#space ghosts seems like the plot of a doctor who episode. it probably is actually...

[vilelittlecritter]

Man wouldn't it be fucked up if there are ghosts in space.

Wouldn't be even more fucked up if there are like sentient planet ghosts.

Wouldn't be even more fucked up if there was a sentient nebula ghost...

#yes this about that fucking Halloween space mountain thing #the idea of there being a giant ass ghost nebula that is actively malicious and looks like fuckinh gigyas is fucking horrifying #like whoever came up with that idea i love you but please go fuck yourself #i hate the existential terror of both ghosts and space. DO NOT. COMBINE THEM. #space ghosts seems like the plot of a doctor who episode. it probably is actually... #my memory isnt great so i cant remember if there is one #random rambles

[tragicbeancounter]

Ok so I've not really watched doctor who since mid way through the Matt Smith arch but I usually drop in for the regeneration episodes and I really have to know ... What the fuck? Like what have I missed? I can only pray to the Gods that there is some context from earlier in the series that I've missed because otherwise my only explanation is that the writers are on The Bad Drugs.

So without further delay, my here's my out of context recap of the The Power of the Doctor (spoilers):

There is a Rick and Morty style space train (this does not come back)

Cybermen can regenerate now which is cool as fuck

Cybermen have weird hats now which is not cool as fuck

Child slavery is also not cool. Who is this child, where did they come from, why are they cargo

"I'm the doctor I'll protect you" lol woops there you go

Omg a bunch of seismologists are going missing

Yes but also sometimes all the paintings aren't up in this gallery and there's no explanation "they're gone for scheduled maintenance" no explanation

Yes my missing people and your missing paintings are mystery's of equal value and also definitely linked

Oh yeah old DW actor cameos, like a lot

Why do the daleks have so much emotion in their voices now

The Cybermen too actually

"do you like my seismologist collection"

GCSE level volcano diagram

Unexpected and unexplained rasputin

Did they ever explain why Rasputin was in any way relevant? Did I skip that?

Russian doll cybermen which actually slaps if you ignore all the dialogue and explanation for it

Baldrick the cyberman

Disappointed in the lack of "exterminate" and "you will be upgraded"

The paintings have faces?? Why?? This was not explained??

Oh shit yeah there's like a whole extra planet in space thats also the deathstar, and also metal, and also powered by the child, and also the jokers tardis is there

But the child is actually sentient energy that's actually a laser space squid

Knock off Jack Harkness

Actually I take that back he was probably my favourite character this episode

The doctor is an unhelpful cybernetic ghost hologram

FORCED REGENERATION (I think you mean death)

No apparently it means you can possess another timelords body

What were those two fighting planets?? Why did he take time out of his busy schedule to say "mwahaha I'm the doctor and I did this"

Oh wait I forgot about the whole daleks drilling into the earth's core thing

I'm sure that was plot relevent but I'm still reeling over "do you like my seismologist collection"

The doctor is in limbo aka more doctor cameos

Oh yeah there was a dance break because the master is Rasputin again?

Seriously did I miss something earlier in the series? Why is he Rasputin?

I'm loving this guys acting but my god does it make so little sense in the context of the scenes he's in

Daleks exploding in a volcano is the cinematic masterpiece I didn't know I needed

This master is exuding extreme Sub energy

New Captain Jack is bae

They re-regenerate the doctor

Space squid goes wild

The doctor doesn't seem to really die but also regenerates?

The support group was actually really sad for me. Like can the doctor not just visit. They have access to an actual time machine it's not like they can't make time in their schedule

I'm actually not entirely sure what the doctor did to help anybody this episode

Was there a moral here I missed

In conclusion I don't know what happened but this was one of the most accidentally funny things I've ever seen and it keeps me up at night. By all accounts its a masterclass in bad writing but I'm not even sure I can bring myself to hate it. Would I watch it again, no. Do I wish I hadn't seen it, absolutely not.

Everyone should watch this so we can suffer together

#doctor who #the power of the doctor #daleks #cybermen #rasputin #yes #the lover of the russian queen #so many call backs #hot jack harkness 2.0 #space squid sentient alient child #why do the daleks and cybermen have no much emotion in their voices now #seismologists

[codenamesailordarillium]

The silliness of destroying the Dalek's casing with the microwave parts is pretty on brand for this show and I appreciate it for that reason, and also Ryan's dad jumping into action to suggest it in the first place.

And okay. I will admit, the stupid murder squid possessing Ryan's dad & Ryan having to save him got me teary-eyed. I've reached that point of adulthood where I get emotional over imperfect parents who try making it up to their adult children who realize they never stop needing or wanting them, even despite all the prior disappointment.

I feel like I've got a few apparently several things I want to say about s11 as a whole that I think I'm just gonna tack onto this post ..

So, I made the decision out of nowhere sometime during the past week to start catching up on all the eps I've been putting off from Jodie's era. Might be a misguided attempt to get up to speed for the 60th, but I've honestly done pretty decent enough. Thus far, I've basically finished off all the eps before we get to parts that I know are gonna piss me off. I think if there was any season/series of DW with Jodie that I was ever gonna have the potential to love, it would need to be this one.

I didn't really tho .. love it, that is. Like, I liked it just fine. Overall, I can say it was okay. Not bad by any means, but not giving me the same blood-pumping excitement I used to get from watching DW. I'm not tryna knock on it for no reason, it just didn't quite hit the spot for me like I really hoped it might. There's no one particular reason that I can zero in on as to why.

I feel like I do see some of the criticisms people were making back when it first aired. Namely character-wise. I guess the overarching arc of both the season and the New Year's special was the family conflict between Graham & Ryan along with the grief of Grace's death hanging over them. I really liked certain parts of it, like Grace's 'ghost' haunting Graham in the giant spider episode? I believe? But yeah, that. I kinda wish there'd been more of that during the season, I thought it was gonna connect to the fake mirror!Grace from the frog episode, but I guess not.

But obviously, given that there's so much of a focus on that particular family dynamic, it unfortunately leaves Yaz kinda getting the shaft. Yeah she gets her own whole episode to explore her own background, but the impact it has kind of seems to be contained to that one ep. There honestly could've been some potential for the Doctor to get caught for timey wimey shenanigans happening to her companion's family there. I really thought Umbreen was gonna have a moment to reveal to Yaz that she recognized her as being the same "long lost relative" that showed up on the day of her (first) wedding. We see the rest of her immediate family the next episode, and Yaz's mother is brought along for part of the adventure, so the way they might've reacted to it could've been a fun & interesting thing to get into.

(Also, just for the record, Demons of the Punjab was probably my fave ep of the season and Umbreen Yaz's nani actually means a lot to me; closely followed by Rosa.)

Maybe that's where s11 falls a little short for me. The fact that there are these plot threads just sort of built in but don't seem to get expanded upon. And I could be wrong, maybe some of it does in fact come up in s12 or 13/Flux. And of course, because I am myself, I can't help but see all the places in the story where there was a prominent space-haired shaped hole and how fun that could've been.

I don't really want to delve into it until later whenever I start watching s13/Flux, but the whole exploration of 13 having a potential queer relationship is um, certainly not really given any sort of room to grow in this season, or like exist at all tbh. I obviously refer to the absence of the wife she's literally already gay married to and would have been ready to go, but I'll also briefly touch on my thoughts regarding, well, y'know, the ship that's most popular for 13's era.

People are allowed to ship whatever they want regardless of reason, but nothing about the dynamic in s11 really spoke to me as being particularly indicative of romantic feelings on either side of the equation. And while that's what I'd prefer to an extent, I do think it bears some consideration why the first female iteration of the Doctor is no longer being lusted after by people occasionally, especially the girlies, and that there don't seem to be any/as many instances of kisses or the like that they would receive plenty of back when they presented as a man. Characters falling in love with the Doctor & expressing their attraction has been a staple of the show, technically even since Classic Who when 1 drank hot cocoa & accidentally got engaged. (Even Basil got snogged, if aggressively, by Missy, then proceeded to, much more gently, return the favor. And gazed witheringly at River's lips - yes, it still counts fight me.)

I guess since we are sort of skirting some of the nuances and issues of gender that 13's regeneration brought along, you could say they might've been concerned about depicting what potentially looked like harassment or assault of a female character. Which, I get, but there are ways of doing it without going that far. I'm also aware that people might not have trusted Chibby to be able to depict that well & thus prefer that he kinda just ignored it entirely. At this point, it is what it is, Jodie's no longer the Doctor, so the best I can hope for anyway is her getting to snog her wife in extended universe materials.

I think that's about it for my thoughts on s11. I'mma really have to gird my loins for s12 and the potential (proverbial?) headaches it's gonna cause me. That being said, I still want to see it for myself, if nothing else than to formulate all the ways I'll have to headcanon myself to death to reconcile with the parts of the story I still might vibe with a little.

#zima watches dw

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 29: 3x09 The Tholian Web

Today’s episode, The Tholian Web, was completely new to me and I came in with no expectations at all. I wasn’t sure about it at first but ultimately I really liked it!

In uncharted territory looking for lost ship the Defiant. Space appears to be breaking up. Idk but for some reason this sounds very familiar.

Like truly I don’t know what this is reminding me of but hasn’t space broken up before?

And now there’s a mysterious object! Nothing is going Kirk’s way today at all.

“Fascinating.” / “Explain.” Truly the root of this relationship.

It’s the Defiant! Looking ghostly.

Uhura’s on the case already. You don’t need to tell her how to do her job.

Scotty and Sulu looking badass together.

Conveniently, it’s another constitution class, allowing all the sets to be reused. (Though also I do think it makes sense only a large ship like that would be in uncharted space.)

Look at them in those suits. They look like they’re going to the grocery store in May 2020.

How do they know this isn’t an illusion? Because “we can see it, but the sensors don’t pick up anything” screams “illusion” to me. I wouldn’t want to beam into open space!

The triumvirate + Chekov, fourth wheeling again. (My mom suggested he’d be incapacitated soon, which is fair--he IS the red shirt in this scenario.)

All of this is feeling very familiar--missing ship, unusual space phenomenon, people going mad--but I'm not sure if it's repetitive or classic.

NO mutiny ever? That seem unlikely. Also didn’t Spock literally commit mutiny? Chekov would appreciate knowing this.

Kirk manages to look intense even through the space suit.

I find it really weird he doesn’t know the captain of this ship. Like, first off, he knows everyone, and second, there only about 12-14 constitution class vessel Captains so I really do think they know each other.

“Spock, stay with me.” Don’t have to tell him twice.

Lol the ship looks so silly just...drifting away. Adorable, but silly.

Seeing an Asian man in sick bay reminds me how few Asian people there are in Starfleet. Like... 1.

“What the devil?” That’s a Southern man there.

Is the ship actually dissolving or is it an ILLUSION? (It’s actually dissolving.)

Uh, the transporter’s not working? That’s not good.

I love how Scotty hears that and immediately abandons the bridge, like there is NO other man for the job.

O’Neil’s face when Kirk asks to be beamed aboard is hilarious. Human embodiment of the :O emoticon.

“You too, Spock.” He delays ordering Spock back to the ship because he KNOWS Spock’s going to argue.

“Completing the data set” yeah okay. He just doesn’t want to leave Jim alone. Especially in the extremely suspicious circumstances of there being 4 people and 3 transporter spots.

He’s vanished!

Spock is NOT having this.

The fabric of space is very weak here. Sounds legit. And there are many alternate dimensions that are very close at hand. So in other words... Kirk is literally stuck in an AU right now.

This is sorta like The Alternative Factor but way better.

You know it’s serious when they break out the fish eye lens.

When Bones rushed in, I was expecting him to sedate Chekov but Spock has it covered.

I feel like Spock is extremely concerned for Chekov here. Like it’s subtle, but just the attention he’s paying to him. And Sulu is obviously very concerned too.

His “environmental unit” only has so much oxygen. What a great name for a fancy spacesuit.

Spock will not believe Jim is dead!! Never. (This is the plot of the whole episode in 8 words essentially.)

That’s an alien!

“According to the Federation, this area is free space.” ...Okay, that sounds a little colonialist. In his defense, he doesn’t press the point. He basically says, kay, we’ll go as soon as we’re finished rescuing.

And I appreciate the Tholian’s respect for that even though surely he must feel gaslit by Spock--rescuing WHO there are NO other ships??

Also I like the look of the alien.

Nifty lab equipment there.

MCCOY FIGHT SCENE.

Wow that orderly was easily disabled lol. I guess Chapel hypoed him but it really looked like she just tapped his shoulder and he fell.

Hmm, there are still 30 minutes left so something tells me this Kirk rescue mission won’t work.

Captain Kirk is not in his designated area. I repeat Captain Kirk has wandered away from his designated area.

The space was disturbed by the Tholians. I guess they weren’t factored into the delicate calculations.

Something about this exchange really screams Southerner meets Alien. Like more than most McCoy and Spock exchanges.

You can tell Spock is thinking about this whole "nothing’s being transmitted, it’s just the nature of space; everyone's already sick" thing but also not caring because CAPTAIN KIRK.

Now they’re being fired upon! A lot is happening here.

“Renowned Tholian punctuality” lol. Always a sense of humor on this one.

Spock’s face when Sulu questioned his order was 100% “Did I stutter?”

“I know you don’t like to use the phasers.” Because he’s a pacifist.

Well he changed his mind on those phasers fast enough.

“You’ve lost Jim.” UM no I think NOT.

Everything happens so much.

“That is the mark of a starship Captain like Jim.” I mean Spock is no Jim but there’s no need to be rude about it

“Doctor, go to your room and do your homework.”

