucker play the Doctor. Plus there's gonna be weeping angels.
And now I shall watch the shit out of the episode until Christmas.
Also, SHERLOCK IS ALIVE!

On my hiatus and why I haven't written about the Christmas Special

futurekind — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:04:24 GMT

I've been wondering about for a while now about what I'm going to do with this blog until the autumn. I've still got no idea.
Nowadays I only write about Doctor Who, but there'll be no new Doctor Who for many months. I've thought of writing about Sherlock, but I don't feel myself equal to it. I've thought of other shows, but I simply don't have anything I want to say about them.
So, apparently, I'm on hiatus or something.

But another thing that distanced be from my blog was the Christmas special. Because I really didn't want to write about it and kept postponing it forever.

The reason I couldn't write about the Christmas special is that half of it was boring. And writing that down makes me feel like a blasphemer, because I feel like there's some additional brilliance in the episode I'm too stupid to understand.
Because Moffat's episodes are supposed to be quick-paced, full of humour and wit. This episode didn't really feel like a Moffat episode.
It doesn't mean I didn't like the Christmas special, because I found the story charming. I liked the beginning, the Narnia parallels, the tree king, the climax, the ending.... but somewhere in the middle I was bored. It was the mum. I didn't like her Space Narnia scenes. She arrives in the forest, meets the ditzy guest stars, spends an awful lot of time arguing with them and then she decides that she can definitely drive an imperial walker because her husband is a WW2 pilot. I was waiting for some more exciting action. I expected the three guest stars to have a larger role. I expected a quicker pace. I simply expected more because it was a Moffat episode. And I definitely didn't expect to be bored for twenty minutes. I expected the episode to be even more awesome than Space Victorian London with the flying fish, but the Space Victorians were actually better. That's why I kept putting off writing about it.</lj>

not so good news

futurekind — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:34:25 GMT

Sooo, the good news is, apparently, my favourite TARDIS team will stay for a while. I honestly thought they won't be back after the finale. But then why not keep them forever? I know it's time to bring in some fresh faces, but duuuh, Amy and Rory are my favourites!

Need another drink?

futurekind — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 23:55:57 GMT

6x13 The Wedding of River Song

THIS WAS THE MOST AWESOME SERIES FINALE EVER. Moffat deserves a statue. Or his own church.

I mean, I knew it was gonna be spectacular and amazing and my expectations were quite high and I've been literally telling people for years that Steven Moffat is a god, but this finale exceeded even my expectations by a mile. Moffat's more my hero than he's ever been. He's BRILLIANT, yes, with capital letters. I've seen The Big Bang two times now -
er, wait, sorry, that’s last year’s finale, I’ve no idea how I could’ve possibly confused the two.

I mean, it’s not like this finale was about time being completely, hopelessly messed up and history being crazy and earlier guest characters coming back and the Doctor playing Indiana Jones and wearing a stupid hat and then having to die but eventually cheating Death itself and the companions never having met the Doctor and Amy remembering him but forgetting Rory who is completely oblivious of everything.

I loved it, though. I sincerely did. My appreciation was won the moment I saw the balloon-cars and the roller-coaster trains. I want to pack my suitcase at this very moment and move to the timeline where we go around in balloon-cars and trains in pyramids and Churchill is the Caesar and the still-intact Roman Empire's capital is London. I want to feed the pterodactyls!

This episode was a lovely ride that never appeared to be even 20 minutes. We finally figure out who River actually is (though the orphanage part still ain't clear), we get to know how the Doctor weasels his way out of dying again, yaddada yaddada.

On this occasion I am ambivalent about never actually betting on things despite saying so all the time. River shot the Doctor but the Doctor cheats, I would’ve won that. Rory dies horribly and his body’s vaporised so he can’t come back as a zombie. Now there I feel a little... disappointed. Oh dear, I can’t do the Zorg in writing, tragical.
So, the thing is, while I was obviously afraid that Moffat would KILL HIM WITH FIRE just to exemplify the first law of the universe (i.e. My Favourite Characters Must Die Horribly), and I’m totally happy that Rory managed to survive yet another series with my black mark on him, but duuuh, they kept killing him and then bringing him back for two series now and now they couldn’t’ve even done THAT? They even had a different timeline to kill him in, possibly in a funny and preposterous way! Yes, I know, I’m bloody hard to please.
But at least the Silence got a joke out of him, eh heh heh.

Apart from my shallow problems over not killing my favourite character for fun, I liked the ending with River casually visiting Amy. With that and the circumstances of Madame Kovarian’s death I might even forgive Moffat for Amy’s lack of maternal feelings two episodes ago, she was a lot more sympathetic now. And come ON, Amy, even Mother Teresa would’ve let her die.

Back to the Timey Wimey Most Awesome Timeline Ever, eye-patches! Everybody wearing eye-patches! Just so they’d look cool and mysterious in the teasers! And so Rory’d have another moment of shine instead of rotting six feet under like he would be with any other scriptwriter around! I don’t know about these losers, but the moment Madame Kovarian started talking about electricity in the eye-patches and the first redshirt went down, the first thought that crossed my mind was, ‘GET IT OFF!’ And all those losers just kept standing there like the bunch of idiots they were and didn’t even try taking theirs off until they were electrocuted. Gosh, they deserved to die.

Oh and another very very very incredibly important thing. The Nicholas Courtney tribute. It was lovely and so immensely sad. I knew there’d be a memorial, but then it didn’t come and I’ve completely forgotten about it and now it was there. Rest in peace, Brigadier, you were awesome.

And the ending... well... you bastard. Everybody thought the Doctor would be a Ganger, but then Amy was a Ganger, so it would’ve been the cheesiest thing EVER to make a Doctor-duplicate, so Moffat made a Doctor-duplicate. OK, tricky, he was in there but he DIDN’T actually die, now, did he?

But never mind, because now the Doctor will stop being a noisy anomaly and lay low for the rest of his life, nice and quiet, so the Silence won’t ever realise he’s still ali - oh wait.
But that’s just cool because I still demand some answers. We still don’t clearly know what happened in Series 5. We still don’t know what was the deal with Craig’s Silence spaceship and the Doctor actually remarked it! As for the big booo at the end, oh for pity’s sake, we know you won’t reveal his name ever because that would both the end of the show and the appearance of a mob armed with torches and pitchforks in front of the BBC Cymru studios, so nyer, Boo Big Damn Truth Day can’t happen.

Oh look’ee there, fan reactions after A Good Man Goes to War were all *weep* *weep* Dorian had some potential but can’t return because he was decapitated. So obviously, he returns. And he’s even funnier! I’m still wondering how could his fat head tumble around in that small box.

And the skulls and the cobwebs and the Indiana Jones stuff all over again. With a funny hat that was somewhat more similar to IJ’s felt hat than a fez.

And Amy always remembers the Doctor, even though fellow time-traveller Rory never remembers a thing (and Amy doesn’t remember him until being thoroughly nudged), I will definitely find the time to shred a tear.
You know, I totally feel like watching The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang now just because this episode reminded me of them so much. *imagine the most evil smirk ever accompanying this* Nevertheless, I loved the episode awfully. I demand MORE.

IS IT CHRISTMAS ALREADY? ~~It is in the Harrods.~~

p.s. Can we keep A/R, please? I don’t want new companions, they’re my favourites ever. And then we could get a third series finale that’s totally like these two! (Er, I’m working against my side here, aren’t I?)

And they and Matt are the funniest ever in the Confidentials, too. Which should live forever! The Confidentials are my second favourite programme, right after Doctor Who, they are amazing and informative and awesome and the best thing is THEY’RE REAL. They’re about real people, the real process of making DW and a true account of how awesome it must be to work on Doctor Who, so dear Beeb, unless you want to contract me right now, DON’T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME. That show is a treasure. It’s about people who should be in the limelight but normally aren’t ever, and it’s wrong because what they’re doing is amazing. It’s about the most exciting trivia about the making of my favourite show, background information, everything. It's about Matt Smith being a moron.
In fact, it should get even MORE money. And they should release it on dvd. Honestly, I WANT a dvd, I bet thousands of other people feel the same, I hate not being able to buy a shiny new legal high-quality copy of DWC and watch the old Confidentials. The Beeb say they can’t afford DWC but they never even tried to make it profitable. And don’t tell me it’s because of the music, because if bloody Roswell could come out on dvd, I’m not seeing the problem.
I want more Confidentials, I want to hate the team for working there, I want to hate them for those delicious breakfasts, I want to know how a gaffer spends his day, I want to laugh at Matt/Arthur/Karen and I want to see interviews with the cast and the writers and the directors and everyone, I want to know about the circumstances and the problems and the locations and I want to know the trivia!

Edit: It took me a month to realise this was my 300th post. Lovely coincidence. Apparently, it took me 3.5 years to get here. See ya at Christmas.

He prefers to be called Stormaggeddon, Dark Lord of All.

futurekind — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 18:39:38 GMT

6x12 Closing Time
Today's game: can I write a review about Closing Time in 10 minutes? Here it goes!

So, Craig's back. And it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought this was gonna be part of the main plot, because of, you know, Craig. Craig's flat. The flat with the mysterious spaceship posing as a second floor, a spaceship looking exactly like the one in the US surrounded by Silence (Silents?) in The Impossible Astronaut. But no, apparently, this time there's a different spaceship, one with Cybermen on board. And they're the good old Cybermen! I love you guys! You actually speak instead of repeating the same pre-recorded two sentences all along!
Craig was hilarious, the whole episode was, I loved it, I was howling with laughter all along, literally, I'm sure the neighbours are plotting my assassination by now (if not, they will after tonight, series finale, jingle-jingle-jingle!)
And it was one another saved-by-the-power-of-luv and they actually made a joke out of it!
Oh dear, that's already been six minutes, so let's quicken this up. The Doctor working as a shop assistant? That was completely AMAZING. I loved his interactions with his fellow employees. And Alfie was hilarious. First I thought it's a bit of a stretch because they've already done this baby-talk joke earlier this series, but it became really funny really soon.
Yes, the Doctor is afraid because he will die (won't). It was totally believable. And there goes my 10 minutes.