Aw, the ships are kissing.

Now they look like little weaving shuttles. Adorable.

Hmm, it IS a web. Appropriately named episode.

“We shall not see home again.” Lol Spock way to be the Most Dramatique as always.

Tholian web screensaver Windows 98.

No, not a funeral!!

“This service requires my attention, Mr. Spock.” Crying emoji.

(I’m with Spock in almost everything in this ep but come on, you can’t ban McCoy from Kirk’s funeral, that’s just rude.)

This seems more like an assembly than a funeral tbh.

[agonizing scream] is also how I feel about Kirk “dying” and that’s why Generations isn’t real.

AOS Kirk would 100% approve of a brawl at his funeral.

Sulu and Uhura <3

“Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.” Spock definitely will.

Wait, that was it? The whole eulogy? Both Kirk and Spock really suck at eulogizing the other.

McCoy probably could have skipped this honestly.

Wait, Kirk left his space husband and his BFF a final in-case-of-death message? Noooooooooooooooo I can’t.

McCoy is so insistent they watch it and Spock is like “nah, that makes it too real, not gonna do it.”

“The Captain’s last order is the top priority.”

Why does everyone always assume Spock wants power? He obviously doesn’t. He could be a Captain if he wanted, probably. He’s early enough in his career where he still has time to become a Captain, too--eventually he does! Most of his career and literally every statement he’s ever made would kinda imply he’s not interested.

Also, if he didn’t care about Jim and he just wanted to take over the Enterprise, he would have left 3 hours ago? Like multiple people were saying he should? Including Bones??

“He was a hero in every sense of the word.” True.

McCoy is being VERY mean today.

And now he’s mad at him again for fighting the Tholians instead of leaving without Jim! Like which is it! What did he do wrong? At least pick a specific thing to criticize lol.

"I need not explain my rationale to you or to any other member of this crew." That’s true but also all I can hear is “I love him. I’m in love with him. I must have him back.”

What is that art work on the wall? That’s new.

I don’t get how Bones isn’t getting this. He KNOWS about the “warm, genuine feeling.”

Vulcans clearly aren’t immune to the...space weirdness. But yes, another pot shot at his alienness is always welcome lol.

“I AM in command of the Enterprise.” You tell him.

Finally, the secret message!

Omg Jim is literally dead and he’s still reassuring Spock. What a good boyfriend. I know this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you got this bb.

Now he’s lecturing them both from beyond the grave and getting everything right and they’re just standing there like chastised schoolboys.

That “take care” was so soft.

“It does hurt, doesn’t it?”

“What would you have me say Doctor?”

Like??? I can’t stand this.

Uhura! At home.

I like that twirly thing they have in their quarters; very efficient use of space and also I want one.

I also love that her chair has crocodile arms.

Kirk shows up in the mirror just to be dramatic and disappear again.

“Of course you saw him. We’d all like to see him.” Lol. Yes, yes, he’s still with us... in our hearts.

If the Tholians complete the web, what will they do with what’s inside? Eat it?"

“Are we any closer to the cure for space weirdness?” / “No. Except also yes.”

Love all the vague science that goes into solving their problem at the last minute but also extremely quickly by any objective standard.

Is Chekov restrained with seat belts?

Whereas Uhura’s just chilling. She knows what she’s about.

Ghost Kirk! Ghost Kirk!

"Do you suppose they're seeing Jim because they've lost confidence i you?" Damn bones, harsh. I thought we were done with this.

Pretty distressing that everything relies SO much on Scotty lol--arguably the MOST critical single member of the crew.

“I’m  sorry.” Glad to hear him say it, finally!

“He would just say ‘Forget it Bones.’“ Adorable.

I feel like everyone’s simultaneously thinking, ‘Okay, we ALL see that, right?”

I am overwhelmed by the longing in that shot of Spock trying to reach Kirk through the dimensions. Like, we’ve established everyone loves him, everyone misses him, everyone wants to see him, but Spock actually approaches him and tries to meet him...

“We were separated. He couldn’t touch me.”

I want to know Scotty’s opinion on Spock’s crazy statue.

So Spock shouldn’t have fired those phasers? Because they... did something... bad to the dimensions? But what other choice did he have, other than to leave without Kirk?

Wasn’t Scotty literally just saying this wasn’t fixable? And now he’s like ‘eh, I can fix it in 20 minutes and get you 80% power’?

The antidote is derived from a nerve gas used by the Klingons...that’s honestly rather hilarious. They’re good for something I guess.

“It simply deadens certain nerve inputs in the brain.” / “Any decent brand of Scotch’ll do that.” Starfleet’s finest lmao.

Lmao Mccoy's no longer drugging the crew he's straight up killing parts of their brains with booze and deadly nerve gas. The man must be stopped.

Noooo don’t give Scotty the whole bottle. We’ve already established the ship doesn’t run without him.

They still gotta get out of the web.

If I shipped McCoy/Spock I would DEFINITELY ship it in that little moment where they look at each other over the glasses.

I have no idea what happened but they seem to be free. Bye Tholians!

Kirk back in the chair where he belongs <3

“No problems worth reporting”--I mean that is technically true, I GUESS.

Kirk is trying to get the gossip.

“Only what one would expect when humans are involved.” / “What humans?” The oxygen hasn’t fully returned to his brain, I see.

Also he is completely lying about understanding McCoy’s explanation.

Sulu and Chekov are having a great time listening in. Collecting future gossip for the cafeteria.

“M-my last orders. That I left for both of you.” He’s adorable.

"The crisis was upon us and then passed so quickly that w-we...." Lol yes the crisis came and then 4 hours later, it was passed! Just like that.

I totally get that Kirk wants them to admit they watched the tape. It was his orders that they watch it first, plus he knows he said helpful stuff and he wanted to be helpful! But I also get why they don’t want to admit they saw it, because it is rather awkward to admit they watched his last words when he’s... not dead.

That was a great ep overall! I really enjoyed it.

My only two complaints are that there wasn’t enough Kirk, and I wasn’t fond of Bones’s characterization. I mean, I get that he was affected by the... space weirdness and maybe his usual prejudices were purposefully exaggerated to show that but it still felt like he was constantly piling up on Spock and in the most unhelpful way. Like, they often disagree, in part because they have different general philosophies, and Bones often misunderstands Spock. But Bones wasn’t really offering anything helpful in terms of command advice, and his criticisms were both repetitive and incoherent. Did he want Spock to leave Jim behind or not? Was firing the phasers bad or necessary? Is Spock doing too much to save Jim or is he just out to get rid of him and take command? And again, he had like 6 moments where he said something cutting and cruel and...one or two of those go a lot farther to show the point. I also just... Bones really, really doesn’t get Spock, and I can see how he’d get meaner given the space aggression. But he’s not cruel. And he and Spock are friends, and he does know that Spock loves Kirk more than anything. So I did not find him IC overall.

But I did really like Spock and his characterization. I could feel all the emotion in him, so pent up and controlled but so present--especially in the moment when he held the tape Kirk made, but in so many other places as well--the “funeral,” the first moment after Kirk failed to materialize, reaching for him on the Bridge...

I also liked this portrayal of Spock in command. He is a good commander and he has obviously grown a lot since the Galileo Seven. But he’s not Jim, and the show is clear about that. Kirk is not replaceable and his job is not easy. I’m not even sure that Kirk would have done much different than Spock--he wouldn’t have left without one of his crew, and that probably would have involved firing on the Tholian ship. But when Spock did it, it really felt like he was overwhelmed, frustrated, and not thinking--he didn’t want to, but then Scotty said he should, and he did. Kirk would have made the decision, not been pressured into it. Would it have mattered? It comes out to the same, but I think it would have been a different scenario. Kirk only ever makes his own decisions--then he can own them, no matter what. That didn’t feel like Spock’s decision, and it affected others’ confidence in him (cough cough McCoy).

I would have to watch again to see if I thought there was any other choice.

This ep made me think of the cave scene in ST09 where Ambassador Spock meets Kirk and thinks he is HIS Kirk, come on purpose to find him. Because obviously Kirk is like that: he comes back from the dead, he finds Spock no matter what, he comforts and reassures and supports him no matter what. He would cross dimensions, he’d travel through time, he’d become No Longer Dead, if that’s what Spock needed.

I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see Kirk’s adventures in the AU lol. I think he was lying about being alone in the other universe. I want to see the fic where he was actually in the AOS verse lol.

Even though there wasn’t enough Kirk in this ep, I appreciated how strong his presence was anyway, seeing everyone love him so much, and seeing just how effective he is as a Captain by comparison with Spock, who is good and who did get them out of the situation, but who lacks that certain... Captain’s quality.

And it outright was a great Spock episode, and a good Spock and McCoy ep except for all of the OOC-ness in McCoy. I’m starting to feel like actually there’s a pretty significant amount of Spock and McCoy stories (this one, The Paradise Syndrome All Our Yesterdays, even Bread and Circuses) and I wish there were more Kirk and Bones stories, too. They are best friends after all!

Next is Plato’s Stepchildren, which is a pretty meh episode, but not awful.

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #2021: fandom thoughts #start trek tos

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Reflecting on Agents of SHIELD

So here we are at the end of 7 years. I have had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the show. There are times when I really haven’t liked the show and there are times when I have loved the show. Unlike many fans in the fandom, I don’t think its a perfect show. It has had more than a few missteps along the way. But it deserves credit on the things it has done right.

I remember the excitement when I hopped on board for season 1. Just coming off Avengers, this was supposed to be the tv spinoff where a whole world of exciting things were supposed to happen, interlinked with the movies. Turns out, it was a huge mistake to market the show like that. Thinking about it know, the potential challenges of that working out were obvious. Movies are written far before tv episodes are so doing that type of synchronization would be extremely difficult even if there weren’t tensions between the tv and movie divisions. In any case, season 1 was a clear case of a show treading water. The first 2/3 of the season was truly dull, barring a few good ones likes F.Z.Z.T. It wasn’t till T.R.A.C.K.S that the show started to find its footing with any sort of quality. The cast also seemed to be getting a handle on things. Clark Gregg smoothly transitioned without a problem as a lead but initially Ward was too blank a slate to really connect to, Skye was really annoying, FitzSimmons were just a bickering couple, and May was just the deadpan badass stereotype. But slowly the actors started to get a handle on things. The first sign of Elizabeth’s talent could be seen in F.Z.Z.T. Ming Na and Brett Dalton started to find more tinges of humanity in their characterizations. Iain really started to open out towards the end of the season and delivered what is still one of the most powerful scenes of the show in his confession to Simmons under water. I will be honest and say that Chloe wasn’t very good initially. It was partly the character and partly that the others seemed significantly better at the dramatic beats. The big Hydra twist gave Brett Dalton a huge boost as a performer. Its as if his handcuffs were taken off and he was suddenly freed and he became the most interesting character on the show for me. The Hydra plot of season 1 may still be the best story arc the show did, rivaled only by the Framework arc. I still don’t know which I rank higher, but that arc was the height of fulfillment that we got from the premise as originally pitched to the fans where the show synchronized with the movie story very well. And it was really the last time it happened. While most of season 1 was unfortunately handicapped, the final arc ended the season on a high which left me with great anticipation for what was next.

As we started second season, the thing that immediately struck me was that the show had completely changed. What again struck me was how Iain and Brett had really become the MVP’s of the show for me. Iain was heartwrenchingly brilliant in the first half of season 2. Again, one of the scenes of the show for me is when Fitz finds Ward in the basement. Brett and especially Iain just acted the hell out of that scene. The story arc of SHIELD vs Hydra was always one of the strong points of the show. That’s where the strength of season 2 lies. They played on the toxic Ward/Skye dynamic really well in those interactions in the basement. Brett really found the perfect balance of creepiness and sincerity in those scenes. In the midst of it all, we got some new additions in Bobbi, Hunter, Mack, and Kyle Machlachlan as Skye’s father and the transformation from Skye to Daisy happened. Honestly, Kyle was the highlight of the new additions in the season. He was there throughout and was kind of the emotional heartbeat of Skye/Daisy’s story in season 2. I wasn’t a huge fan of Mack in season 2. He had this passive aggressiveness towards anyone who wasn’t Fitz. I liked his dynamic with Fitz. Definitely the FitzSimmons stuff was hard to watch with it being so heartbreaking. Little did we know how much more there was to come. Bobbi and Hunter I was largely indifferent to. Bobbi was a badass and Adrianne Palicki is gorgeous but I never got overly invested in her. Hunter was hilarious at times and sometimes annoying. I liked how he was with Fitz. I felt Iain brought out the best in everyone this season. I wasn’t a huge fan of the second half of the season. I think the whole SHIELD vs Real SHIELD arc was pretty dumb and even the Inhumans story could have been better executed. Also, they took a wrong turn with Ward by the end of season 2. They had real potential with Ward being a wild card character who could be on hero’s side or villain’s side depending what benefits him, but instead they made him pure villain by season end.

Season 3 started off ok. Again, Iain was heartwrenching in the season premiere and Elizabeth turned up in full form in her solo outing. I honestly did not care about the whole Will drama. It felt very soap operaish for them to use this to create a love triangle which actually goes nowhere. Again, I felt they didn’t do enough with Ward even though Brett Dalton gave it is all. Certainly it was the most straight up villainous version of the character. Powers Boothe came in and did a great job with all his gravitas as a Hydra leader. It was in season 3 I started feeling Chloe Bennet started stepping up to the plate. In all fairness, one of my issues with some of the initial seasons were that it was so heavily Skye/Daisy dependent and everyone else felt more interesting to follow than her. This season allowed Ming Na and Clark Gregg to show some shades of regret and anger respectively. I was annoyed when they killed Ward because of wasted potential but Brett stepped up to the plate with an excellent turn as Hive. Bobbi and Hunter’s goodbye was sad though, as I said, I never got a personal attachment to those characters. One of the big misfires unfortunately was Lincoln. I have seen Luke Mitchell be compelling in other roles but Lincoln just did not work. Not as a character independently and not as a love interest for Daisy because they shared no chemistry. In a way, his death at the end felt like the writers dumping him and just admitting they didn’t know how to make the character work. We also got introduced to Yo Yo who would last the remainder of the show. It was kind of an uneven season but overall enjoyable. Didn’t reach the heights of the best parts of season 1 and 2 but maybe more consistent overall. I was really sad to say goodbye to Brett Dalton who was my second favorite cast member after Iain at this point.

Season 4 probably stands as the overall best season in terms of quality. Splitting the season into three pods really helped with the pacing with an increased amount of story. It was also the first season since season 1 where SHIELD existed as a functioning public agency and not just a bunch of agents working in secret. Robbie Reyes was incredibly badass as Ghost Rider. His pod was probably the weakest of the season but his presence overshadowed all the regular SHIELD cast members. The villain story was kind of weak but the backstory with Robbie, his thankfully platonic dynamic with Daisy, and the story of the developing technology of AIDA was fascinating. The LMD arc was better because AIDA and Radcliffe became serious legitimate and realistic threats. The acting also was top notch. The finale of this arc, Self-Control, is one of the show’s top episodes where Chloe Bennet was amazing as was Elizabeth and Iain was genuinely frightening as the LMD in the few minutes he had. But Framework just killed it. Brett Dalton coming back was wonderful. I really wished they had found a way to bring back this version to the real world. Iain delivered a seriously terrifying performance as the Doctor. Elizabeth, Chloe, Clark, Henry, Ming Na, John Hannah, and Natalia were all great. But the season’s MVP was Mallory Jansen, who played multiple iterations of the character throughout the season. My one issue with season 4 was I felt that she was built up in the finale a lot but then got taken out too easily. But overall, great season.

Season 5 is where the show kind of lost my interest. I am genuinely not a fan of the season and don’t have much to say about it. I felt it became outlandish and silly, while simultaneously becoming overly grim and morose which just didn’t work tonally for me. The acting continued to be top notch across the board. Iain continued to be a highlight all season with his breakdown episode being one of the most painful to watch. FitzSimmons wedding was lovely and kind of a welcome relief in a very dark season. Clark Gregg, Ming Na, and Chloe Bennet were excellent towards the end when playing out Coulson’s deteriorating health. Natalia also got to have some meaty story for really the first time on the show. But the budget constraints were clearly showing with the entire season being played out in the same grey halls and honestly I just never felt invested in the story. I knew the world wouldn’t end and it just became unendingly morose. Enoch was kind of the highlight in terms of humor in the season. Deke was introduced and I felt the same way as I felt about hunter. He was fun at tmes and other times annoying. The grandson revelation was kind of cool but I feel they have never done all that much with that connection. Maybe if the entire season was half a season’s plot, it would have been more palatable.

Season 6 was a minor improvement though still not great. The villains were again the big downfall of the season. I felt the show showed an inability to let go of Clark. Sarge was really not compelling and not a character that utilized his Clark Gregg’s best traits, which is his easy every man type nature. I could care less about the Shriek and Izel. We got to see May as a badass several times, which was nice but it was the space advanture that I enjoyed more. Whether it was Daisy and Simmons getting high on space mushrooms, or Enoch and Fitz being BFF’s in space, it was the show getting back to having some humor. Certainly a shorter season helped with regards to pacing. But it was still a rather unremarkable season which ended on a promising note.

Season 7 has been the best season since season 4. I feel that the first half the season was awesome. Rediscovering the fun, natural lighting, and better character interplay. Not having Fitz around was a bummer since Iain’s my fav cast member but we got the delightful surprise of Enver joining the cast as Sousa who I absolutely loved on Agent Carter. He has helped fill the void for me. Certainly has brought more than his share of humor and heart to the show. Again, the season’s weakness has been its villains. The chronicoms were initially good physical threats and certainly what they did to Mack’s parents was horrifying, but when Nathaniel Malick took over, the season has kind of stuttered for me. He just doesn’t cut it as a villain, especially for the final season. Chronicoms also don’t really cut it beyond the physical threat. The new additions of Kora and young Garrett are too last minute for me to feel any sort of threat from them. Certainly the time loop episode was amazing and the developing relationship between Daisy and Sousa has completely taken me by surprise. Its a mixture of good writing, good acting, and natural chemistry that this pairing has been something I root for, even though I loved PeggySous. But the show inexplicably got stuck in the 80′ and I really felt they should have gone through the periods to catch up to present day. Certainly the Jiaying story helped with some character reconcilliation for Daisy but I think there could have been more interesting stories had they progressed to more modern times. In any case, that leads to the finale. Hopefully the show ends on a good note. I don’t think it will be everything I want it to be because there are too many things on my wishlist, like a Ward return, which are unlikely to happen. But I hope for that its largely emotionally satisfying. Its been a good, if uneven ride. I would say its probably my second favorite Marvel show after Daredevil, but its longevity shows that it has developed a loyal core of fans. I may not get as emotional as a lot of the core fans, but it will feel weird that there will be no more Agents of SHIELD. It is the end of an era with it being the last of its brand of Marvel shows with all future marvel shows being direct movie spinoffs. I don’t anticipate we will see these characters in this form again, but who knows? Maybe someday?

Edit: My thoughts on finale

Overall, it was.... fine. I don’t know what I was expecting. I liked how the characters ended up but the whole thing felt oddly safe and a little emotionally hollow. They should have been a little braver and genuinely killed a couple of characters. Like I said earlier, there were a lot of things on my wishlist that didn’t happen, but I had kind of reconciled to that. The action was really good, but my apathy for the villains led to me being less interested in the whole story and the whole “empathy being the savior” was a little goofy for my taste. Regardless, far from the worst finale around but also not the greatest but reasonably enjoyable. Kind of like the show in a way, which makes it fitting. 

#agents of shield #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. #fitzsimmons #dousy #coulson #melinda may #daisy johnson #alphonso mack mackenzie #elena rodriguez #leo fitz #jemma simmons #grant ward #bobbi morse #lance hunter #iain de caestecker #elizabeth henstridge #chloe bennet #clark gregg #ming na wen #henry simmons #natalia cordova buckley #adrianne palicki #brett dalton #nick blood #aos finale

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 (6 of 6)

To round of my look into season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, here are my reviews of that season’s last two episodes.

Episode 25: In Theory

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Jenna D'Sora are in the torpedo room configuring several probes with which the Enterprise will explore a nearby nebula. D'Sora explains that her ex who she just split up with has asked her to dinner, prompting Data to remind her why they broke up as part of a standing agreement between the pair of them. Later they play together in a chamber concert along with Keiko O'Brien. D'Sora complains of her abilities as a musician, but Data insists that he could not hear anything wrong.

 Later, on the bridge, Data is reviewing the information from the probes sent into the nebula. He theorises that life might have evolved differently in the nebula because of the volume of dark matter detected. Captain Picard orders the ship to the nearest planet within the nebula. Data and Jenna configure further probes, when she kisses him on the cheek and then on the lips, before leaving the room. Data seeks the opinion of his friends, specifically Picard, Guinan, Geordi La Forge, Commander Riker, Counsellor Troi and Lt. Worf. Data decides to pursue the relationship and goes to Jenna's cabin with a bunch of flowers, where he informs her that he created a romantic subroutine for the relationship.

 Meanwhile, the Enterprise is approaching an M-class planet within the nebula. Picard enters his ready room and finds his belongings scattered on the floor. He calls in Worf, who cannot explain their displacement. Jenna arrives at Data's cabin where he is painting. She tells him to continue, but is then annoyed when he does so, causing him some confusion. The ship arrives at the coordinates for the planet but finds nothing there. Then it suddenly appears as the ship's computer warns of a depressurization in the observation lounge. The crew investigate and find all the furniture piled in one corner of the room.

 Data visits Jenna, but she seems unhappy and he is acting erratically in order to find an appropriate response to make her happy. It becomes evident to the crew that the nebula is causing distortions in space; Picard orders the ship into warp to leave the nebula as quickly as possible but this speeds up the distortions. Whilst investigating them, Lieutenant Van Mayter is killed when a distortion embeds her into the deck. Data discovers that dark matter is causing the distortions. The ship can detect the pockets at short range, but not in enough time to move out of the way. Worf proposes using a shuttle to lead the Enterprise out, and Picard insists on piloting it alone.

 Picard pilots the shuttle through the field of distortion pockets; he is initially successful, but the shuttle is damaged near the perimeter of the nebula. Chief Miles O'Brien transports the Captain back to the ship before the shuttle is destroyed. However, the Enterprise is now near enough to the edge of the nebula to no longer need the shuttle to scout ahead, and they quickly depart. Afterwards, Jenna reveals to Data in his quarters that she broke up with her boyfriend because he was emotionally unavailable and then pursued Date because he was the same. Data realises that she is breaking up with him and explains that he will delete the subroutine. Jenna departs and Data is seemingly unperturbed, although his cat, Spot, jumps into his lap as if to comfort him.

Review:

This episode was Patrick Stewart’s directorial debut on the show, following on the heels of fellow cast member Jonathan Frakes taking a shot at directing during the previous season.  Like Frakes, Stewart was handed a Data episode to do, and in some respects it’s a good episode.  In others, it’s less brilliant, specifically having a techno-babble B-plot thrown in because TNG was very much enslaved to the idea that the character always had to have an enemy or an anomaly putting them at risk, regardless of whatever else might be going on.  This plot doesn’t inter-connect with the A-plot except for both things happening in the same episode, and it includes Picard playing shuttle pilot when he’s not really the TNG character of note by way of piloting skills.  In fact, TNG and DS9 never really had a definitive helm officer in the way that the original series had Sulu and Voyager had Tom Paris, which when you have to do an episode with this kind of B-plot is a bit of a must.

 However, the meat of the episode is Data making forays into the world of romantic relationships, and to some degree I appreciate how some of his behaviours in this area are quite autistic.  His asking around the majority of the main cast and Guinan for advice, his inability to pick up relationship skills ‘on the fly’, and his emulation of stereotypical romantic interactions rather than just being himself are all things I can see someone on the spectrum doing.  Hell, I’ve done them all in my own unique way, and I can’t help but cringe a little reflecting on that.

 However, Data is only able to go so far both with his relationship and with his representation of the autistic mindset in this scenario because he lacks emotion.  I understand that this was meant to be the point; according to Memory Alpha, a lot of original series fan mail for Spock was from women who felt they could reach the character’s suppressed emotional core.  This episode was born of a fascination with this aspect of fandom, only it was written to see if a romantic relationship could work with a being who was hard-wired not to feel any emotion, to really explore the ‘ghost in the machine’ concept through Data.

 This, for me, is where the episode’s main plot really loses efficacy, because by definition a romantic relationship requires emotion, and as such Data was never going to succeed.  Frankly, I’d rather have seen them hold this plot off until the films when Data is finally given license to have emotions.  It would have been great to see Data have a romantic relationship then, because it would have been a more complete, well-rounded exploration of his status as an autism metaphor within the world of Trek.  As it is, characters like Voyager’s Doctor and Seven of Nine end up serving better in this capacity.

 It’s also disappointing to see that, not unlike some of my own early experiences in romance, Data isn’t being approached out of a genuine romantic interest on the part of Jenna.  To her, he’s basically a re-bound fling; she’s struggling with being single again, keeps having to be reminded why this is so, and tries to make something happen with Data to ‘fill the void’.  It’s not unlike how some girls used to pretend to go out with me to test, and mock, my gullibility, and for me it’s right up there with people who go out with someone just to avoid being single (done that), or to get something else like a roof over their head or cash.  To my mind, no one should ever do anything like this; if you want a romantic relationship with someone, it should be real romance or nothing.

 If you want a fling, a rebound or anything similar, then you seek out something more casual like friends-with-benefits, and you say that’s what you want up-front.  Leading people on is never ok, and it seems to me it only happens because of neurotypical selfishness and unwillingness to talk about you want before anything happens. The model of discussion-first-action-second is something that already exists within certain forms of sex play, and it’s probably going to gain wider and wider use over time for consent in general, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that would not only make all relationships more autism-friendly, but it would also vastly reduce the potential for being misled.

 What would have improved this episode, aside from Data actually having emotions, would have been to see the female guest character seek him out just from general attraction with no recent ex being mentioned, and perhaps having the B-Plot put the A-Plot characters in danger more directly.  That would have helped the B-Plot gain some additional worth and would have created a dramatic scene that would have more conclusively answered the ‘ghost in the machine’ question around Data.  As it is, it’s a middling episode and a poor showing for something Data-centric; I give it 5 out of 10.

Episode 26: Redemption (Part 1)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Captain Picard and the Enterprise are asked to attend the installation of Gowron as the Leader of the Klingon High Council, as it is Picard’s final duty as the Arbiter of Succession. Gowron intercepts the Enterprise en route and informs Picard that the House of Duras will challenge Gowron's position, which may lead to a Klingon civil war. Picard states he cannot intervene beyond his role as arbiter, and asks Worf to escort Gowron to the transporter room. There, Worf informs Gowron of the truth about his discommendation; Gowron thanks Worf for killing Duras, but explains that he cannot clear Worf’s name because he needs the support of the council, many of whom are loyal to Duras. Worf then requests a leave of absence from Picard to visit his brother, Kurn, who controls a small fleet of Birds of Prey, and to urges him to back Gowron. Worf plans to use this support as leverage so that once installed as the Leader, Gowron can reinstate their family name.