So, I'll just add two more things:

a) Look who are there! Amy the famous perfume model? Er, that was weird. Really weird. Hey, I was wondering what career choice she'd taken in the new timeline, because she obviously hadn't become a kiss-o-gram living with her parents, still, too fairy-tale.

b) The cliffhanger. Well, well, well, I should've taken bets. I SAID it would be River. But what I don't get is, and don't tell me, 'River lies,' what's with Madame Kovarian and the Silence? Why doesn't she remember them? Obviously, she should, we've seen Melody in the creepy Yank orphanage SURROUNDED by them. She must remember them. The ther thing I didn't understand was, in Let's Kill Hitler we see the earliest River there is, and she keeps going on about being programmed to kill the Doctor and on one occasion she even talks about the day he died, yet now she plays the innocent. Ah, whatever, it'll all turn out very very soon now.

Ugly hell, gape not! Come not, Lucifer! I'll burn my books!

futurekind — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:03:46 GMT

'Ere, 'ere, the one billionth 'yay I've seen Doctor Faustus' post on the internetz, this time squee-free. Would you like some chips with your tl;dr?

Where shall I start? Probably at the very beginning. So Doctor Faustus is one of the treasures I discovered at university (with my moronic writing style, I bet none of you would guess I've got a degree. In English. Oh dear.) It was a compulsory reading, I loved it, have read it several times by now. So when the Doctor Who fandom exploded with the news that Arthur Darvill was going to star in a Shakespeare's Globe production of Faustus, I had two thoughts: one, I wish I could go, it would be amazing. Two, I can't possibly imagine Darvill as Mephistopheles. Thus, I had some expectations when I ordered my ticket.
I bought myself a groundling ticket. I naturally googled it beforehand, and Google said groundling tickets were all kinds of awesome. I believed it because I'd never been to the Globe before and was used to theatres where I only got to stand when I was late and couldn't get to my seat. But in the end, my experiences surpassed my expectations so far, they ended up in a different universe altogether.

The performance started at half six, I was a good little groundling and got there at 6 sharp. The thing about Faustus, there are 700 groundling tickets I believe, sold at £5 each, and I've read that there's always some left. This time there weren't any, my friends who decided at the last moment that they'd love to come as well had to wait until 6.30 to get some return tickets. Despite this, there wasn't half the crowd I was expecting, even though I expected the Globe itself to be bigger. Seven hundred people wouldn't even fit in. Still, if you're a groundling, it's better to get there early. When I joined the queue, it consisted of about 30 people (fangirls were quick, I saw a girl with a Dalek bag), but by the time they opened the gates, there was a huge crowd queuing behind me. Thanks to my early arrival, I ACTUALLY MANAGED TO SECURE A PIECE OF THE STAGE. There:

To say I was surprised to get right to the stage would be a lie, because I'd intended to, but I expected the stage to be large and the actors to keep a distance from the members of audience elbowing on the edges. Instead, it was us who had to keep out of the way of the actors. It was amazing. The stage is sort of T shaped, and my position was possibly the second most amazing, because I could clearly see the entire main stage, plus I was right there at that front thing where at least half of the performance was acted out, mere inches from us (the first best place would be the other side of the front thing, because there are stairs and the actors USE THEM. Imagine Mephistopheles arriving through the audience right next to you. That sort of thing. It was unbelievable. On our side we only had a mob, and they were about 10 feet away from me.
But it was really, really engrossing. The actors were so close you had to withdraw your arm from the stage sometimes lest they'd step on it, and since they were shouting all the time (no microphones), sometimes I even got spat on. And the smells! The pope's escort had incenses about them, and Bruno's (the German-appointed pope captured and tortured by Rome) make-up blood had a very strong smell. It was all very close and very realistic. And the tricks! You know, that poster with Mephistopheles holding a flame in his hand? When I saw it, I said, 'Yeah, like you could do that on stage.' Well, they were doing fire-tricks all the time. Mephistopheles did hold fire (it was totally a candle but it looked cool nevertheless), shot sparkles from his fingers and unholy books burst into flames. And the costumes were fantastic. They were unbelievably good at keeping it real. They even kept throwing stuff at us, I had the time of my life right next to the stage. And have I mentioned just how absolutely stunningly beautiful the theatre is?
If you ever have the chance, do dare to be a groundling. It was the most wonderful theatre performance I've ever attended. It's nothing like sitting at the back, peering at the actors from a distance. All theatres should be like the Globe. Three hours of standing isn't so scary as it seems, I keep doing it all the time (mostly in queues), it's even better when you get to lean at the stage all along, and you can sit down in the breaks (right where I was standing, in my case, because I was viciously defending my piece of stage. My friends went out to the buffet or wherever, though. You can pretty much get back to your original position, unless you're right next to the stage. Nevermind, I spent the entire break twittering.)

So, onto the acting, because you'll obviously want to hear about Arthur, so I won't start with him.
The acting was superb, in general terms. The whole cast were wonderful. They've been doing it for months now, of course, and you could see they knew exactly what they were doing... apart from such spontaneous things as an aeroplane flying by EXACTLY when Faustus or Meph or whoever was talking about flying. Or Meph having to get the string of his balloon castle back from the audience.
There were way too many brilliant performances for me to talk about them one by one so I'll only talk about the most important ones.

So, first of all, Faustus. Paul Hilton was a fantastic Faustus. I loved the parts when he was trying to repent, you could see the pain in his face and he was amazingly good. A wonderful choice. And he and Arthur had really good chemistry.

About Arthur... Here. I repent. Until the very last moment, I couldn't really picture him as Mephistopheles. I knew he was a great actor, but gee, he's Rory. Rory's, like, anti-Meph.
And I was particularly concerned about Mephistopheles, he is obviously my favourite character, because he's absolutely cool and evil and beyond the best-friendly demeanour, he's a fiend who will scream and throw a tantrum when Faustus tries to save his soul. Furthermore, let's face it, he's the centre of the show.
The shocking truth is, ARTHUR WAS PERFECT. He was EXACTLY the Mephistopheles in my mind, to the very last detail, he said the lines perfectly, with perfect gestures and behaviour and all. He was so good that it was so weird when Meph was played by another actor in one of my favourite scenes (the one where they're at the Pope's feast in the semblance of two cardinals and the Pope gives Meph his crown to carry to the treasury and Meph goes, 'So, so; was never devil thus bless'd before.' Disguised Meph laughed merrily as he said it. Meph in My Head doesn't do merry laughter. He does sarcastic half-smiles and chuckles.) And as I've said, he and Hilton were really cool together.

Another actor who must be mentioned is Felix Scott, simply because I liked his Wagner. The thing is, I never really liked Wagner in the 'book'. He was boring. But Scott's Wagner was hilarious and he made me look at Wagner differently.

I also wish to say Nigel Cooke was funny. He was playing both the Pope and Lucifer (obviously), and his Pope was amazingly evil. His lines were pretty nasty to begin with and his voice was dripping evilness. He was a joy to watch. Bruno's on-stage torture with the Pope's evil speech was honestly disturbing.

Really, everybody was awesome, in all their roles. I loved the katana-wielding angels, the mob, Dick and Robin, the Seven Deadly Sins, everybody.
The whole performance was amazing. They took the play as it were, I kept recognising my favourite passages, and some interesting interpretations, some of them quite different from my own.
And the very end was hilarious, they all started dancing and Faustus and Meph were playing the lute(!) and they were totally OOC right in front of me.
In the end, they were all gone, the audience as well, and all that remained was a single shoe of Faustus':

It looked hilarious out of context. Fellow audience member started explaining to me how it's symbolic in the play. I resisted to urge to tell him, 'You're telling ME?'

p.s.: I wanted to include pictures of the actors but I couldn't find any on the Globe's site and one simply can't google 'xy faustus' and NOT get pictures of Arthur Darvill as result, so I gave up.

futurekind — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:12:56 GMT

IT CAN'T HAPPEN. DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL CANNOT BE CANCELLED.

Futurekind Airlines

futurekind — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:35:31 GMT

6x11 The God Complex

Hey, I'm back and since my flight was 90 minutes late on Saturday, I spent the time writing ~~white whines about the flight delay~~ down my thoughts on this Shiny episode. And now I'd typed in all the crap from my notebook.
Next I'll write about Dr Faustus, 'cos it was BRILLIANT, and you definitely don't hate me enough and if you all rage-delete me for bragging about seeing it for the millionth time and I won't have any readers left, I won't feel embarrassed when I write about stuff that's soooo last fortnight.

Welcome aboard, this is Futurekind Airlines. We are currently stuck at the airport because of some mechanical error or somesuch, so we'll be entertaining ourselves by reviewing last week's episode of Doctor Who. ~~As well as laughing at the toddler in the seat behind me, he reminds me of my goddaughter.~~
So, the God Complex, the most hyped episode of the half-series. Hands up everybody who'd expected The Shining references! Wait, you didn't put your hand up? Liar.
Stuck in an 80s hotel full of monsters, apparently lead by some evil power. Yeah, that doesn't sound like The Shining at all.
Shots of long, empty hotel corridors, monsters in every room... the only thing missing is Jack Nicholson with an axe.
But wait... what are this rag-tag team of losers doing here? Oh, they're this week's guest characters, straight from Redshirt Agency.