 Interrupting the ceremony, the Duras sisters present their deceased brother's illegitimate son, Toral, who has the lineage to challenge Gowron. Picard is called on to determine Toral's candidacy. Relying on Klingon law, Picard comes to the conclusion that Toral is too inexperienced to be Leader, and secures Gowron's candidacy. This, however, prompts a majority of the council members to abandon Gowron. Gowron returns to his ship to meet with Worf, who offers his brother's fleet's support in exchange for the return of his family name to honor. Gowron initially refuses, but they are attacked by two ships loyal to the House of Duras. Worf and the arrival of Kurn's fleet dispatch the attackers. Picard completes the rite and installs Gowron as Leader; Gowron restores Worf's family honor.

Gowron and the Enterprise crew learn that the Duras sisters are assembling a fleet to incite a civil war. As the Federation cannot get involved in internal affairs of the Klingon Empire, Worf resigns his commission from Starfleet to assist Gowron and Kurn. As the Enterprise evacuates the area before fighting begins, Toral and the Duras sisters consider Picard a coward, but their Romulan ally, a woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late Tasha Yar, emerges from the shadows and warns them that Picard may return.

Review:

Apparently, this episode was originally planned as the season 3 cliff-hanger finale, but had to be delayed because those working on the show who wanted this episode really had to fight for it.  Apparently, Gene Roddenberry didn’t want to do any kind of war stories, even if that war was internal to the Klingons and not something the Federation got involved in.  Granted, I don’t think this episode could be as good as it is without everything leading up to it, and part of that groundwork lays here in the fourth season as well as the third and second.  Nevertheless, it seems that once again Roddenberry was taking his idealism one step too far, and I’m guessing him having to step back from production of the show due to increasingly ill health around this time was the only reason we got this episode.

 Being only one part of a larger story, of course, the episode loses out a little for not being quite as self-contained as it otherwise would be as a one-part episode.  However, it delivers a lot for part 1 of a two-part narrative; we finally see Worf get his discommendation lifted and Gowron take command of the Klingon Empire, only to then see Worf resign his commission when Picard won’t wade into the civil war, even though we all know by now Picard should realise it’s not even remotely an all-Klingon affair.  Picard and Worf are well aware that the Duras family are thick as thieves with the Romulans, and they’ve had the recent events of ‘The Mind’s Eye’ to illustrate to them that dividing the Federation and Klingon Empire is high on their agenda.  Surely Picard should have been able to put 2 and 2 together in this part and sided with Gowron outright, rather than appearing to cling to the Prime Directive.

 This is where TNG, and Trek as a whole, falls down a little; it can’t seem to come up with a consistent approach to the Prime Directive.  Some episodes it gets broken, others it gets adhered to, and at times you’ll get a non-adherence for a situation that in a later or earlier episode saw the rule being upheld. Back in season 1, Picard was willing to dare the wrath of the Edo’s ‘god’ to save Wesley Crusher from execution, but in this episode, Picard won’t act to save Worf when Gowron’s ship gets fired upon. Both times someone from the Enterprise was in danger, so surely Picard should take the same actions, but he doesn’t. I can’t tell if this meant to be a follow-on from ‘The Drumhead’ and they stupidly cut out some exposition where Picard says ‘we have to be extra careful now to avoid another Satie-style witch-hunt’, or if it’s just a lack of attention to continuity.

 For me, this episode really relies on Worf and Gowron to carry it, as Picard’s so-called ‘tightrope walking’ just makes him look decidedly unheroic and not a little ruthless.  Honestly, this episode would have benefited from a more Kirk-ian/Sisko-esque style of captain.  Overall, I give it 7 out of 10.

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 6x12 Doublemeat Palace

aka (too) real life horror (comedy)

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And today’s hot take is that Doublemeat Palace is actually fun? Let’s talk about it.

One of the many things that I love about Buffy, is that when you ask people to pick a favorite or least favorite of the show, whether it’s an episode, season or character, the answers you’ll get will vary a lot. Well, alright, there’s usually a general consensus, and yes, Once More, With Feeling is most people’s favorite episode; but ask someone to pick their favorite season, and their answer may surprise you.

This variety is probably most apparent when it comes to generally disliked Buffy episodes. No matter how hated it may seem, how its rating is by any metrics, there is no Buffy episode without its fans. And those can come with or without the guilty pleasure label.

I’ve already planted my flag by episodes like I Robot, You Jane and Beer Bad. I especially got a lot out of the latter, not even gonna lie. Meanwhile I was genuinely surprised to find that some people really like Go Fish, an episode that’s about at the bottom of the barrel on my own list. But isn’t that kind of fascinating? Someone looked at the same episode I did, and got something completely different out of it. And we could probably see and understand each other’s points of view on it as well if we got right down to it. What a concept.

I know, I know, art is up for interpretation, shocking revelation made by Tumblr user ettadunham, and I am so not here to get into a rant about that right now. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to fire up that discussion later on, especially as my original intention here was just to lay back and appreciate the delicious weirdness of Doublemeat Palace.

Rolling back to that earlier point, this is for a lot of people is exactly that type of bottom of the barrel episode we mentioned before. Which means that it’s already had that underdog status going for it, as I sat down for my rewatch.

Well, actually, when I sat down I didn’t really remember that I was about to watch Doublemeat Palace, because somehow I’ve yet to memorize the complete Buffy episode list. Not gonna lie, I was mostly just expecting a general downer. Something focusing on Buffy and Willow’s misery with minimal Scoobies interactions, and so I was already thinking of how to compare that with season 5… But then the episode started with a scene between Xander, Anya and Willow discussing the Trio and the capitalist values of demons vs. supervillains, and I was already delighted.

And it only gets weirder from there. Buffy’s new job at the local fast food restaurant is presented as a horror story, and sure, there is eventually murder and monsters involved, but my favorite thing about that is that most of the horror comes from the actual life scenario itself. I’ve never worked at a fast food place, but the high turnover rate, the menial job, the manager who is trying to sell you on the company lines and brainwash you to believe that you actually want to work there 5 years from now… That stuff should be familiar for anyone ever working at a low-end corporate job.

I just love how the directing heightens that effect, as the camera tilts and focuses on the machines and the repetition, and the people spacing out. It’s a bit of quasi-horror comedy that also comes from the absurdity of life itself.

Buffy’s weird co-workers for instance? They all have their own distinct characters and I actually find them completely believable. If I was the guy who worked by that grill machine, and at some point had to go to the doctor to remove the grease from my ears, I’d probably think that that was a fun work story to tell too.

Buffy having at least five theories about what’s the “secret ingredient” in the burger - one of them being cats I guess – is also just the kind of morbid humor I’d expect in a place like that.

I guess if you go into this episode for the first time, you could get lost in the red herring of it all, or just wait for the demon reveal to explain the extremely high turnover. But for me, I found that the most enjoyable experience was to focus less on the literal meaning of Spike’s “this place will kill you”, and more on just how depressing the meat grind of corporate culture can be, especially for those at the bottom of its food chain.

Haha, see what I did there. Although as we learn from the plot twist, Doublemeat Palace was actually selling Impossible Whoppers before it was cool rather than an actual meat product. The real hipster of fast food chains.

I also just want to appreciate Buffy’s Captain America-like shirt (but with a heart!!) after she’s fired, and is about to start a corporate revolt. Bless her heart.

By the end of the episode of course, Buffy gets her job back and decides to stay on. Because money. Now there’s some real horror for you.

In other news, Amy has truly established herself as Willow’s Ethan-like foil for the series. She has all the angst, the grudge and chaotic energy for it for sure. It’s honestly a bit of a bummer that she didn’t get a lot more to do on the show from this point on. (I think she’s in the comics though? Again, it’s been a long time…)

Willow’s last words to her though. “If you’re really my friend, you better stay away from me. And if you really aren’t… you better stay away from me.” The change in her tone of voice by that last part! I’m scared and this isn’t even Murder Willow. Yet.

I also feel like pointing out that the whole eyes going dark phenomenon came up before in season 5 when she went after Glory and the whole magic trip she went on in Wrecked… But also in 6x04, when she and Tara were doing a spell to help Buffy fight some interdimensional ghost demon. At some point, Willow let go of Tara’s hand, her eyes went black, and she just said “solid”.

And the spell suddenly worked.

Based on that, and also some season 7 context, the whole black eyes thing seems to indicate whenever Willow is tapping into some greater, more volatile power. Or – especially in this case, where magic was clearly transferred to her – something that is outside of herself. More on that in season 7 probably.

Meanwhile Halfrek responded to Anya’s wedding invite in an insanely memorable scene of the show, and is now that friend who’s only relationship advice is “dump him”. Not that I can blame her per se...

Xander is clearly not over his own fears, and visibly reacts when Willow makes a comment about his impending happily ever after with Anya. Halfrek passive aggressively pointing out to Anya Xander’s attitude towards her feels a bit petty, but there’s truth to that as well. Anya may be weird, but some of Xander’s comments actually question whether or not he even likes her as a person.

That being said, that isn’t always the case. Xander is extremely sweet with Anya, including all her quirks throughout most of their relationship in season 5, I think. I would need to go back to those episodes to confirm this, but my running theory is that Xander’s fears regarding their upcoming wedding might have caused him to regress a bit in that regard. And as we know, Xander being the emotional one of their group tends to fail at introspection when it comes to his feelings.

Again, I’m not quite confident in that assessment of regression, so take that with a grain of salt. I would really need to rewatch season 5 again and keep more of an eye on their relationship, so this is mostly just a hunch for now.

Somehow, in the midst of all this, Dawn ends up being my lowkey MVP for the episode. She shows a lot of understanding towards her sister, as she laments that Buffy will probably be stuck in minimal-wage jobs for most of her life, because of her Slayer and other responsibilities. Meanwhile Dawn has much more freedom to choose – and that’s largely due to Buffy’s own personal sacrifices.

I feel like this is probably also the first instance we see Dawn truly interacting with Willow post-Wrecked, and it’s her walking up to Willow, asking her if she’s okay. Dawn Summers is precious, and good, and you can’t change my mind.

Now, who’s ready to get really fucking genuinely disturbed with our next episode?

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

[theostry]

The Ghost Monument

Some thoughts on the Doctor Who Season 11 Episode 2:

The new title sequence is glorious

Según Akinola’s score continues to be glorious

“Are you still pleading ignorance?” Despite it’s frequency of use, I actually really love this trope. Think about it: You’re at work, doing your business as usual, and some randoms appear expecting you to believe they have no idea where they are or who you are or what perfectly normal thing you’re doing or what all of these perfectly normal things are...*snort*. Like you believe that. Obviously they’re lying, or having a laugh, or just just funny in the head. The Doctor is an outside-context problem (or, if you like, an outside-context hero); having the regular people whose lives she bursts in on react with scepticism is just good characterisation, and however many times we see it the trope is no less tired than that of the TARDIS materialising into the middle of random situations to begin with.

Just, I fucking love her.

I appreciate that they addressed the language problem up front. a) Someone questioned the fact that aliens apparently spoke English (thank you Graham), and b) they had an explanation for how they had translation without the TARDIS. Some might argue that scene wasn’t necessary, but it would have bothered me. 

Tag urself I am a muman bean.  

Thirteen is staring to settle into herself, and we’re getting to know her too. She’s kind and empathetic, yes, but she’s also very blunt and to the point. Uncompromising about the truth she believes, but not wielding it like a club. “Your mum was wrong. We’re stronger together” was such a powerful line, delivered flatly and to a person she clearly didn’t think much of, and yet she managed to make it feel somehow...comforting? I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.

The episode was visually stunning. I loved the yellow desert--blue sky aesthetic of the environment, and how it reflected the colours of the TARDIS’s soon-to-be-revealed new interior.

Many have observed that it was slower-paced than we have come to expect through the RTD and Moffat eras, but you know what? I am okay with that. I like that the characters got time to sit and talk and process, things which are usually sacrificed on the altar of Action Plot. This meant 

a) the secondary characters, Angstrom and Epzo, were made three-dimensional - I feel I understood who they were; and

b) Ryan and Graham’s family tension wasn’t ignored or erased, and Grace’s very recent death was not forgotten

Space Lesbian! (Or possibly Space Bi! or Space Pan!) That is all.

“Where’s the reload, where’s the reload?!” 19-yr-old Man Makes Dumbass Decision, Instantly Regrets, Squeals And Runs Away. I will fondly remember this scene for the rest of my days. 

Yaz. Yazzie. Yazmin Khan. Who are you, girl? She hasn’t received the level of development that Ryan and Graham have -- yet. Hopefully we’ll get more of her next episode. So far I like her. She’s clearly a people person, kind and empathetic, but without being all soft. I wonder if she’s the peacekeeper in her family (since it doesn’t seem like her sister is!).

Talking ribbon strangler monsters? I’m not sold.

The Stenza! Evil warlike space colonisers! Is anyone else seeing a metaphor for the British Empire here??? 

Nah just kidding that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part.

But I am curious to see how this plays out. So far, insufficient data.

The reunion scene. The reunion scene. I just

I can not

That hit me really hard in the Feelings Organ. They love each other so much!

“Come to daddy. I mean mummy...I really need you right now!”

“I’ve missed you...”

“I’ve lost my key! Sorry” ... *creak*

“Can I press any of th--” “nooope”

AND SHE GAVE HER A BISCUIT SDJJSDAFJKGA;J wifey gave her a SNACK and she was so SURPRISED and HAPPY and she ATE it dfksgs;asfda I am dead. 

In summary, I really like this episode. I don’t think the ribbon monsters were necessary, and the Stenza still need to earn their place and arc villains (if that’s what’s going on), and Yaz needs more development; but the former issue is forgivable, and the latter two aren't over yet. On the flip side, we had great world building (the rally, the Stenza’s colonial depredations, a bunch of currencies the Doctor had never heard of, a planet that didn’t consist entirely of quarries and corridors); characterisation you could believe in (Ryan and Graham’s relationship, Graham and Angstrom connecting over their similar losses, Epzo’s cynical philosophy and how he came by it); and a central character who continues to be absolutely, effortlessly and undeniably the Doctor. 

I am on board, let’s go. What do other folks think?

#doctor who #dw spoilers #the ghost monument #dw season 11 #thirteenth doctor #theostry rambles #what do you think?

[calliecat93]

SWAT Kats Episode 1 Review: The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice

In the early 90's, Cartoon Network made it's national debut to the public airwaves. With it not only gave people the chance to see all the cartoons that they grew up on when it only came on Saturday Mornings, but it also let them bring in some new shows... well before the Cartoon Cartoons era. Some of these titles included 2 Stupid Dogs, Space Ghost Coast to Ghost, and the one that is probably still the most fondly remembered, SWAT Kats. Debuting in 1993 on TBS and The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera block, the series was produced by Hanna-Barbera, finally getting them out of their rut since... IDK, since whenever Scooby Doo got rid of the “Where Are You?” part.

While the show sadly didn't last long, it is still fondly remembered by those who grew up on it through Cartoon Network and Boomerang. And who can blame the,? Great characters, fantastic animation, memorable villains, and of course a LOT of explosions and general destruction! It's a superhero show folks, is it a surprise? I grew up on the show (infact I was only six months old when it came out) and swathed it frequently when Boomerang aired it. I recently got a friend into it, so I thought “wow, this would be such a fun show to practice my reviewing on!”. So here we go! The first episode of the most radical squadron in animation, SWAT Kats!

Overview

We begin with the most child friendly of activities... grave-robbing! Sheesh, Batman just started with a giant man bat... though they got to have blood in their first episode. We watch two grave-robbers trying to find stuff that they can sell and come upon a coffin. Inside is a short little cat who seems to be trying his Dungeons and Dragons cosplay. But it turns out he's an actual wizard. He is The Pastmaster, a dark sorcerer from the Dark Ages sealed away long ago. Because locking away the dangerous, supernatural villain ALWAYS works out! While not at his full power without his spellbook, the Tome of Time, he DOES have enough power to create zombie cat skeletons to drive the graverobbers off. He doesn't get much time to look around though as he's spotted by The Enforcers, the police/military force for the shows main location of Megakat City. The skeletons are destroyed and they take the coffin tot he museum,t he Pastmaster hitching a ride.

We then cut to our main heroes... but there's not much to talk about so lets skip ahead tot he museum. Don't worry, we'll talk about the SWAT Kats soon but trust me, this 9sn't their best introduction. We meet the museum curator, Dr. Abby Sinian, and the deputy mayor Calico 'Callie' Briggs. Huh... a cat girl named Callie... who has glasses... why do I feel this weird sense of irony? Anyways, the good doctor explains about the upcoming exhibit, which is coincidentally about the Dark Ages. And also by coincidence, the Tome of Time is there. Pastmaster uses his powers to cause havoc, distracting the two women and occupying the guards. During his search, Pastmaster accidentally signs the SWAT Kats through a signal device that Callie has. They arrive and take care of the forces and the good doctor realizes who's behind this... too bad that the Pastmaster already got his book and is summoning dinosaurs! You Tried guys.

The SWAT Kats, of course, try to fight them with their badass jet... but get knocked through a time portal and straight into dinosaur times. Welp. So while they deal with surviving and getting their jet back in the air, The Enforcers led by Commander Ulysses S. Feral, deal with The Pastmaster. The city's mayor, Manx, gives Callie permission to negotiate with the evil sorcerer when he tries to use City Hall (a clocktower) as a point to bring back the Dark Ages. It fails. Luckily the SWAT Kats make it back to the present, destroy the spellbook, knock The Pastmaster through his own portal, and fly off triumphantly into the sun! Hooray!

Review

Wow, that is the shortest overview I have ever written in my reviews. But to be fair, I guess it's because there was very little of a plot. This was a very basic episode that you can probably find a better version of in any other Superhero cartoon. Evil Sorcerer? Been done. Time travel? Been done. Dinosaur invasion? Yep, been done. SWAT Kats is nothing groundbreaking, but they try to be at least a bit creative. This was just... basic. Basic, unoriginal, and The Pastmaster is every other 'world conquering demonic wizard locked away cause plot convenience' character in every show ever! He's the lamest recurring villain in the SWAT Kats Rogues Gallery who I think only got intimidating like... once. In his final episode. He's just lame, even if I do like his design and voice. RIP Keene Curtis.

While there's not much to say about the plot, the characters... are no different. This was not a good introductory episode. I mean don't get me wrong, it does introduce us to our primary characters, their roles, and we get a bit of a feel of who they are. The SWAT Kats may be the one exception. They're badasses... but that's about it. What do we know about T-Bone? He's a pilot...t hat's it. What about Razor? Well... he shoots stuff... and his name is Jake... and he's the smarter on... that's better, but still not much. At least with the others we see that Callie is a competent and hard-working deputy mayor, Feral is an arrogant but determined commander, and Manx is a petty loser. But that's it. Seriously, The Giant Bacteria should have been the premiere episode because it gives us a MUCH better showing of our characters, the SWAT Kats especially. We don't even learn T-Bone's real name. I'm surprised we learned Razor's. It gets the basic bit down, but it doesn't let our characters be.. well, characters. Also, really? Using volcanic gas as a fuel source? There is NO WAY that's scientifically accurate.

But probably the most telling is the pacing. This episode is FAR too fast for it's own good. It starts okay, letting us see The Pastmaster and establishing his power. But after that it just goes by SO FAST. From the point that Pastmaster gets his book, the entire episode is just a long fight sequence. One in the past, and the one in the present. We get no time to breathe or take in what's happening. Hell, IDT the SWAT Kats even face The Pastmaster directly. He just gets knocked into a portal, the book is blown up, and our dynamic duo fly into the sun with no sense of finality. When I finished the episode, I just went “Huh... guess it's over”. Then again with no real character stuff and lack of a subplot, guess there was nothing to give closure to. Ah well!

So a meh plot, a lame villain, and one-note characters. Are there any saving graces to this? Well... yes. First,t he action. The shows largest strength is it's action sequences, and it certainly delivers here. We get to watch our heroes, both the SWAT Kats AND The Enforcers, fight FREAKIN' DINOSAURS. That is BADASS. The Turbokat is a very awesome jet and has creative weapons, like the cement blaster. The Enforcers are shown to be competent and at least able to ho,d their own... trust me with how they're shown in later episodes, that is a VERY refreshing thing. The animation... it's not as good as other episodes, but it still overall fluid and expressive. The action is fun to watch and never felt like it dragged or got boring. With how basic the plot is, it really helped the episode be fun and enjoyable.

And despite what I said about the SWAT Kats characters, we DO get to see their chemistry. And it's great! There really this sense of friendly rivalry with their little competition on who can handle the most G's. Razor keeps passing out while T-Bone can last up to Mock 5 until the end where Razor finally lasts and T-Bone doesn't. Sedulously, Razor not ejecting just to see the look on T-Bone's face got the biggest laugh out of me. The banter, but it feels very natural and, again, very friendly. They act like brothers, which is the greatest strength of the two. They have a great relationship and truly care for each other, something that just gets better as the show goes. We may not know a lot about the two, but you get this feeling that they've been through a lot together and a truly brothers in arm. I like that.

Final Thoughts

So my verdict. Is this a good episode? No. is it a bad episode? No. My conclusion is that the episode is... average. That's it. It's not great, but it's not horrible. The plot is lame, the pacing is way too fast, the villain is average at best, and the characters get no time to be fleshed out. It's got plenty wrong with it, but plenty to enjoy form it. Awesome action scenes, some good character chemistry, some very well done voice acting (they had a 90's All Star Cast for this show) and overall fluid animation that keeps things fun visually. It's an episode I recommend, but not the one I would suggest starting with if you want to get into the show. Which one would I recommend though? Well tune in next time as we discuss Episode 2 where we gave mutants, garages, and plenty of child unfriendly deaths! Yay! Up next: The Giant Bacteria.

#swat kats #swat kats reviews #callie reviews

[novantinuum]

jen’s doctor who s11 review

On the whole!

I really enjoyed series 11 for its nice change in pace and especially the relationship built up between Graham and Ryan. I really liked how many of the episodes were lighter and kinda more adventure-y in nature than in past, instead of constant “the world is gonna end” danger. Like I love those kinds of episodes, believe me, but the lighter tone is very welcomed after many series of heart wrenching angst ahahahah! 

I loved how they handled the historical episodes this series, and really dug into the truth of human condition within those time periods, and took risks there. I actually learned a lot about the time periods they visited- for example, I never really heard much about the Pakistan partition in school. 

Thirteen is precious and I want to hug her. She’s so full of hope and that makes me so happy! :DDD I love how she’s a sciency tinkerer and likes cobbling stuff together out of whatever loose ends she can find. I’m still waiting for her to snap, though- maybe that’s just me as an angst lord talking, but I want to see her super super angry. The scene in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos with her sternly disagreeing with Graham was very good though. But anyways, I love her positivity and her quirky alien charm, and her character feels like a natural progression of where the Doctor left off at the end of Twice Upon a Time. The Doctor has gone through a lot of healing since the Time War, a lot of self reflection and forgiving themself, and Thirteen is absolutely a product of that and it shows. It’s so nice to see them back on their feet, unshackled by that guilt finally, just wandering about the universe like they always did. 

Yasmin is so sweet and so loyal, and h o h boy if there’s anyone I can see sticking with the Doctor until the bitter end out of this crew it’s her. (*nervous laughter*) Out of all the crew she’s the one who’s had the least development though, so I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes as a character moving forward. Also, I hope we see her family more, I like them! Maybe in the New Years special, we’ll see. I’ve absolutely hit the “ADOPT KID” button on Ryan, the more I think about him the more I love him- just, all this time he’s been looking for belonging, for people who aren’t gonna leave him behind like his dad, and he had that with his nan Grace- but he didn’t know if Graham was gonna be the same or if he was only there for him bc of association with Grace. But now through all these adventures through space and time he has absolute proof that Graham will be there for him, and so he’s made the conscious decision to make Graham his family. And Graham, hhh... his grieving throughout the series, while not acting as a shadow on it, was always woven through and it’s nice to see both him and Ryan actually make peace with things through seeing Tim Shaw again and giving him his humble pie. 

In the end when it comes to this series, I love the strong found family vibes it gives. Graham and Ryan and Yaz, they all knew each other in some way before, but they didn’t truly know each other. And through being thrown together with the Doctor, entering her wild adventurous life, they got to grow closer as friends, but more importantly, as a family. The whole series the Doctor was looking for a word to describe her little ragtag group, and she wasn’t exactly sure if “fam” was the right one, but in the end it’s what she settles on because this has become a family. 

Now, what I’m hoping to see more of in the future! 

1) I’d love to see more extended domestic-y TARDIS scenes! We’ve got a lot of pre/post endcap TARDIS scenes, but I’d love to see more small little convos between characters on the way to their destinations, in between, etc. For as long as these episodes were I feel like so much time was spent providing exposition and story for the plot, but I’d love to see more fun nonsense. More glimpses at what they get up to in between, if that makes any sense. (As an example of what I mean, we got a bit of this in The Tsuranga Conundrum, at the very beginning when they were just poking about a junkyard planet, and I quite liked that.)

2) As the characters keep developing I’d love to see more conflict arise between them to test their friendships. We saw some good moments of this with the Doctor telling Ryan to stay behind with Hanne in It Takes You Away after he made a kinda narrow-minded comment about her disability, and when the Doctor flat out told Graham that if he killed Tim Shaw he wouldn’t be traveling with her anymore in the finale. I’d love to see more of this.

3) This may just be because I’m really queer, but I want the Doctor to snap and yell and get really angry at something. That’s the ONE thing that felt entirely missing from this series. In the end I get the sense that this Doctor has a far greater reign on her emotions and self because she’s healed quite a bit, but I still know she’s capable of that righteous anger and I’d love to see Jodie show off her full range with a scene like that.

4) We’ll probably get this in the New Years special, but I’m super anticipating Thirteen facing the Daleks. This is a quintessential thing for every Doctor, in my opinion, and I can’t wait for when they (hopefully!) eventually do that.

5) More of a plot arc. I definitely know the lack of a tight plot arc was because they wanted it to be more accessible for people to just tune in and watch without context,, as they’re gaining some new fans, but I hope that there’s more of a return to an ongoing series plot arc with this next series since everything’s been established. I personally really like those, because I get to be a plot arc detective! I will say that I’m very pleased that Tim Shaw was brought back for the finale, though- that acted as a very nice bookend and helped tie up all the emotional threads.