Geez, it's bloody hot here, by the way, the air conditioning is off, it's about 40C in here, the toddlers (and there are quite a lot of them) are in hysterics.

Nonetheless, let's see these redshirts. Our numero uno contestant is Ms Perfect, she's so bloody clever and skillful and awesome that I want her dead.

Oh my gods, one of the toddlers is running around in nothing but a diaper. It is HOT.

So our second contestant is Mr Conspiracy Freak. I wanted him dead ASAP. He was 14-year-old unbearable me with screentime, an unfunny Connor Temple, Mulder without Scully and Samantha. all he did was gob on about secret government experiences and he did NOTHING ELSE. Aaah, air, the air conditioner's finally on. I wanted to whack him over the head every time he opened his mouth because he was a walking-talking trope.
Our third contestant is the Chap who Looked Like a Homeless Sontaran. I was funny at parts when he talked about invasions or whatever, but let's see what he did... nothing, nothing, more nothing, sacrifice one of his allies to save his own skin and then lie about it, nothing, nothing. I just couldn't care for him, either, so that whole thing about him escaping and rattling on about his home was lost on me. Oh, he escaped? Fine, whatever.
And our final contestant... the gambler. Well, that's almost as good as an alcoholic abusive father, but he didn't do much apart from dying. Yay, they fixed the engine that wasn't wrong after all. So, on the whole, the problem with the guest characters was that I couldn't care for any of them, not at all. Hell, I wanted two of them to go to hell to begin with, and, if possible, take the highway. I don't think they were properly developed. I can just label them, the Perfect, the Coward, the Gambler, the Mulder. It might've worked with John Hughes but he gave his characters personality traits of their own, even if they seemed completely cliché at first, they turned out to have some unique qualities.
Look at the guest characters in The Good Man Goes to War. Yes, I know, it's unfair to compare mortals to demi-gods, but Moffat's side-characters had minimal screentime yet their dialogue and actions hinted of rich personalities. Here, on the other hand... the gambler guy is nothing but a gambler. With shiny gambler trinkets. Hey-ho. OK, fine, he was already barking mad, wrong example. Then let's see Nerdy Boy. He's the very model of a model conspiracy freak. All he talks about is conspiracies, more conspiracies, blogging about conspiracies...

Damn, it's hot again and we've been sitting here for 90 minutes, this is torture, why couldn't we just go back in the terminal?

And, wait for it, his greatest fear ever is... GIRLS. Are you fucking kidding me?
The only character we got to know beyond the surface was Little Miss Perfect. But unfortunately that didn't make her any more likeable. I was hoping she would turn out to be evil because only a twist like that could've redeemed her character. We get it, Wesley's clever, stop rubbing it in our faces thrice a minute. But noo, not only is she really just SO DAMN GOOD, she even gets to make a Heroic Sacrifice. What a twit.
Oh listen to the choir of crying babies. Poor things, this plane feels like the inside of a frying pan. And on top of all that, my cup holder is drenched in some goo that looks like half-digested baby food. YAY we're moving!
And the problem with the character depth brings up the next problem I had with the story: (duh-duh-doom) everybody's greatest fears. As far as greatest fears go, they were rather laughable. Seriously? A gorilla? A grown-up person's greatest thing ever is a particular hairy mammal going 'roar' that she saw in a book? It might be all the hype about the fear thing, but I was rather expecting some psychological drama, not cheap scares, yet everybody's greatest fears were ridiculous.

AT LAST, WE'RE OFF, WE'RE FLYING!

Back at Futurekind Airlines, we're finally in the air, I've just got bored of the scenery, and it's really no one's fault that the aeroplane's computer is rubbish and rang a false alarm, but we're 90 minutes late and I'll have already missed the bus by the time we arrive, that's bloody £14 down the drain.
Were was I? Yes, yes, greatest fears... you might be terrified of a gorilla in a book, but if I take your most instinctive, archetypical fears, they definitely won't be gorilla-shaped. If they are, it'd better be a blood-sucking, soul-crushing, heart-munching Cthulhu of a gorilla that radiates pure despair and feeds on the nightmares of monsters. On the surface you're afraid of the gorilla, but in your nightmares you look down at your feet and realise what you thought was the ground is in fact the gorilla because the gorilla is the planet and as he opens his Asia-sized mouth you smell the putrid smell of the death of the universe and see ten thousand rows of teeth glint in the sunlight. I honestly can't believe someone's greatest fear is something as cheesy as that.

Omg, the flight attendants are distributing free O2 sim cards. Actual bloody sim cards. Now that's what I call advertisement. And the kids have finally gone quiet as the temperature dropped.

Even Amy's greatest fear is wrong. Yes, it's Little Amy again, yes, Caitlin is still cute, yes, I know how important the Doctor is to Amy and how this scene served to connect the episode to the conclusion, and I would've perfectly accepted this scene - in Series 5.
But since Series 5, Amy was supposed to have had character development. She used to be the girl who waited but now she's grown up and she's a mother. The current story arc is supposed to be about her searching for her kidnapped daughter.
Yet they've just stopped that with Hitler. There was the prequel and the teasers and all and Amy continuously begging the Doctor to find Melody. And then they find a sociopath adult version of her who almost kills the Doctor and suddenly it's all right and no worries, and you know, we don't even want the baby back now that we know that after decades/centuries of being a lunatic assassin she will hook up with you, Doctor. Suddenly both Amy and Rory seem completely oblivious of being PARENTS.
Three episodes ago Amy was leaving frantic messages on the Doctor's ansaphone, now her greatest fear is that the Doctor will abandon her. I'd at least have expected to see River sitting on a throne made of human skulls, picking her teeth with a bloody katana while holding a big damn gun in her other hand, laughing satanically and killing them all.
But instead of that, I got an ending where Amy's depressed because the Doctor refuses to take her on any fun-rides. And when she finally brings up the Melody-conundrum, she simply goes, 'Oh, you take care of the daughter I'm never gonna see grow up (for the first time, anyway) or ever again, kthxbai,' while in the background Rory's all, 'Oooh uuuuh, a car for a daughter, that's brilliant, I need a fizzy drink to celebrate this deal.'
Amy, Rory, I'm disappointed in you. Even though I'm certain you're coming back, because this ending was, as I've already mentioned, awfully anti-climatic, weird and without the slightest sense of closure, and since the executive producer's name ain't Russell T. Davies anymore, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of them, but still... They'd better develop some parental feelings by then.

Oh and about the Doctor's greatest fear. That's obviously too big a fish for a stand-alone episode to aim at for five minutes of entertainment value. It would be like revealing that the Doctor's name is Tobias Tiffany Worthington. He's supposed to be a mystery man, a man built of archetypes, the warrior, the trickster, the sage, you can't just barge in and say he's mortally afraid of running out of hair gel. They need to be very-very careful about the bits of information they reveal about his secrets and fears.

The religious context was cool, but the ending was sort of disappointing. Because the monster was cool, but he was a second-class character in the episode, and instead of getting a more complex answer than, 'Oh, it's a hologram. You know, like Star Trek. 'Cos he eats people, but only those who worship him. 'Cos, like, eeer - look, Rory the Redshirt's bonding with Redshirt of the Week!' I wouldn't've minded it had I liked the redshirts, but since I couldn't care less about the dead and the monster thing didn't end satisfyingly, I felt a little disappointed, even though the monster was actually cool and I loved those silly worship monologues. And even more Kubrick-y! Kubrick-y looked great! I loved the hotel set. ~~The Doctor could go see the War Room and ride a bomb with a fez on.~~

And so concludes the journey with Futurekind Airlines, hope you enjoyed your flight, we would like to apologise once again for crash landing into a volcano and killing you all. Don't forget we're better connected with O2, even in the next world. This is Nick sounding off from somewhere above Germany, I suppose. According to the original schedule I should be landing in Luton right now. /Five minutes after I wrote that the first officer told us we were somewhere above Germany indeed. I'm awesome. But I missed my bus nevertheless./

Pretty as an airport

futurekind — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:32:18 GMT

And this is really the moment after the last moment to catch up with my blog, but you've got to do what you've got to do.

6x10 The Girl Who Waited

Judging by the title, I'd expected a main-plot episode, but this was even better.
Amy is left behind. Left behind in a timey-wimey-space-holo-airport full of Cylons designed by Apple. I'd rather not think about that part, because I'm afraid I must've missed the answers because I was busy asking the questions and I haven't had the time to re-watch it yet. So this is a disgustingly shiny timey-wimey-port where the computer-assistant always knows where you are but the iCylons don't. And it's been designed by aliens as a hospice. Aliens who could tinker with time but never thought of OTHER species going to visit their planet, especially regarding them being a holiday resort. Where the computer-interface knows about Earth but the iCylons don't know about humans. Well, congratulations to the designers. Although it's still really amazing how they could put an only slightly faulty hospice up in what, a day, before they died themselves.
But of course the point of the episode is that Amy grows old. Really old. Oh dear, she's sixty. And now she can relax because she knows she will look stunning as a sixty-year-old. She's got wrinkles but she fights like Uma Thurman and despite spending 40 years fighting the iCylons every waking hour, she hasn't got a single grey hair. Fortunately, Karen did a good job and played the cynical survivor nicely, less Old Amy and more a different character altogether.
And ladies and gentlemen, this episode was entirely and only about Amy/Rory. Helplessly Perplexed Rory needs to deal with the fact that his wife has suddenly aged 40 years and became a cynical, contemptuous lone warrior. Which gets worse when Young Amy comes in the picture. How do you tell Video-game Amy that you'd rather want Young Amy back because she's prettier and less unbearable?
The two Amy's were wonderful, though they didn't flirt nearly as much with each other as I wished, her self-flirting was hilarious in the Children in Need mini.
And of course the twist was heart-breaking, the Doctor is a right bastard, but we'd known that before. Too bad Old Amy dies, she'd be a hilarious returning character, though I highly doubt either her or Rory will return next series. Which is a shame, they're brilliant, as seen in this very episode.