6) Also not exactly anything I can fault this series for, because I can tell one of the points/themes of it was “not everything is what it seems on the surface” and “sometimes the real monsters,,, are humanity” and I very much respect that, but I do wanna see some more just... alien baddies who ARE baddies and not misunderstood. Listen,, I’m a simple minded person. Love me some monsters! 

My rankings! 

For context, I’m generally very easy with my ratings. I’m not rating them on how critically perfect they are as plots or anything, this is purely based on how much I enjoyed them. I’ve only actually rated nine episodes of Doctor Who 2005-present with scores of 6 or below.

10- Absolutely SUPERB  9- Excellent! 8- Great! 7- Good 6- Okay

1) Demons of the Punjab    (10) This ep made me cry more than any episode of Doctor Who has in a very long time. Incredibly poignant, stunning music and cinematography. Taught me a whole lot I never knew about the partition and how it affected everyday people. I liked how the Doctor assumed the whole time that these aliens were  A good Yaz centric ep, too. It ranks 7th in my list of all-time favorites.  

2) It Takes You Away   (9.5) Wowee, another very poignant one! Some FANTASTIC acting from Jodie in this ep, and a very trippy concept with the sentient universe. Loved getting to see each companion getting a good role to play. ALSO CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I STAN THAT FROG??? AND THE DOCTOR SEDUCING AN ENTIRE UNIVERSE???? B R U H. Hanne’s actress did a wonderful job too! 

3) Kerblam!   (9) What a heckin fun episode! This one will definitely become one of my comfort eps, I can already tell. The secondary characters were all lovely, and the bots were delightfully unsettling too! I spent the whole thing going “wow I totally experienced this working at Amazon” and I thought that was pretty funny. Also, I might highlight all the wonderful Graham snark we got in this one. 

4) Rosa    (9) Gahhh this was a hard one to watch, but very truthful in its depiction of the time period, and a lovely tribute to an incredibly courageous woman. Shout out to how the ep forced Graham to recognize and accept his white privilege (and the Doctor too for that matter), the scene with Ryan and Yaz discussing racism they’ve had to endure, and also for the scene with the Doctor making jokes about Banksy. That made me laugh. “Banksy doesn’t have one of these! Or do I?”

5) The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos    (9) I was VERY glad to see Tim Shaw return for some finished business, and how it allowed Graham and Ryan to finally get a bit of peace for what happened to Grace because of him. This was a solid ep, with some SOLID character moments between Graham and the Doctor and Graham and Ryan. The Ux were interesting, too.

6) The Woman Who Fell to Earth    (8.5) Solid, fun episode. It wastes no time in setting up who Thirteen will be. Still one of my favorite scenes in this whole series so far is when she builds her own sonic screwdriver- GOD the music there is so damn iconic. And gahhh I love Grace so much. How dare they make me love a character so much and then let her die? Rude. That’s homophobia. XD

7) The Witchfinders   (8.5) The Doctor gets dunked in water and has soaked hair. Dare I say more? No, but I was glad to see an ep with an alien danger that actually IS an alien danger that seeks to destroy and conquer, I always love those- and this one, with weird sentient mud that can fill corpses, was delightfully grim. Willow was a great secondary character, too- loved her especially. 8) The Ghost Monument   (8) Okay so I really loved how slice-of-life this episode was? We actually got to know our secondary characters Angstrom and Epzo and I appreciated that. The bit with the Doctor thinking the TARDIS was gone forever at the end... hhhhhhng... that was such a good scene. You could just see the hope drained from her face, and then to see it all rush back as she finally found her?? W o w I’m so emo, y’all ;D;

9) The Tsuranga Conundrum  (7) So I enjoyed this one, but there were some kinda oddly phrased bits of dialogue in it that marks it down for me. The Pting is a delightfully weird and cursed creature, 10/10, would yeet out of a spacecraft. I already mentioned this, but I LOVE the scene in the junkyard and how slice-of-life it was. I also appreciate how someone called out the Doctor on being selfish during this. 10) Arachnids in the UK   (6.5) So this episode was riding right on the edge of “ehh” for me, but it still has some great moments in it, with the Doctor awkwardly interacting with Yasmin’s family and all those heckin spiders bee-boppin down the hallways to the tune of rap music. XD I can’t exactly pick out why it was an “eh” for me, but it just didn’t click. Maybe I was just hoping it’d be an alien thing and was kinda left wanting with the way the episode felt kinda... unfinished. Like, there’s still a bunch of giant spiders? They didn’t solve that. They just- trapped them and left. I dunno I was left wanting with this ep.

#doctor who #doctor who spoilers #doctor who series 11 #thirteenth doctor #jodie whittaker #my post stuff

[jolivira]

season 11 ranking!

Jodie Whittaker is freaking fantastic, let me just get that out of the way. Thirteen is becoming one of my favorite doctors easily.

Spoilers bellow! Don't read if you haven't watched all 11 episodes of season 11! Well, you can read if you don't care about that stuff, just a warning  =D

I like all the main characters but (just like many people have pointed out) I don't think the three companions shouldn't have been introduced at the same time. Or actually, they shouldn't have become companions at the same time. The TARDIS was too crowded and we didn't get a lot of focus on the Doctor herself because of it.

IN MY OPINION, I believe it would have worked best if we had met Yaz, Ryan, Graham and Grace in episode 1, then only Yaz ends up on space with the Doctor (episode 2)  and they travel together for maybe 3 or 4 episodes. That way we get to know her and flesh out her character and start setting up thasmin and the sexual tension between those ladies.

Then  have Ryan, Graham, Grace and  Tim Shaw show up again (set up for the finale) and THEN Grace dies. Imagine how much more impact that would've had on us, how deeper it would have felt.

Later the Doctor invites Graham (who is running away from the empty house) and Ryan (who is learning to accept Graham) and from there develop their relationship.

Just some alternate ideas.....

Now.... to the episode ranking!

11-  Tsuranga Conundrum

It's not that bad, I was just feeling uncomfortable the whole way, probably because it's hospitals and also pregnancy. We also should have had more backstory about that general! She seems awesome. And if her brother knew how to pilot the ship why didn't he do it from the start? Oh but I loved that initial scene where the Doctor is kind of dazed and selfishly tries to mess up the ship to go back and the medic in charge argues with her. I liked that.

10-  Arachnids in the UK

Little bit too boring. It's a DW episode, I wanted giant alien spiders! Also missed opportunity to learn more about Yaz's family or just her character in general (thanks for creating thasmin though!) And we already got one donald trump no need to create another.

9-   The Ghost Monument

I liked it just didn't feel it was that memorable compared to the others. I liked the idea of an intergalactic race and that fun stuff, though! Also new TARDIS, I just love the Doctor talking to her ship in general.

8- The Battle of Ranakoor Av Kolos

Horrible name for a planet but Jodie shined here, perfectly captured the Doctor's essence. The Ux are a really fun (actually really tragic) concept, I hope they return sometime! There were some frustrating parts for me but the good stuff balanced it out. Also a companion disagreeing and going against the Doctor? My jam. And it was so funny when Graham shot him and shouted "it was just the foot! Doesnt count!"

7- The Women Who fell to Earth

I'm just a sucker for post regeneration stories. And this one in special, everything was so new and fresh and exciting!  But Jodie's accent (all of their's to be honest) is so strong that it shocked me the first time I watched it.  English is not my first language so I needed subtitles, couldn't understand anything! Hahaha

6- Resolution

This reminded me of the episode "dalek" from season 1. I love me a full blown out dalek attack with ships and thousands of those little shits but honestly? Just one dalek can cause so much harm, that's why they are so scary. Also the closest we got to dark 13! I loved the scene where she confronts it face to face. This episode also finally showed the TARDIS interior properly! For all the other episodes it almost felt....smaller on the inside. The panels and buttons were also lacking, in this one they really made it look incredible! But again, the TARDIS was too crowded. Why introduce two new characters added to Ryan's dad? Didn't really like how Ryan forgave him at all in the end either :/

5- Witchfinders

The Doctor could go anywhere in time because he was a white brittish male, I liked seeing her getting frustrated about it a little but never actually regretting being a woman you know? The alien stuff in the end was pretty bad and the king was acting really creepy with Ryan, didn't like that at all. But yes! If anyone would be a witch in there it would be the Doctor. Also that hat, kudos for the hat

4- Kerblam!

Pretty fun! It honestly reminded me a lot of Tennant's era, I'm not sure why though..... Clever episode with interesting charcaters. OOOH! I also have a theory that before trading with Graham, the Doctor was placed in cleaning and stuff right? That's because the system knew Charlie was the problem so she was sent to work with him.

3- Rosa

I love how the civil rights movement is symbolized by Rosa and not MLK, although he has a great appearance in it! I am glad that there was no speech to inspire Rosa to protest, none of the characters told her about her impact on the future or how she needed to do this. It all came from her. Oh and important to see how Graham and the Doctor felt to be on the other side, on the ""evil"" side of history, being white during apartheid and having to act accordingly. I feel that's also important. I missed more talking between Ryan and Yaz about their experiences but oh well, nothing's perfect...

2- Demons of the Punjab

Teaching parts of history we don't hear much about! Yes!! And the only reason I have it second and not first place because I felt the Doctor and Yaz didn't properly... react? I mean, no tears and no talking about what just happened? They followed her nan and saw Prem die, knowing they could have easily stopped it. It's some heavy stuff, also the reason why he died. But I LOVE how the aliens aren't actually the villains, the doctor got it wrong, it happens. And she immediately apologized and thanked them. Beautiful.

1- It Takes You Away

The setting, the acting, the plot. I loved it start to finish. I even got emotional with the whole writing on the wall thing (assume her dad is dead, take care of her, etc). And eventually when the dad got back and read it, realizing how stupid he was. It portrayed a really messed up relationship between father and daughter, but also showed us the doctor can't fix something like that. I would have made the conversation with the frog (the solitract) deeper and to make more sense? It didn't feel earned when it allowed her to go back to her own dimension. They needed to have talked for longer but I understand the episode has a time limit.

And that's all! Thanks for reading and feel free to comment with your thoughts, whether you agree or not. See you in 2020 with more! *me sobing in the background*

#doctor who #resolution #dw spoilers #jolivira #rambles #my thoughts #my opinion #episodes ranking #13th Doctor #thirteenth doctor #dw #I haven't rewatched the series yet so this might change

[rochellespen]

Watching Doctor Who Season 37 (Series 11), Episode Two

After taking the time to have a bit of nonlinear fun with Thirteen’s debut episode, it looks like Chibnall decided to go with a simple, running down corridors adventure that would not be out of place at all in Classic Who.

Whether this is a good or bad thing, I guess depends on who you ask. Me, I like to have a nice balance between the clever, thought-provoking, mind-bending Who and the more straightforward action romp Who. In other words, I think episodes like say, Blink, need some episodes like 42 to give us a good mix of fun and cerebral. 

So seeing as I was fairly certain that this would be much more of the latter, I went in with an adjusted set of expectations. Now comes the question, were those expectations met?

Let’s find out by taking at look at The Ghost Monument.

Spoilers (for those who still need them for the episode) underneath the read more....

Episode Thoughts

This episode gave us this Doctor’s intro credits finally. It’s certainly a change from how other New Who seasons which have normally given us a much more defined “tunnel” or spiral look for us to travel through the credits. However, I also couldn’t help but think that it reminded me a bit of the watery, morphing credit sequence from Hartnell’s era. 

By necessity, really, we got the admittedly cool cliffhanger out of the way by having everyone “scooped” out of space by a pair of dueling humanoid aliens. Graham and Ryan end up on the ship with a pilot who doesn’t believe a word they say while the Doctor and Yasmin end up on the ship that’s about to crash...which seems painfully apropos in relation to the Doctor....XD

I happened to notice in the end credits that this episode was shot in South Africa, a first, I believe, for Doctor Who. It’s a great choice for something beautiful and yet desolate and definitely different from the standby rock quarries. Watching everyone wander around these deserts with the yellow tinged lighting gave it a realistic alien feel.

In fact, I really liked the cinematography for this episode in general. A friend of mine mentioned that episodes in this season almost seem like a movie and I have to agree based on what I saw with the outer space and desert sequences.

Anyway, after some typical Doctor pulling everyone out of a crisis moments, we’re given our plot of two contestants in a race to save their families from some unknown (well, to us anyway...) threat. This certainly isn’t the first time that a race with a life-changing payoff was a central plot point on Doctor Who (Enlightenment, anyone?), but I did appreciate that we were given the details over the course of the episode rather than give us a big info dump at the beginning. 

From there, the action of the plot is mainly a backdrop for continuing theme of how people are better off working together than on their own, a point that is illustrated in more than one way. Ryan tries to have his Halo moment and shoot his way past the sniper bots, but that ends with him screaming in retreat. Epzo keeps trying to go it alone so he can win the race and almost ends up getting killed more than once. It’s a bit obvious, but it’s also a solid way to let plot complement a story’s theme.

By the way, sniper bots...I kind of wish that we had spent more time on that. Or maybe not. Maybe it would have just turned out to be a bit too much like Raston Warrior Robots.... Ether way, we did get some good action sequences out of them.

What we also get are some questions and connections without resolutions. So...apparently the Stenza which attacked Earth in the first episode was also involved with wiping out Epzo’s and Angstrom’s planets? And had something to do with the scientists who were captured and tortured into making the planet Desolation a killing test ground? I’m thinking we might have a season long plot line forming here. 

Much more distressing to me was that bit where the sentient mummy wrappings (yes, that’s what they looked like to me) became all cryptic while taunting the Doctor and mentioning things like “the Timeless Child”. We’re not going to have another Moffat type build up to absolutely nothing, are we? (I keep trying to forget about “the Hybrid”...). I guess only time will tell....

I suppose it is nice to have a happy ending with everyone living this time (the Ninth Doctor would be so proud...), but it did feel more than a bit forced for Epzo to suddenly decide to cooperate to give himself and Angstrom a win to save their families. Especially when you consider his firm “I have to be out for me because no one else will” stance for the rest of the episode. Having seen a character with a similar viewpoint develop and change more gradually on Doctor Who in the past (Turlough), it feels odd to have Epzo reform so quickly. 

Chibnall wisely put an end to the Doctor chasing the TARDIS by having it appear at the end...with a new interior and everything. I’m sorry, Doctor, but while you might like it for once in your lifetimes, I wasn’t that thrilled with it. But maybe it will grow on me.

Character Thoughts

While Epzo’s characterization mainly revolved around the theme of not trusting others and only relying on one’s self, Angstrom’s characterization felt more subtle. I enjoyed her interactions with Yasmin and the Doctor when talking about family and the burden she has to save them. 

On a slightly rant-y side note, I did notice the moment where Graham mentioned that the Stenza was responsible for his wife’s death and Angstrom responded “mine too”. As it played out in the episode, it was a gentle moment of solidarity between a companion and a guest character. But I also have to wonder if moments like this are what some people were raving about with Doctor Who suddenly becoming all “SJW, virtue-signaling”. Really? Because of a casual mention like that? If anything, I thought it hit just the right note of making sure to acknowledge representation while also not drawing undue attention to itself. Geez, some people are just awful....

We’re also given some more development on the ongoing situation between Ryan and Graham. Ryan still can’t see Graham as his family while Graham clearly wishes he would. Although, we’ve also seen hints of how Graham can probably seem like a patronizing, “back in my day we knew things” kind of guy even if he isn’t trying to come off that way. Thus, I like how the writers are not making any resolution between them easy and quick.  And I look forward to seeing how they will continue this through the season.

Sadly, Yasmin didn’t seem to have as much to do, other than be a sounding board for Angstrom’s characterization. Then again, their moments were lovely and it’s unrealistic to expect the writers to full flesh out such a large companion team with every episode. So I’m hoping her turn will come later.

The Doctor, well the Doctor continues to intrigue me as far as how Whittaker is developing her.  Her scene with the holographic Ilin was a nice bit of snark and sparring. And she’s continuing to show other classic Doctor traits such as her abhorrence for guns and violence and her insatiable curiosity about everything going on around her. 

One important thing that I really appreciate is that, during those times when it seems like she’s not trusted or people around her have her doubts about her pulling off her plans and promises, it has nothing to do with her being a woman. Instead, it has everything to do with her being a high-energy babbling, flake-o who gets distracted by everything...at least on the surface.  XD

And I love that. I love that she’s not taken seriously at times because she just can’t stop being herself as well as perhaps her apparent youth (which implies inexperience). It reminds me a lot of what Five and Eleven had to put up with at times when people mistook their youthful appearance and enthusiasm for naivete. 

I think that one thing that surprised me though was that moment of faltering confidence at the end of the episode. It’s rare for the Doctor to openly express dismay over not following through with a promise and even though she brushed it off once she was in the TARDIS again, it was a moment of vulnerability that’s impossible to forget.

The Last Word

Was this a perfect episode with neatly tied up plot resolution? No. It had it’s thin parts and bits that could have been developed better. 

Did it meet my expectations for a Doctor Who romp? Actually, yes. The plot moved along at a good pace while still giving us some substantial characterization. The camera and effects looked great and we’re given some questions to keep thinking about for later episodes.

And while it didn’t end on another mind-blowing cliffhanger, there’s enough good will built up by the end that I certainly want to see what lies ahead for our new friends in the TARDIS.

#Doctor Who #series eleven musings #the ghost monument #thirteenth doctor

[doctorwhonews]

Resolution

Latest Review: Writer: Chris Chibnall  Director: Wayne Yip Executive Producers: Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens Starring: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Charlotte Ritchie, Nikesh Patel, Daniel Adegboyega and Nick Briggs BBC One (UK) First broadcast Tuesday January 1st 2019 It may have displaced Doctor Who's Christmas Day tradition, but the "spatial shift" in TV listings for 'Resolution' made this story no less of a gift. With sections of fandom wanting a return of old monsters, and with some arguing for stronger narrative threats for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor to face off against, 'Resolution' delivered in spades. And though it might be a truism to suggest that no new Doctor is truly forged in steeliness until they have faced the Daleks, it's a piece of lore that's extremely well borne out here. And what a Dalek! Given the presence of a lone reconnaissance scout, this immediately had the feel of 2005's Rob Shearman-penned story, albeit reworked through the distinctive filter of Chris Chibnall's vision for Who. A steelpunk Dalek neatly recapped the sonic screwdriver's new origin story from S11.e1, with Chibnall again deciding to cast his showrunner's remit to 'make it new' into the narrative universe, having both Doctor and Dalek recreate their own remembered versions of the show's icons. At first, I was concerned by the DIY Dalek's design -- it reminded me of unofficial replicas and assorted fan builds seen over the years -- but on reflection, there was just the right blend of RTD-era industrial vibe, innovation (including the red-lit section set within the outer casing) and clanking homespun realism, given the story's clear justification for all this. The resulting 'Sheffield steel dalek' will likely prove to be a one-off boon to merchandising ranges, but Chibnall astutely mined Dalek mythology for some striking images and pay-offs; the mutant-on-the-back recalled iconic imagery from 'Planet of the Spiders' more than previous Dalek tales (and was occasionally a touch unconvincing, for my money), whilst the use of Dalek 'bumps' as housings for rocket-launchers was nothing less than inspired. This may have felt more like 'trad' Doctor Who at times, but it was also full of surprises and brilliant bits of imagination. Having the Doctor confront this Dalek inside GCHQ was probably my favourite moment of series 11, combining a realist/spy-thriller version of how a lone Dalek might actually try to seize power in today's Britain with the inventiveness of Doctor Who at its very best. There was an air of inevitability about the scenario, once you realised where the script was going, but it fused the ordinary and the fantastical in a perfect way for a post-Snowden culture. Likewise, removing all wifi -- no Internet and no Netflix! -- made the Doctor's arch-enemy a resolutely contemporary menace, even if the 'family cutaway' struck a slight misstep in terms of its broad comic intent and clunkiness. Another inspired moment, however, was the way that UNIT's non-involvement was tackled. Undoubtedly well aware of old-school fan complaints along the lines of "why weren't UNIT called in?", the showrunner dispatched these mercilessly. But the presence of a call centre operative reading off her computer screen put UNIT's demise squarely into the context of government efficiency savings, as well as implicitly evoking Brexit-style wrangling over international funding. Any long-term fans pondering how UNIT could have been so savagely undone via these real-world resonances might want to additionally consider the extent to which UNIT perhaps belongs properly and organisationally to the age of 1970s' public services and internationalism -- a world now undermined by decades of neoliberalism (traversing both major UK political parties). The scene may be strongly satirical, but its commentary remains perfectly evident: we can't have nice things like UNIT via any current politics of austerity or isolationism. Instead, extraterrestrial-incursion security has seemingly been privatised, resulting in MDZ's feeble defence of the former 'Black Archive' (you can't imagine Kate Stewart or Osgood allowing a Dalek scout to wander off with weaponry and propulsion systems).               This was very much a two-pronged 'Special'; a sort of double-A-side seeking to combine Dalek shenanigans with the emotional weight of Ryan's father reappearing. Perhaps these strands didn't always rest side-by-side as comfortably as the features of Aaron's combination oven, but on the whole 'Resolution' was a successful hybrid. It followed a textbook pattern by uniting its main plot threads at the denouement, both thanks to Aaron's engineering specs, and via the sting-in-the-tentacle of the Dalek's desperate final attempt at human possession. The thirteenth Doctor remained characteristically fallible, mind you, with her Dalek showdowns never quite going according to plan, and her "squid-sized vacuum corridor" expanding to human-sized proportions with almost fatal consequences. All of this allowed 'Resolution' to re-articulate Chris Chibnall's mission statement for Who -- that the Doctor's "fam" should be just as important as the Doctor herself. And so it is Aaron and Ryan who, acting together through forgiveness and love, finally overcome the Dalek's tenacity. In one strange moment, it even feels as though the script is reaching towards a parallel between family and monstrosity -- just as family is more than DNA and a name, as Graham tells Aaron, then so too is the Dalek more than a DNA identification and a matter of naming. Both Dalekhood and fatherhood hinge on behaviour, meaning that just as Aaron has to prove his status to Ryan then the Dalek is equally required to prove its nature to new viewers and new fans. This it duly does, the episode being jam-packed with gloriously retro extermination effects and Dalek ruthlessness. And though monstrosity and family are eventually opposed, with the "extended fam" predictably defeating the monster of the year, it is striking, in an episode where the Dalek's identity is initially a matter of DNA testing and naming, that the familial and the monstrous should ghost across one another.   This is a story firing on all machine-tooled cylinders. The direction from Wayne Yip is brilliantly kinetic and well-judged throughout, and the acting performances are uniformly first-rate. I'd especially single out Charlotte Ritchie, who does a lot of great work as Lin to really sell the Dalek 'pilot' concept, switching through various gradations of embodied Dalekness. In addition, Nick Briggs is on superb form, relishing the chance to do things such as providing maniacally extended and chilling Dalek laughter. I still miss the pre-credits sequence, though. The response to Graham's much-trailed question, "does it have a name?", would have been intensified by immediately then crashing into the titles. OK, cutting the title sequence buys a little more story time, but a few judicious trims here and there could easily have made room for the titles, and for a more dramatic punctuation of the Doctor's reveal of the Daleks. I hope that pre-credits scenes are restored across series 12. And on this showing, the return of the Daleks -- plural and non-DIY this time -- would also be most welcome in 2020. Regardless of how series 11 is packaged on DVD/blu-ray, it's difficult not to view this as anything other than the true finale to Jodie Whittaker's first season. The DNA of Chris Chibnall's vision for the show is coded right through it: fantasy plus grounded social/political resonance plus emotional realism, all added to an ethic of teamwork and elective family rather than Time Lord (super-)heroics standing front-and-centre. Yes, at times this Doctor seems more reactive or passive than in the past, as well as less torn by internal demons, and less shadowed by back-story mysteries. It makes the Doctor far less of a focal point, freeing up narrative space and time for at least some of the "fam", and reconfiguring Who in a more inclusive and mentoring mode than arguably ever before. Chibnall's work hasn't just been about bringing in new writers' voices, featuring new locales, and emphasising a renewed sense of Doctor Who's capacities to speak back to power. He has also resolved to give the Doctor a radical new stripe of narrative agency too, one less omnipotent, less certain, and more energisingly hopeful. And that, for me, is a resolution worth championing.                                          http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2019/01/resolution.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[feelieking]

Season 11

Season 11 of the modern Doctor Who has now wound up, and I’ve been trying to collate my thoughts about it.  (Not to mention actually making myself write them down – gods, I hate the process of typing things up!)  It’s been an odd beast – pretty much any other season, I could tell you what I loved and what I hated, but I don’t think I loved or hated anything here.  Bear in mind that this post will have spoilers for the entire series and the New Year special.

 First thing’s first – Jodie Whittaker was a controversial casting choice (although I feel that a lot of the controversy was manufactured.)  She’s fantastic – right from the moment she falls through the train roof, she *is* the Doctor.  

 The three companions are all great but, as many other commentators have said, there are too many; character development – especially that of Yas – has really suffered.  Compare with season 10, when the first three episodes focussed hugely on Bill.  By the end, it really felt like we knew her.  (And as an aside, with no disrespect intended towards the current cast, how amazing would a series starring Jodie Whittaker and Pearl Mackie have been?)  While Graham, Ryan or Yas never spent a whole story locked in the TARDIS doing a science experiment, it still feels like we know them a lot less as people.  

 Possibly the most successful of the three companions has been Graham, whom we’ve seen dealing with the death of his wife and trying to build a relationship with his step-grandson.  A lot of commentators were sceptical about the casting of Bradley Walsh, but he has turned in a subtle a nuanced performance.  Ryan’s main character hook was his dyspraxia which, after the first episode, barely seemed to feature – a dyspraxic friend of mine has commented that he’s still waiting to see Ryan fall up the stairs.  Yas… has a frustrating family and wants more out of life.  That’s about as much as I can think of to say.  It’s a shame, because all three actors are fab – although it feels sadly ironic that, of the four main companion figures in the first episode, the most intriguing and well developed is the one who falls to her death.

 Visually, this series has looked gorgeous.  The cinematography is beautiful, especially the overseas location filming.  But most episodes have barely any guest characters, which oddly makes them feel empty and cheap.  Occasionally the lack of guest cast suits the tone of the episode – the Ghost Monument being the prime example – but oftentimes things feel pretty barren.  One visual element which I do feel disappointed by is the new TARDIS set – there are lots of fantastic ideas there, but over all it’s just not doing it for me.  The previous set, more than any other, felt like a space where people actually lived; this feels far emptier and, while there are lots of great individual elements on the console, the big chunk of “crystal” in the middle looks cheap and nasty.

 On the plus side, I love the new title sequence and theme tune.  The incidental music has been excellent as well, in spite of fears from some corners of twitter that there was some how an inverse relationship between melanin and musical ability(!)  Murray Gold was extremely talented and wrote some truly magnificent pieces, but sometimes his incidental music got too bombastic and intrusive. Segun Akinola has been a real breath of fresh air.