Deary me, I was accidentally given a non-English keyboard at the repair shop and blind typing is haaard. So I guess I'll leave it for now and write about the killer hotel on the aeroplane tomorrow (and since I won't be able to post it till Monday and who knows what happens on Saturday, I'll say in advance that I'm betting a quadrillion Professor-land Fun Bucks that you-know-who-or-what-i'm-talking-about will be back for the finale, this ending was the most anti-climatic ending of all anti-climatic endings ever with a side order of loose ends.)
I'm going to see Rory the Demon from the Burning Hells, feel free to hate me.
Service will be back to normal from next week on, when I finally stop to breathe after a fortnight of IRL busy-ness.

It be not me fault it be Pirate Day

futurekind — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:12:54 GMT

6x09 Night Terrors

Shiver me timbers, I got three episodes to write aboot afore the finale be ruinin' me perception. So here be the first.

Arr, first be the episode tha' scurvy dog Mark Gatiss writ. I be likin' Mark Gatiss so I be bi... bai... bas... writin' nice things. Possibly.
The problem be that I ain't not got much to write about th'episode. Thar be a wee kid wi' awful bad dreams an' a lily-livered landlubber o' a fa'er. An' it get worse as the Doctorr arrive wi' his red-haired wench and his sprog matey to show tha' landlubber how to sing yo-ho-ho. Oh an' to teach them tha' monsters be real, 'cos bein' landlubbers he wouldn't recognise the Kraken if it be bitin' him head off.
Aye, the wench and the squiffy get in trouble, 'cos tha' be wha' they do and such they be not botherin' the Doctorr. I would never not be lettin' them landlubbers on me ship, tha' be for sure, lest we be endin' up in Davy Jones' locker. An' some dolls come an' scare them stiff. Honestly, the scallywag wi' the stinkin' ugly dog looked be'er as a doll. The problem be tha' when the dolls catch the wench, it be obvious tha' they be turnin' back into landlubbers at the end. They not be never killin' the wench, every second corsair be watchin' the show for the wench's pretty... Hi'lander speech. Why not catch the sprog, he be wi' the black spot, but no one be never believin' the wench be dyin'.
But the kid bein' the demon after all be such a jolly good twist tha' I not be complainin' about another Gatiss episode bein' sa'ed by the po'er o' ~~grog~~ luv.
The problem be tha' I be expectin' somethin' more tense but the wench an' the sprog walkin' about in a house be plain borin' an' it took the monsters too long to appear and thar be no swashbucklin'. They be good monsters tho' and the second half (after the monsters be a-come) be good.

Ahoy, me hearties,
Dread Pirate Nick

Note to any passin' buccaneer: I be sorry for the godawful bad pirate talk, I be a scurvy landlubber, but tha' be the one only way I be able to make meself return from me hiatus to sail the seven seas again. Let thar be grog!

Change your face, keep your name, keep it real, don't play the game

futurekind — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:53:01 GMT

6x08 Let's Kill Hitler

Which is now definitely one of my favourite episodes. Back to the Future meet The Curse of Fatal Death meet genius wizard god-sauce. Doctor Who came back from the summer break with a bang.

It was a huge dazzling romp once again, where I spend the first umpteen minutes saying, 'what? what? what now?', the rest saying, 'This is the best episode ever!' That of course only when I'm not laughing hysterically. So, the new girl. The bad thing about the girl is, I knew she was coming. Because she's apparently some big name in Eastenders or Coronation Street or whatever and so I simply couldn't avoid hearing about her being a new companion(!) and I HATE spoilers. I would've liked it a lot more if she just appeared out of the blue without me having any expectations at all. Not that it would've made a difference in the end, because THAT ENTRANCE, she had that typical River entrance. Amy (or Rory? Eh, one of them) tells the Doctor, 'Hang on! It wasn't us crossing out the name!' and then the sound of the engine is heard and I cry out, 'River!' I was totally expecting Alex Kingston. River's still the Drama Queen, even when she hasn't got a party dress on.
And River was hilarious all along. Quite liked the TCoFD scene, I did, because I TCoFD rocks and, Doctor, you're forgetting I also have a TARDIS, I went even further back in time and bribed the architect.
What else did I love? Hitler! Wait, that came out all wrong... That whole bloody 'Let's Kill Hitler!' sugar-coating turning out to be simply a diversion. And the moment when they realised what they did! Shut up, Hitler! And get in the cupboard!
And now let's talk about the wonderful new character introduced this episode: Evil River. Evil River is brilliant. If Alex Kingston doesn't get some award for her performance this world is seriously screwed.
Almost as much as the DW world. Rory's already had an 'I-need-a-drink' face when Melody regenerated and then it only got worse. 'You named your daughter... after your daughter?' And then that whole dialogue about Melody being a sociopath programmed to kill the Doctor and wreak havoc in general. 'Melody, sweetie, I asked you to go to the groceries and buy some milk, not to shoot people exiting the shop and ransack their bags for milk.' And then the Doctor snogging River and joking about it to her parents. And then, 'Come on, Amy, can't you see it? Your daughter might've been kidnapped by space villains as a baby and raised a monster but now that you've finally caught up with her you've GOT TO ABANDON HER NOW because kids grow up. By the way, she's a great kisser.'
On the topic of the flashbacks, they were funnier than I initially expected. And there was Caitlin Blackwood! Who's still the cutest little Scottish girl on telly. Making Rory the loser kid was wonderfully evil. Melody hooking up her parents is worth a headache.
And the Doctor dancing? Sonic cane! I'm still surprised River didn't DESTROY the top hat.
So now we know a lot more about River's history. Obviously not what really happened on the beach because, spoilers!, but we do know how Melody ended up as River. So now I keep thinking back to Day of the Moon. Melody escapes the Silence in 1969, regenerates, runs off. 1990s-2000s: Melody lives in Leadworth, England. Regarding that we last saw her regenerating in 1969, there might be a whole new version of her we've never seen (and then in a mindfucked finale we'll find out that the second regeneration is Madame Kovarian and she's the villain who turned herself into a villain, mwhahaah!) 2011: Astronaut kills the Doctor in the US. 'Contemporary' Melody is apparently still in England. So exactly how many versions of Melody are there? Or have the bad aliens gone and fetched her with the spaceship that used to be in the US in 1969 but somehow ended up in Craig's flat from 5x11?
But before I conclude, I guess I should talk about the Space Police who ~~didn't have American accents~~ have a spaceship built by Skynet, should I? After all, they were the villains this time or whatever. Also, River is more evil than Hitler! They were, well, funny. As well as their very English robots who were built to incinerate EVERYBODY who didn't have an easily-hackable wrist-thingimajiggy that needs to be updated all the time else you'll get your spine ripped out and shown you on your way to work in the morning. I've heard TFL's already placed an order for several hundred robots.
And now in conclusion, despite what I said in the previous paragraph I do not intend to write a conclusion. That was my cunning plan! Ha-Ha-Ha. Did anyone else notice in the dying scene that Matt Smith looks totally like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit?

P.S. Dear Livejournal, no offence, but the new 'Cut Wizard' guy is a wanker. He's probably cheated in all his wizardly exams and got this job through his daddy. Making cuts has never been this annoying. And I can't even edit the text in HTML anymore because it reverts to centred no-cut-text whale-vomit whenever I tab back to rich text. Can't you hire a real wizard instead? Kthxbai.

featuring sparky, the invisible elf

futurekind — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 03:18:51 GMT

By the way, a thing that's been nagging at me about the new season of Futurama...

When exactly did they hit the reset button on the Fry/Leela relationship? Last year they specifically said they would roll with it, and they did so for like three episodes or so, and now they've officially pulled out with the bone eater episode. I don't really get it.

Writer's Block: Love to hate

futurekind — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:50:31 GMT

The good old Machiavellian Master from Doctor Who! The Weeping Angels! Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg! Darth Vader! Dark Helmet! Hans Gruber! Dr Strangelove! Dr Horrible! Agent Smith! Futurama's Mom! Fawkes from The Guild! Jack Torrance! HBC in the HP films! Blackadder! Mandy! Mr Teatime! The French! Is Anthony Head supposed to be a villain in Merlin? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?

Writer's Block: Let freedom ring

futurekind — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:39:27 GMT

We generally just sit down and weep all night for not being as Free and Independent as the Americans who've even got an Independence Day.

Guys, it's a US holiday, why on earth would other countries celebrate it?

Writer's Block: Extra! Extra!

futurekind — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:49:35 GMT

Oh, I'd love to write proper TV reviews. I'd write outright nasty criticism about everybody whose name's not Steven Moffat.
But nasty book reviews would suit me as well!

Point a gun at me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

futurekind — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:10:11 GMT

6x07 A Good Man Goes to War

Huh, this was one very thick episode. Thick with action, that is. And it’s a good thing, not only because it was so action-packed and full of side characters worth their own show that it never failed to be entertaining even for a second. But mostly because things happened so fast I hadn’t had a second to think. Have I mentioned it was EPIC?
And did I say 'tomorrow'? I totally meant 'the day after tomorrow'.

And thinking was my enemy in this episode, successfully vanquished by The Moff, because it was all told in the first ten minutes or so.
But let’s start at the beginning.

First, there’s Amy. A whole new side of Amy. A passive Amy. An Amy who is unable to help herself and her child and waits for the others to come and save her, with that quiet, determined dignity. Nice job, Karen.

And there’s Rory the Roman again! Who looked spectacularly stupid. No offence. But seriously. Actually, he looked somewhat Star Wars-ish and coolish on board of the Cyberman ship. But then Confidential came and we got a close-up of his socks-and-sandals and he lost a significant amount of his coolness factor. Sorry, mate.
But I’m not really getting why he needed to dress up as a Space Roman. I know it was supposed to lead to the grand finale where he’s referred to as Centurion and everything, but that doesn’t explain why the Doctor would tell him to parade in a silly costume.
As to the grand finale, though: excusez-vous mon français, but fuck yeah. All this series I was laughing at Rory continuously reminding people he’s a nurse while being a rubbish nurse (I’m a nurse, I could’ve handled it... or not. I’m a nurse, I can do it the wrong way, I saw it on telly! I’m a nurse and I let her die, I’m rubbish! Joy oh joy!) And now he meets another person who’s a nurse pretending to be a warrior, except this other chap is actually GOOD at being a nurse. It was AWESOME.

But I shan’t break the chronology of events and jump straight to the Most Awesome Side-Character Ever, nay, let’s continue with the soldiers.

We’re the thin-fat gay married Anglican marines. Why would we need names as well?
That was one of the best lines in the entire series! They were hilarious. Absolutely memorable characters, even though they scarcely had any role in the episode. This is what I’m talking about when I say it’s character-packed.

And there’s Lorna Bucket, the girl with the stupid name. Another side character who had a complete story, and one that gave the Doctor a push when he was about to fall. Also, the one who serves the solution in what, the fifth minute? ‘Cos of course the Is River Amy’s Daughter theory has been around for a while now, replacing last year’s Is River Amy’s Mum theory. I’ve thought about it, you’ve thought about it, we knew it was a lot more logical than River being the Master or the Rani or the Doctor or whatever, but we just didn’t know for sure. ‘Cos it was Steven Bloody Moffat and he can make you question your own existence.
And if only Moffat had put in a dull minute, if only I had some time to think instead of watching the events unroll with the speed of lightning with eyes wide, trying to keep up, I would’ve realised that River Song = Melody Pond. ‘Cos no, my first thought when she gave Amy the hanky absolutely wasn’t ‘Is it River in your language?’ It was obviously a plot device. But by the time I got to the end of the sentence I had about five more things to think about.
But stuff happened so fast I never thought about it in-depth and was therefore only 99% sure and Moffat was still able to confuse me with the cot at the end. I’m glad for that.

The Episcopalian Victorian Silurian Lesbian Thespian (by Neil Gaiman and some chap called Lee Harris. Too good to not mention.)
Next in our line of glorious side-characters is Madame Vastra, the crime-solving Silurian with an appetite and her ... er, friend Jenny (who calles her ma’am all the time, I’d like to point out.) They were almost as hilarious as the Sontaran nurse. Am I the only one whom Jenny reminded of Susan in the Hogfather film?

Here, I can finally talk about the Sontaran nurse, Commander Strax. He was the greatest. I laughed myself sick during his introduction scene. And he was the one character whose death also made me laugh. Call me tasteless. ‘I’m not a warrior, I’m a nurse!’ Incidentally, was that whole Battle of Zaruthstra thing supposed to be a reference to something?

River, River, as awesome as ever (lately. It seems so unbelievable now that I disliked her in Silence in the Library.) Gotta love her Stormcage scenes, all of them. ‘He’ll rise higher than ever before and fall so much further.’ Oh dear, that line was more epic than the climax itself. Guess what, though? Can this be the first time she meets Rory as River? Just look at her stare.

I’m old! I’m fat! I’m blue!
Dorium, another returning character, he sold River the vortex manipulator in Pandorica Opens. Nice to meet him again.Too bad it's also the last time.

And organising these people and a lot more into an army is a Doctor who’s bloody furious. The Doctor recruiting an army and taking over a space station. Would you have ever thought of that? The Doctor having all those people he can call upon? Debts to be repaid to him? He did rise higher than ever before. And he did fall, fall so deep when he realised all this was for nothing, his allies were defeated, killed for nothing, it was all a trap and the baby was lost. ‘They’re always brave.’ We got all those very rich personalities just to see them die and feel the loss, instead of thinking of them as expendable redshirts.
Not to mention, last series we’ve seen a similar montage of Doctor Who creatures, but then they were all against the Doctor.

On the opposite side, there are some brand new villains, who are still just as mysterious as at the beginning. Who is Kovarian? Why is she so adamant on destroying the Doctor? What has he done against her to make her such a fierce enemy? And what about her soldiers? Who the hell are they after all? ‘Soldiers of God’. But which one? It’s all gods now. The Clerics, these Anglican soldiers or whatever (is Anglicanism a galaxy-wide religion now? We definitely need to know more about these chaps,) and the Headless Monks. I’m guessing the Monks ain’t Anglicans, on account of the Fat One being required to convert.
And the Headless Monks? Blimey, they haven’t got heads, didn’t see that coming... This is Doctor Who, of course they didn’t have heads. But who were they? What did the Doctor do against them? Why would they ally themselves with Kovarian? Also, the museum from The Time of the Angels used to be their monastery or something, huh.
And what about the third party in this crazy coalition? The Silence. What brings these three under the same flag? What is it they want? Why do they want to destroy the Doctor so badly they are capable of blowing up the TARDIS? Compared to that, stealing Amy and her child is mischief.
THESE are the sort of questions I’ve wanted to get an answer to all along. And now I’ve got to wait until the autumn. Bugger and blast.
Gotta mention, though, the Monks look bloody awesome. Though I don’t really understand why they need those fancy swords (I wants, by the way) when they can shoot electricity from their palms. And they’ve got attack prayers! Attack. Prayers. Attack prayers! Petition for them to return? A lot? Possibly accompanied by the Angels? They look like something out of Diablo III.

Gotta love the anti-Doctor speech. And the Doctor’s appearance. Once again, didn’t-see-that-coming-a-mile-away! Not like, oh, look, there’s so many hoods around, one of them must be the Doctor. Yeah, sure, he’s absolutely not a Trickster. Next to the Doctor, Loki’s an amateur.

And things still keep on happening. ‘Cos we know it’s a trap. We’re told, about five times, by both River and Kovarian. Still, we’ve got a moment of peace before the storm. And, you know, I felt sorry for Rory. He’s totally left out of this whole child-business. That whole ‘Williams sounds like a geography teacher, but Melody Pond is a superhero!’ thing was kind of cruel (I sniggered at it both times I’ve watched that scene, still.)
However, ‘Big Milk Thing’. MOFFAT ROCKS.

The ‘war’ was pretty cool. Not nearly as epic as I’d expected, but epic nevertheless. And here’s something I honestly didn’t see coming at all: the baby being a Ganger. That was the real sincerely jaw-dropping ZOMGWTF moment of the episode. I knew it was a trap and I still wouldn’t’ve thought!

Oh, and I'd almost completely forgotten about this (in fact, I'm editing it into the entry), but the cot! That was what confused me at the end. I totally ate the Gallifreyan diversion and thought maybe I was wrong and River will turn out to be the Doctor's mum. But on second watch I noticed the ~~hanky~~ prayer leaf was spread out in the middle of the cot and the inscription was easily readable from the Doctor's position. And here's an interesting thing: the Gallifreyan writing must be the Doctor's name. And River's seen it. And we know she speaks Gallifreyan. That's how she knows his name!

So, there we are. The kid’s stolen. The allies are dead. Mostly. We’ll hopefully see more of Madame Vastra and Jenny. Sadly, it’s not likely we’ll see more of the cute little girl from the opening two-parter, on account of her having regenerated. Unless we finally learn why they kept her in a locked-up orphanage in the USA.
And it’s not the Doctor’s child and neither is Rory/Amy a Time Lord, it was simply the Time Vortex. And apparently some Kovarian/Monk/Silence/something meddling. I think our problem is we’re looking for very complicated explanations and expect to be tricked and double-crossed all the time.

The thing is, though, if I try to think simply, then River kills the Doctor. I’ve always insisted on this. She said she’s in prison because she’s killed ‘a good man, the best she’s ever known.’ And then there’s the continuous calling the Doctor a good man, especially in this episode. And if River is the little girl, and she’s raised to kill the Doctor, then it’s only evident she’ll do so. It’s been highly suspicious all along that River seemed to know too much both about the girl and the confrontation of the Doctor and the Spaceman. She shot the Spaceman, it didn’t work and she said, ‘Of course.’ But it doesn’t really make sense.

Also, may I take this speculation deeper into craziness by going back to The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang? ‘The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.’ It’s River driving the TARDIS. And the Silence is there, apparently, manipulating the TARDIS to go to 27/6/10. The bodiless voice. The Silence tell Amy she’s to bring the Silence about.

Anyway, I’d like to thank Doctor Who for... ruining the last good summer of my life. This is my last summer before I step into the never-stopping treadmill of jobs I will definitely hate and move hundreds of miles away from my family, and I’m supposed to enjoy the hell out of it, yet I can’t wait for September to see how the story further unfolds. That plus Doctor Faustus. I can’t even properly want my last proper summer to last forever (OK, I wouldn’t want it to last forever, because I hate hot weather, but you know what I mean.) See, that’s what Doctor Who does to one, kids.

futurekind — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 18:56:44 GMT

6x05 The Rebel Flesh & 6x06 The Almost People

Well, well, well, I’m definitely not missing my chance of being ignorant, so here’s a last-minute summary of the two-parter with some gratis WTF’ing before I stack up on jelly babies and fish fingers and watch the finale.

Yay, this episode was written by Life on Mars’ Matthew Graham. And he’s brought DC Skelton along! And oh my, all those accents, it was loverly, really.
So, what we’ve got here is an awesome stunning fantastic brilliant looking monastery standing on a tiny island (as it turns out, multiple stunning fantastic monasteries/castles, which makes it about five times as cool), currently inhabited by people who pass the time playing The Matrix. But all of that will soon change, as the Doctor dashes in with a snow globe, a new-found love of weather-cocks and a fresh concern in big stinky bowls of rubbery flesh. As well as those two people he failed to get rid of a minute before.
And obviously, the one place he’d love to see in that stunning, etc. monastery of old is the Room of the Bowl of Goo. We just have time to see Jennifer the Not Annoying At All get cloned alright before the thunderstorm comes and changes the channel to Frankenstein’s Monster. Thank gods she made it just in time, what would we have done without Her Craziness? Anyway, the Doctor rushes to save the day but failure seems to be following him all day. Must be a Thursday. The Doppelgängers come to life at half-time.
So, instead of flashback learning about the first time the Doctor got to say ‘I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose!’ (I’m intrigued, dammit!), we instead get to know Team Ganger. Team Ganger would be definitely a bunch of losers if it weren’t for Batshit Crazy Jennifer. Just look at them, in their 100% meat clothes, going on about their existential problems calmly instead of breaking the set in pieces and crying Death to Humans. And the best tagline they manage is ‘We are living, aiaiaiaiarrrgh.’
However, we get a glimpse of Jennifer’s role very soon, with Rory getting all over-emotional over her. Rory flirting with some random chick? That’s funny. ‘Noticed your eyes right off’, wow, she saw them from his nose? And those looks Amy gave were priceless. But on the other hand, Rory flirting with the annoying, barking mad spider lady? ...is giving her more time to get on my nerves. I didn’t like her. She sounded like a five-year-old, was lunatic, and whined about not being treated as a human with a ten feet tall neck. OK, well, he didn’t really have a choice, it was either her or the equally-crazy-at-the-beginning Cleaves, and Jennifer had about ten years to her advantage. The point is, he kept socialising with Lunatic Human-eating Jennifer all along without realising she’s a sociopath. It was sad, really. And yet he didn’t die, even though I was expecting it every minute, because I thought the life expectancy of someone who dies in every second episode in the presence of Jennifer in an acid factory should be very, very short. Or was that supposed to be the twist?
Anyway, the story was pretty neat, with all the existential problems. I liked the dilemma of the two Jimmy’s and their son. Though he didn’t register as a real kid. Real kids don’t go yes-yes-yes-yes and jump up and down like that all the time. Had he got too much sugar in his birthday cake?
And there was the TWO DOCTORS! ALL THE WASTED POTENTIAL IN JOURNEY’S END NOW FULLY UTILISED. Thank you. For years I’ve been gobbing on about the possibilities of having two of the same Doctor in one space and now my prayers have been heard by the pantheon of Doctor Who gods, in other words, scriptwriters.
I completely didn’t see the second Doctor coming. Not all. Not until he dipped his hand into the goo and went on about it scanning him. Five whole minutes! Graham apparently didn’t want to go for surprising. But it was awesome nevertheless. Can we get Ganger Doctor back? As a full-time companion? Pretty please?

Yadda, yadda, yadda, Amy’s a ganger, oh-em-gee. Sod you, Moffat. I didn’t see it coming. Not even with the Doctor eyeing Amy with a solemn expression for ages after she inquires about the flesh, not even with the Doctor going on about better ganger technologies, not even with them arriving here right after the Doctor’d scanned Amy for fun for the billionth time and suddenly wanted to shake them off so he could go and investigate into the matter.
Also, how is the Silence coming in the picture? When the Silence kidnap Amy they tell her she will bring the Silence about and also that she’s been there for days. So, what? They couldn’t have doppelganger-ised Amy there on spot because she’s already seen the Eyepatch Lady before. But then why kidnap her... again? And is it then the girl bringing the Silence to Earth or what? And how? And what the fuck?
And I’m honestly not seeing how this will work out. I’m simply not seeing the kid as the Doctor’s child, that’s not possible. There’ll probably be some timey-wimey explanation that doesn’t sound as lame-arse as the timey-wimey explanations I’ve been trying to make up, but one thing’s sure:
MR MOFFAT, IF YOU DARE PUT A CLIFF-HANGER ENDING IN IT AND I’LL BE IN SUSPENSE ALL SUMMER, I’LL COMMIT HERESY AND CALL YOU EVIL. I mean, really evil. The type of evil who owns a fluffy cat and sits in a high-back wheelchair behind a mahogany desk (and turns dramatically to meet the protagonists) and laughs maniacally and all that.

two down

futurekind — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:56:07 GMT

6x04 The Doctor's Wife

Well now. Second in the series of Episodes of Last Month, The Doctor’s Wife. A very fun episode written by Tim Burton. Or Neil Gaiman? One of them. Wait, let’s see, there WAS Helena Bonham Carter. But no Johnny Depp. So I think it was Gaiman.

Maggots.

Where are the maggots?

Eh, the Tim Burton joke looked funny in my head. Anyway, what we have here, is a thoroughly fantastic concept. The TARDIS talking. We’ve been watching the adventures of the man and the box for almost fifty years and now we finally get to hear the box’s take on them. Neil Gaiman practically redefined the relationship of Doctor and TARDIS.
First, he made her a she. I mean, she’s always been a she. Or something. But mostly she was an it. She definitely started out as an it, and her itness was still lingering about, despite all the redesigning of her as a living thing and the Doctor basically treating her as a living person. And now we’ve actually heard her talk and know she’s not only sentient, not even only knowing what’s going on around her, but has been an active protagonist all along. And she looks sorta like Helena Bonham Carter.
The thing is, her style was in fact very appropriate. Her gothic outfit seemed to match the Doctor’s vintage tweeds in outlandishness. And the TARDIS trying to focus on one moment in the space-time continuum was not only clever but absolutely hilarious. And somewhat spoilery, of course.
And even without maggots, it was obviously a Neil Gaiman production, just by looking at the sets. The junkyard. In 1963 we first met the TARDIS in a junkyard. In 2011 we first heard the TARDIS speak in another. But this junkyard is a lot more bizarre. A junkyard outside the universe, in the middle of nothing, a junkyard that turns out to be a cemetery of TARDISes. And there’s Uncle, Aunt and Nephew. This episode being centred on the TARDIS talking, I think we’d even have accepted a couple of guinea pigs or a folding chair as side characters, but instead, we got some quite intriguing ones.
First of all, Nephew. An Ood. An actual Ood. An Ood with green eyes! OK, it was probably the House’s mind control or whatever, but Ood look awesome with green eyes. Worse than red, that eerie green glow. I wonder whether he was there because Gaiman loved the Ood or this is supposed to be part of some grand design?
Next up, Aunt and Uncle. I thought they were brilliant. Yes, they were a couple of Igors, but they were very amusing Igors.
This crazy little team, the green-eyed Ood, the Igors and the goth girl in the junkyard in the middle of nothing all made the episode’s atmosphere feel a lot more fantasy than shiny sci-fi. Eldritch fantasy, if you catch my drift. Something ancient, dangerous and bodiless is hunting for TARDISes and has been for millenia, perhaps eons. Sure, a talking asteroid. Have you seen it? We’ve seen an ominous green glow and heard a voice speaking through others. We’ve seen its manservant being an Ood, a creature that debuted as the servant of another ancient threat, the Devil itself. We’re getting glimpses of Time Lords, the Big Damn Ancient Wise-men, being lured there by the House and killed and chopped up and distributed to the Igors.

And he steals the TARDIS.

Which is another major thing in the history of Doctor Who. The TARDIS is the safe point. The haven. The shelter. The universal police box symbolising order. And the ordinary. Actors change, sets change, companions change, but the TARDIS is constant. Fifty years ago the TARDIS was a safe point in any strange and scary story because it was a police box, now it’s because it’s the TARDIS. Moffat makes ordinary objects seem scary and extraordinary. Gaiman makes the most ordinary and safe thing in the history of Doctor Who scary and perilous. Here’s someone who knows what makes Doctor Who tick.

I’m afraid I’m done with Acting As If I Knew What’s Going on in Doctor Who, so here’s the trivia part.

Neil Gaiman is a fangirl. Proven. Such a fangirl. He’s just canonised Doctor/TARDIS. Next time I see a fanfiction with the Doctor having sex with the TARDIS, I can say, ‘Thank you, Neil.’ Not like fangirls hadn’t written such fanfictions before, but it’s nice to have a scapegoat.
In case you’re not quite convinced he’s a fangirl: the pretty one?

Talking about the companions. Nice chase scene. The pointlessness made it remarkable. For fun, sir. Though there was this one thing... no, not Rory not dying again, I’ve already presented my views on the issue in my last scribble, but the mind tricks. OK, well, it is about Rory dying in a way. You know, all along, Rory keeps telling the House is messing with their heads, but in fact, we don’t see him messing with Rory’s head much, do we? It’s all about Amy. Amy’s the one who gets to see Rory going insane and dying, the corridors go dark for Amy, Amy is being tricked into following a voice that’s not Rory’s. And something else I appear to have forgotten. We don’t see the House messing with Rory. Except for the first waiting-for-Amy-for-hours instance, but even that turns out to be part of messing with Amy. I found it intriguing.

And now the really small trivia:

Pull to open. Thank you.

Bunk beds are cool. I’m telling you, the Doctor is SO eleven (years old.) Though Eleven-Year-Old Me would like to insert that bunk beds are only cool when you get the top bed and anyone who disagrees has surely never been on school trips. And if the Doctor is eleven then he knows this as well and the bunk beds in the TARDIS are obviously inter-dimensional bunk beds with a second top bed in the place of the bottom one. Just so you know.

The old console room. Was it the secondary console? It was flabbergasting, anyway.

And now for Big Damn Spoiler Time.
The only water in the forest is the river.
D’you know, that’s one of the Dream Lord Teasers! Which is weird, because knowing Gaiman I’d honestly been expecting the Biblical ones. River Song, I presume. Still, what the fuck.

My apologies for being even more disorganised and incoherent than usually. I’m awfully tired and I’ve got a headache. It’s only lucky I’m weeks late and there’s virtually no chance of anyone else reading this.* Cheers and apologies for the incoherence, Future Me! You lucky bastard, you live in the future. Though I guess it’s not much different from the present. But perhaps it holds ice-cream or whatever. Shame you can’t write back, really. Kinda sad.

*Not to mention me being able to come back here and patch up mistakes and omissions and whatnots any time. Just like the piratey one. Four edits. I could get used to this.

Well, well, one (two-parter) left and I’m back on track with the mid-series finale.

Toby! Rory! TARDIS!

futurekind — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:34:09 GMT

6x03 The Curse of the Black Spot

Hullo and welcome to my very, very, very late review of The Pirate Episode, the first in the series of Stuff That’s Happened Ages Ago on Doctoroo But Then I Was Busy. So I might as well advise passers-by to skip this. Unless you are, for some mysterious reason, very interested in my opinion.
Right ho, where shall I start? ~~Doctor Who is a splendid little television series that’s been on the air since 1963.~~

The episode opens with a nice and spooky premise: we’re looking at a pirate ship floating on the middle of the ocean, but it’s not an ordinary pirate ship. Of course, I don’t claim to be an expert on pirates, neither real ones, nor pop culture Yo Ho Ho ones, but when people talk about pirate symbols it’s generally Jolly Rogers and stuff, not pentagrams. Add to that a dark and silent night, the suspense, aaaaand, Duh Duh Duum, the Siren.

The Siren! She is brilliant. She looked like a doll or a cartoon character, rather than an actual person, it was so weird to see her talking in DWC. Even though she’s supposed to look human or something. Though now that I think about it her angry face does remind me of my mother.

But then, as usual, our so-called heroes appear to make this mess even messier, if possible. And are immediately made to walk the plank, because no pirate story would be a pirate story without walking the plank. And this is where I take a deep breath and don’t start being nasty. Because, thanks to the fact that I’m writing this review late, I’ve had the opportunity to check out some of the fan reactions and oh dear. People seem to think Pirates of the Caribbean invented pirates. While in fact Pirates of the Caribbean does exactly the same thing Doctor Who does here, it takes centuries’ worth of pirate clichés and spoofs them.

Another thing that they fail to understand is that Pirates of the Caribbean, whether they like it or not, has become an important milestone in the history of pirate fiction. Imagine it like this: there’s a Big Book of Pirate Tropes, which the PotC people read before writing the film, but as they did so they became part of the book and now there’s a Big Book of Pirate Tropes 2010 Edition with an additional chapter on PotC, which the Doctor Who people used. It's like the Neverending Story, yay!

And the third thing they seem to ignore is that Doctor Who is in fact built on clichés. Clichés, stereotypes, spoofs, tropes, archetypes, nasty jokes, all that. They’re the core of Doctor Who, and have been right from the start. They’ve been doing this since nineteen-sixty-bloody-three, and after all those years, someone still pops up after every episode and accuses Doctor Who of ripping of X-files or Indiana Jones or PotC or exhibiting American stereotypes or whatever. Yes, thank you, spot on, that’s what Doctor Who does. You’re accusing them with something they openly admit, the actual element that keeps the series going. Didn't the title give them a hint as to what to expect?

So’s, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s get back to walking the plank. I know, I know, walking the plank is like theatre, you’ve got to do it slowly to let everyone properly enjoy it. You don’t wanna hurry it at all, ‘cos then the lass you’ve just left alone in a room full of weapons don't have the time not only to grab a cutlass but to dress up for the occasion, too. Nevertheless, Amy the Pirate Queen rocks so hard I wouldn’t care if they’d needed a plothole big enough to swallow the ship in order to fit her into the episode.

Did you know it’s a real life ship, by the way? When I first watched the episode I thought it was just a studio set and the exterior shots were made with a tiny model ship and a cart-load of CGI. BBC folks never fail to surprise me.

Wandered off the track again, I’m afraid, but back to the plot. Rory’s marked for death... again. You know, I never know. On the one hand there are the theories how Rory dying all the time is supposed to be some giant clue and he’ll turn out to be a dream / a Time Lord / a cat. But then it’s also sort of a running gag now. If I were a bookmaker, I’d take bets on Rory dying in every episode. Which minute will mark Rory’s inevitable demise? And on the third hand, and this is the bad hand, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. If I were a Very Very Evil Moff, I’d lull viewers into a false sense of security and then SWISH kill off Rory for good. Just sayin’.

Anyway. Things are happening here, Captain Obvious (This is a mutiny!) is getting reunited with his son. Though I’m not sure how he's able to recognise him, to be honest, he hasn’t seen him for three years. What was he then, five? And he thinks they’re navy officers even after he’s met the crew. I mean, if navy officers were like that, God save the King (they were pretty much like that.) And a mutiny! Every man for himself! Sweet. You know this is the charm of this episode, the glimpse of reality, the kid thinking they’re navy and there being no honour amongst pirates. If you scrape off all those sparkly pirate clichés they’re not entirely those romantic pirates who appear to be rebellious and wicked but are loyal and true men who have standards, and occasionally clash with dashing navy officers in fancy uniforms.

And now the Doctor’s taking the wheel. And he breaks all the windows and mirrors because it’s a well-known fact that tiny bits of broken glass aren’t reflective. Cor, you’ve got to admit it was funny when he kept competing with Captain Obvious and was at pains to prove his superiority. And that effortless, ‘Oh, this be a ship like any other.’

Although this eventually led to the crazy ending. Explain me this: How did the two universes collide? Was that other universe Space Narnia?
It’s a nice and shiny spaceship, and thank gods it’s so easy to control even a 17th century man can do it. Too bad its digital doctor is RUBBISH. Star Trek Voyager would’ve had a very short run if the hologram doctor had put the crew members in stasis one by one instead of healing them. Heaven’s sake, she can’t even treat a paper cut, literally. But she burns your face off if you catch a cold. Is this where the health care industry’s heading to?

Apparently. Apparently NHS nurses are rubbish even now. Rory doesn’t seem to know resuscitation is a two-man job. I’m not a nurse but I've had a first-aid training and one of the things I was taught there was that one person does the kissing and another breaks your ribcage. Sure, I’m gonna shred a tear for all the heart-breaking drama going on, but Mr Concerned Cheerleader in the background could’ve stood up to his name and given a hand. And wasting precious seconds by picking him up and dragging him in the TARDIS seemed a tad unnecessary, but heck. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. We’re getting one step closer to the climax and the Space Pirates (zomg, etc.) sail away towards the Sirius, probably straight to the Complaints Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to get a refund for that rubbish Siren-Doctor. They won't get one.

The Curious Case of Nick's Biscuits

futurekind — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:19:45 GMT

Once upon a time, I bought a Dalek Cookie Kit. I still had the cookie cutter, and I thought, why not make Dalek-shaped gingerbread?
OK, kids, this is where it gets complicated: I had never made gingerbread before. And, as I soon realised, gingerbread is evil.

Gingerbread is a bitch. A nasty, sticky bitch. I had my trusty Dalek cookie cutter at hand but, alas, I ended up toiling away with a knife. This was when I found out about a very important aspect of gingerbread: it's got personality. Who do you think you are, trying so scrupulously to shape it? Even when I succeeded in making a piece look more or less like I wanted, it got puffed up and deformed in the oven just to show me.
Oh and the crowning moment of misery? My apparent inability of drawing with frosting.

By the time I finished carving the dozenth or so Dalek figure, I hated Daleks with the fire of a thousand suns, a million supernovae, the burning hells and the complete history of forest fires. I thought I could do with a nice and straight oblong shape. So I made TARDIS's. One thing I forgot: I didn't have a TARDIS cookie cutter for measurements. And don't even get me started on trying to write 'police box' on them with frosting.

Eventually, I got sick of Doctor Who in general. So what shall I make now? Something cool but easy-to-carve. So in the end...

Yes. The simplest thing I could think of was Jörmungandr, the World Serpent. I thought, heck, the snake-biting-its-own-tail thing is awesome and it's recently been on Doctor Who, so I'm still slightly on-topic, only more epic. After all, it's just a ring, how exactly would a ring be a complicated shape? Bollocks. Ten points to the person who finds its head.

Mother (my unwilling helper) wanted to make a Jörmungandr of her own. Unfortunately, she didn't really grasp the one important thing about it. Or perhaps she wants the world to end.

After that single attempt of cutting a ring in that sticky, evil material commonly called gingerbread, I had enough. Really enough. I am making simple shapes from now on. Something as simple as...

The Discworld. Indeed, that thing is supposed to be the Discworld. Because truly the simplest shape one can think of is that of four elephants standing on a turtle, with a world resting on their backs. In my defence, the elephants looked a lot more like elephants before their trip to the oven. Another ten points go to the person who is able to locate the Great A'Tuin's head.

OK. So far: I've tried Daleks, they were rubbish. TARDIS's? Equally as rubbish. World Serpent? Can't wait for Ragnarök, you bastard. The Discworld? Ye gods, what was I thinking?
Anyway, I still had some evil, evil gingerbread left. And I thought, hey, the Great A'Tuin wasn't so bad. For one, I didn't need the knife.

Therefore, I decided to dedicate the rest of the evil gingerbread of evil to the Great God Om and make small turtles. There's a good eating on one of those.
Yes, those are turtles. STFU.

The End

Writer's Block: Tobacco road

futurekind — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:36:06 GMT

Are you ready to abandon your car (or bus pass) and civilisation and move into a comfy cave? Nope? Then you've got no right to criticise smokers.
That's why.

futurekind — Sat, 07 May 2011 21:32:48 GMT

No, I haven't seen tonight's episode yet on account of just having arrived home from the theatre, but Holy Llama of Luanda, according to doctoreleven Arthur Darvill is to play Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus. Rory the demon from the burning hells. Discuss. No bloody way he can pull that off.
And it's gonna be on stage in September. And I'm planning to be in London in September. Which means I either won't get a ticket or get to London at all.

Writer's Block: Portal 17

futurekind — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:20:15 GMT

Of course they will. We will still be waiting for Diablo III. ^^

(Joking. We will be waiting for Diablo IV. Scheduled to come out in the 25th century.)

Love a tomb.

futurekind — Sun, 01 May 2011 17:03:21 GMT

6x02 Day of the Moon
Now with extra coherence! (i.e. I was taking notes.)

Excuse my French, but my one-word summary for yesterday's episode is: MINDFUCK. A big damn 45-minute-long mind-boggling mindfuck. Instead of getting answers, we got even more questions. What are the Silence planning? Why Amy? And why the day of Amy's wedding? Why did they bugger her at the end? What's with the photo? And the little girl? Who is she? Why were the Silence protecting her? What for? How is she able to regenerate? Is she a Time Lady? Why would the Silence want to destroy the whole of reality? Or is that the key to their arrival in the universe? The mysterious bodiless voice in the TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens was a Silence, apparently (though I still think it sounds totally like the Moff and he'll turn out to have been the villain all along.) A Silence (or Silent? Bugger, I'll just call them Silence and I don't care,) crept on board of the TARDIS and made it travel to 27/06/10 and explode. But why? What's the importance of the space suit? What the hell was going on with the crazy dream lady? This can't be a dream, can it? Who is River Song? Whose side is she on? And who is the Spaceman? Why would it want to kill the Doctor? It could be anyone now. Even River. Last series we thought she was gonna kill the Doctor, didn't we? And she seems to know a lot more about these events than what she admits. She knew the Spaceman can't be shot. And when the Doctor poses the question what the hell were the Silence doing with the little girl she said something like, 'They're protecting her. Giving her independence, even.' What? And she remembered the Doctor when everybody else has forgotten him. And another thing. Someone asked Moffat on twitter why doesn't River remember Rory in The Big Bang when she's already met him in The Impossible Astronaut and Moffat said... that River was lying about not knowing Rory. On what purpose?
Anyway, one thing we know: she's a drama queen for sure. When she's got a party dress on, dead ends are things that happen to other people.

Well, having done away with the mind-gnawing questions, let's see the episode itself. It was pretty. Absolutely pretty. The visuals were brilliant. When Amy was running through the desert in the very first scene and 'Valley of the Gods' was written on the screen, I was confused at first. I intended to blog about not understanding why anyone would call a piece of desert wasteland the Valley of Gods, but, you know, after looking at the scene some more and watching the desert tour in the Confidential... I think I get it. It's huge. I suppose my whole country could fit in that desert. And the hills in the background look fantastic. And the dark clouds above the hills. One can totally imagine it filled with gods and stuff.

And the orphanage! The orphanage was great. The one thing I really, really, absolutely adore in this episode is the use of American TV tropes. In the first episode, we got the crazy-looking secretary, the trigger-happy 'Yes Sir, Sir' security guards and the diner in the middle of nowhere with the Coca Cola bottles. Here, let me see. First, the blacksuits with sunglasses chasing Amy, a small group of Agent Smiths. Then the Shot of Engraved Gates with a Car Parking in front of a Scary House in the Background in a Dark and Stormy Night. Mulder and Scully brandishing an FBI badge and going in to explore dark rooms, only illuminated by their torches. (Even the music reminded me of The X-files!) Lamps flickering in the storm. Lightnings flashing. The cliché staircase. Scully and Mulder get separated. Oh, and Indiana Song. 'I love a tomb.'
Another interesting thing is where the bloody hell did the Americans get those timey-wimey bricks? The good old Aliens Land All the Time but the Government Hushes It Up and Area 51 is Full of Alien Artefacts urban legend? There were blacksuits after all.
Oh and the 'Just a healthy American, sir.' That one was so good I cringed.

By the way, as long as I'm on the subject of archaeology. MORE ÜBER-RORY FOR THE MASSES! Oh, yeah, Fall of the Roman Empire, I was there. Rory, Rory, you have no idea how much I hated you when you uttered that sentence. Living through two thousand years of human history. That is so bloody fantastic. I would trade lives with him any time. I'm Über-Rory, I point and laugh at archaeologists.

The orphanage was nice and creepy. I loved the writings on the wall and the head of the institution being completely under the control of the Silence. I loved the way he talked. One moment about the children being asleep and it being 1967, and the other about the Silence making him stay and care for the child.
It's creepy enough to think of a child living there, in that desolate place, full of monsters, all alone. And what the hell was she doing there, anyways? Who was she? Where did the Silence find - eh, but I've already done the question round. Let me just say people on the ground floor must've heard my jaw hit the floor when she started regenerating. By the way, she was absolutely cute in that scene.

One thing we now know: anyone could've shot the Doctor. The little girl's free of the space suit and I doubt she would be eager to get back in. Also, no matter how many of the Silence do humans kill in the next forty years, they're still around in 2011 and have a crucial part in the Doctor's death - something none of the protagonists know, as Amy's forgotten about seeing the Silence on the beach.
They're also around in England. The Lodger. That was one of the Silence's spaceship of course. And it left... to where exactly? Back to some obscure Planet of the Silence? Bringing reinforcements? Maybe the reinforcements have arrived in the meantime? On 26 June? OK, I'll stop it.

But here's the other crazy thing about the orphanage: the dream lady. Watching through the hatch that's never been there, telling, 'I think she's dreaming again.' Who's dreaming? Amy? Is this all a dream? Some of it? That must be something very essential to understanding what the hell is going on here.

Next. The monsters. The Silence are still great. Monsters you forget about. Hiding in the corner of humanity's eye for millennia. But why on earth? They're not really controlling them, only if they need something done. Like a space suit. Oh dear. They've got a TARDIS-like spaceship but they need to infiltrate NASA to get a space suit. Though I'm pretty sure they've got that spaceship made for them, too. Why on earth did they need a self-repairing space suit?
Also, you are a monster, Mr Moffat. Be aware of children in masks. The clock's broke, what's ticking? Statues? They move around when you don't look at them. Of course they're evil! Count the shadows. They eat people. There are monsters under your bed. The crack in your bedroom wall is about to erase you from existence. Oh and everything else? Creaky floorboards, strange noises in the 2AM silence? Monsters. Definitely. Oh and if you close your eyes or duck behind the sofa they don't go away, no, they'll stay but you'll forget about them. Blink and you're dead.
But the Silence danced! Just like the Angels! It was hilarious.
Silence will fall. Where have they fallen from? What is it that Prisoner Zero and the fish people knew about them?
Rule the world, eh? Only if you take it out of my cold, dead hands, I call dibs on this world. Oh but would you mind stopping for a tea and chat about your evil plans? We won't remember you, anyway. We swear it's not a trap!

The counting. Now there was something weird. Yep, they were counting the Silence. Nice. I pretty much guessed that's what the tally marks are for, very logical, I would be doing the same. But. Why would they mark their own faces? The point in the marks is that after you turn away, you see the marks and realise there are Silence around. But you can't see your own face. Why in the name of sanity would you leave signs for yourself somewhere you can't see?

The red lights were pretty cool, too. Anyone else thought they were a reference to Logan's Run?
Also, cough, cough, Silence in the Library.

Oh and back to Area 51 for a moment: the Doctor in a straitjacket! You saw that coming, didn't you, Matt? I'm sure this was the secret dream of the production staff. This way he can't break stuff. How come they released him?
Honestly, when Rory broke the model I thought it should've been the Doctor. By the way, Rory looked like an idiot in that scene. More than usually. It was hilarious. Were those Arthur's own glasses? In that case, double-funny.
And the beard. The beard. Step aside, Patrick Troughton, we've got a new cosmic hobo.
Along with the Perfect Prison, which has the lock mechanism on the inside. Has it been designed by Lord Vetinari? (considering the Oblong Office reference in the previous episode... probably.)
In other news, sod David Copperfield, no one beats the Magician Canton, pulling President Nixon out of his hat.
Nixon was hilarious. Nixon's Secret British Agents. You know, I never thought I would say this, but I felt sorry for him at the end. When he asks the Doctor how good a president he will be and the Doctor says people will never forget him and he looked so hopeful. Cut to Evil Nixon's Head in Futurama.

Oh and I know it's wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and everything, but this is the second time they're doing the Machine That Could Detect Important Amy-Related Spoiler Goes Wrong thing. In The Beast Below, the voting machine spit out a "marital status: unknown", and now it's the same with her pregnancy.

Well, that's about this week's Drooling Over Doctor Who. See you next week. And for those few miserable souls who got all the way to the end of this review, let's hear ~~Badger's~~ Mark Sheppard's thoughts on the difference between British and American television:

'Tea. The great thing about British production is tea. Can't get tea on any sets in America.'

futurekind — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:26:20 GMT

The Thanksgiving one is so next episode.