 As for the episodes themselves, the ones set in the past have tended to be the best.  The Withfinders was my favourite episode of the season, with a strong plot, proper emotion, and some meaty guest roles.  It was let down by the last ten minutes, where everything suddenly got really schlocky, which was a shame; it would have been nice if the fantastical elements of the script could have been given the same degree of care as the human elements.

 Rosa presented us with someone trying to subvert the course of history, and our heroes having to keep it on track, something that I don’t really think the series has done since the Meddling Monk stories back in the 60s. It was a novel approach that worked really well.  Some commentators have said that the episode was too heavy handed with its anti-racism message, but I’m not convinced that “racism is bad” is a topic that either could or should be approached with much of a degree of subtlety.  

 Demons of the Punjab was a beautiful episode, filled with emotion that could have easily been mawkish, but never was.  I feel it could have been made even better, however, if they’d been brave enough to do it as a pure historical, without any alien or sci-fi elements.

 The modern day and futuristic episodes were a mixed bag. The first two were probably the most successful, focussing on the Doctor and her companions and running them through the gauntlet.  Arachnids in the UK started off well, but fizzled out towards the end, and I don’t remotely buy the idea that slowly starving to death is a “humane” end.  I enjoyed Kerblam! and It Takes You Away a lot – the latter succeeded for me with its lovely moments between Graham and Grace, but suffered by abandoning its eerie haunted house plot and style a bit too early. 

The season finale was… underwhelming.  The Doctor saving the day with technobabble and throwing lots of levers in the TARDIS is always going to be disappointing, and Tim Shaw, despite having a really great voice, is a mediocre villain at best.  One of the big failings of this series that that there hasn’t been a really strong villain or monster for the Doctor t play against; the alien threats have either been schlocky, generic (hello Sniperbots), forgettable, or not a threat in the first place.  The return of the Dalek on New Year’s Day felt like a real step in the right direction in that regard (I loved the junkyard casing) but that was undercut by, again, too much of the episode involving the Doctor throwing levers in the TARDIS to sort things out, and the inexplicable deus ex microwave.

 Overall, the word I’d use to describe this season is mediocre – nothing sang, and nothing stank.  For me, Season 10 was the strongest series of modern Who by a country mile, so Season 11 had a tough job to follow it up.  There’s clearly a lot of potential here and, again, Jodie and the cast are superb, so I really hope that that potential is properly seized up for Season 12.  

#writings #doctor who

[timeagainreviews]

Those are excellent nose hairs

Hello friends! It's been a long weekend for yours truly, as I was in Nottingham for a convention. My hooves are very tired. This review is going up a bit later than I would like as the hotel I was staying at's TV's volume only went up to fifteen, which made it hard for me to watch the episode properly. Now that I'm home and have watched the episode with the sound full blast, I can give it a proper review.

When we last left the Doctor and her crew, they were suspended in space. Of course, none of us were actually worried, after all, they showed the shot of them being picked up in the series trailer! Also, come on, they're not gonna kill our friends. In true Doctor Who fashion, the cliffhanger was resolved in seconds. Graham and Ryan find themselves aboard a spaceship with a standoffish captain named Angstrom. She doesn't trust them, despite saving their lives. Yaz awakens aboard a different ship in a sort of stasis capsule to the sound of the Doctor and the ship's captain Epzo bickering. Neither one of them can agree on the best way to crash-land Epzo's ship- "Cerebos."

Upon landing on the planet, Ryan, Graham, and Angstrom begin walking toward a still unknown destination. From above comes Cerebos, like a comet falling from the sky, directly at them. Having never seen a science fiction movie, the three of them run in the direction of the ship's trajectory, as opposed to, you know, left or right. The ship skids through a ravine and it's not until the Doctor yells "Brakes!" does the ship stop, due to previously unseen wheels.

Happy to see each other alive, the Doctor and her new friends take a moment to appreciate the fact that they're on their first alien planet. They also learn that Epzo and Angstrom are familiar with one another as competitors. Suddenly, an alarm sounds, beckoning them toward a mysterious destination, which turns out to be a tent in the middle of a desert where the hologram of a callous wealthy man named Ilin sits like a king. Opulence drips from him despite his shabby digs.

We learn that Ilin is the facilitator of the last "Rally of the 12 Galaxies," or as the Doctor put it, "Paris-Dakar in space.” The prize is an exorbitant amount of money, enough to set the winner for life. Out of 4,000 entrants, Epzo and Angstrom are the only two left. The name of the planet on which everyone has found themselves is most closely translated to "Desolation," and it's the final leg of the race.

The racers final task is to navigate Desolation, a planet "made cruel," toward the titular "Ghost Monument." The Doctor being who she is, asks to know the appearance of the Ghost Monument. Ilin, annoyed by the request, reluctantly presents a holographic image of the monument. The Ghost Monument, much to the Doctor's delight, is none other than her TARDIS, which has been phasing into existence every 1000 cycles. Due to the nature of the time machine, it appears to have been doing so for a very long time. It's a moment in the episode that feels genuinely gratifying, as the pieces for our new Doctor are beginning to fall into place.

Ilin and his tent disappear instantly, leaving everyone at the mercy of this cruel planet. Strewn about are what looks like the remnants of a society. Structures are tangled with strange gauzy strips of fabric. Buildings are in ruin. The Doctor can't make heads or tails what happened to this civilisation. The water is full of carnivorous bacteria, the air is poison, and there are sniper robots. In a scene that evoked strong "Keys of Marinus," vibes, they must travel across a deadly body of water, aboard an abandoned boat.

In these moments, we're given a further glimpse into the motivations of both Epzo and Angstrom. Angstrom wants to win the race so she can save what's left of her family from tyranny, while Epzo is simply a very lonely man with a painful past ripped straight out of the movie Wetlands (of all places). On the other hand, we don't get much more of a glimpse into the Doctor's new companions. We learn that Yaz's family is a bit irritating, and incomplete, as she doesn't mention a mother. Ryan and Graham are still basically where we left off- Ryan won't call Graham granddad, and Graham still doesn't know how to reach him. Ryan still struggles with ladder-related dyspraxia, but it seems to disappear when he takes out a group of sniper bots with one of their own weapons. There seems to be a sort of fluctuation in characterisation present in this, and last week's scripts.

The Doctor is presented in a way that is meant to illustrate not only her competence but also her philosophy. This is where Chris Chibnall's writing has continually stuck in my craw. As with last week, where the Doctor denounced knives, despite having travelled with two knife-wielding companions in the past, she goes on about guns once more. We all know the Doctor is against guns, but why is it not okay to kill lifeless sniper robots with a gun, but okay to kill all of them with an electromagnetic pulse? The Doctor does these kinds of things all the time, but Chibnall has brought our attention to it.

The Doctor helps the racers and her friends through what looks like a dilapidated parking garage filled with sniper bots into an underground network of tunnels and chambers. While underground, the Doctor learns that our baddies from last week, the Stenza, had forced the scientists of the world above to create weapons of death to the point that it killed their planet. We also learn that both Graham in Angstrom lost their wives to the Stenza.

After the race is over, only the Doctor and her new friends remain, stuck on the surface of Desolation. The Doctor is at one of her lowest points, as even she is beginning to doubt herself. In a very sweet show of camaraderie, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham reinforce their belief in the Doctor. It is at this moment when a glimmer of hope is heard in a familiar sound. Last week I voiced my concern that the Doctor might have to "earn," her TARDIS back. Much to my relief, this was not the case. Evidently, it was a case that the TARDIS saw the Doctor was now a woman, and her whole “bachelor pad,” with candle wax dribble and books on the stairs was suddenly unsuitable. “Out you go, while I spruce up!” And I’m glad for it. Not only would a Doctor without her TARDIS story have been tedious, it would have also been a rather incomplete feeling series. With a new Doctor, it's good to have a bit of the familiar around, even if it looks a bit different!

In a line that is probably now my new sexuality, the Doctor pleads with the TARDIS and says "Come to daddy... er mummy." Our trusty blue box finally manages to materialise, and like something out of a Lassie movie, or even a love story, the Doctor runs to it. It's a truly beautiful moment that left me in tears. In my review for "An Unearthly Child," I talked about the first TARDIS reveal. It's seldom, however, that we get to see the Doctor have the same reaction to seeing the inside of her TARDIS, which is why this one is so great. Having been apart from what is possibly her oldest friend, she gets to rediscover her new interior alongside her companions. And like that, the show feels like it can truly move forward.

Now then, let’s talk about what worked, and what didn't. First of all, how about that introduction? Yet another one of my fears was that Doctor Who had gone the way of many modern television series, and dumped the intro, which would have been a crime! Thankfully, this was not an issue. I mentioned earlier the "Keys to Marinus vibe," I got from this episode. That intro is pure Hartnell era, through and through. After getting a better listen to Segun Akinola's theme tune, I must say I like it. Though I feel that some of the effects placed upon the sound seem to cancel out certain notes. While it lacks the high energy of some of the previous themes of the "new Who" era, it gains a level of creepiness and danger we've not seen since the 70's.

The story itself is pretty simple, but that's not any kind of judgement on my behalf. Simple can be a welcome break after Moffat's long-winded, and often unfulfilling story arcs. Though the bit about "The Timeless Child," was so Easter eggy, that I thought Moffat may have snuck into the writing room with a Chris Chibnall mask and monkeyed with the script. I'll be honest, I have zero interest in that storyline. It's called Doctor Who, not Doctor Who was Once a Little Kid Known as the Timeless Child. IDGAF.

One of the interesting elements of these past two episodes has been Chibnall's characterisation of the Doctor. In some ways, it's evident how well he knows the character. Simply in the manner by which the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver, do we see her character come out. The sonic is often criticised as a plot-convenient deus ex machina, but in many ways, it is the Doctor condensed into an object. It fixes things and opens the doors to new possibilities. The Doctor tries to teach her companions her philosophy, not with weapons, but with hope.

I said earlier how Chibnall has also, a somewhat muddied philosophy of the Doctor. His sophisticated ideas, don't really stand up to their own scrutiny. When the Doctor and her companions have their backs against the wall, it's suddenly ok to destroy the Remnants (killer strips of fabric now animated under the night sky), with a blaze of fire. What was different between these and the sniper robots? The Remnants could actually speak, yet it's less ok to shoot the mindless robots because...guns? These aren't massive sins, but they are worrisome. As I've said, Chris Chibnall is the one element of the new series that has worried me. Even his one-off jokes can serve as tiny red flags.

In the previous episode, we learn that the Doctor has empty pockets, something that had come up more than once in "The Woman Who Fell to Earth." However, in this episode, it turns out that she has filled her pockets. It would make sense if the object she pulls out of her coat were merely a simple pair of sunglasses. But these weren't just any sunglasses, these once belonged to either Pythagoras or Audrey Hepburn. Which is fine, it's cute, right? But where did they come from? Her coat from her days as a white haired Scotsman was empty, and her new coat came from a charity shop. With no TARDIS, how does she get a pair of sunglasses from one of two dead people? Perhaps it's as River says- the Doctor lies. Or perhaps Chibnall just wanted a cute joke. Either way, Graham looks fabulous in those shades.

Evidently, Chris Chibnall's true talent lies in being able to recognise talent. He's found a wonderful group of actors and directors. Jodie Whittaker is a genius pick for the Doctor. Segun Akinola is brilliant in his musical direction. Even his vision for what the series should look like is inspired. The retro vibe suits not only the Thirteenth Doctor but also the concept of the first female Doctor. Something I had hoped they wouldn't ignore. While some of the cinematography has been frustrating, with close-ups cropping off 20% of actor's faces, and points of focus not always being properly framed, it's also kinetic and gorgeous. The new TARDIS control room is beautiful. I'm hoping the little spinning crystal TARDIS serves a function of some sort, as well as the hourglass, which was perplexing in its function (as well the TARDIS should be). My favourite bit was the little custard cream biscuit dispenser. Pure cuteness, that.

This episode has been particularly hard to review, as I didn't hate it, not by far. But it was also disjointed and frustrating at points as well. I'm still giving a lot of leeway to everyone involved, as it's early days. Neither Stephen Moffat or Russell T. Davies wrote a homerun within their first two episodes. Chris Chibnall has managed to breathe new life into the series again, which is a feat unto itself. The TARDIS has done herself up, and so has the show. And as the Doctor said, "I really like it."

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The Trouble with Alien Zombies

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Soon we’re going to be watching Zack Snyder leave behind the quest for a “grown-up” superhero movie and return to his old playground, the zombie movie. Army of the Dead looks like a huge amount of fun and leaves us wondering why nobody has made a zombie heist movie before (except for Train to Busan sequel, Peninsula), but one of the plot details that has leaked about the film is that Area 51 plays a significant role.

This suggests that the zombie plague may be extraterrestrial in origin. Like most subversions of the zombie apocalypse genre (although Army of the Dead promises a much smaller and more contained “apocalypse” so that all that cash they steal is still worth something) this is actually a plot twist you can trace back to the earliest roots of the genre.

In Night of the Living Dead, the zombie apocalypse (although again, by the end of the film the “ghouls” seem to have been mostly mopped up) is the result of strange radiation emerging from a probe that has returned from Venus. The trope goes back even further than that.

One of the few films that can make a claim to an earlier take on the zombie apocalypse than Night of the Living Dead is the timeless classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. In that film, which we will not be making any jokes about, aliens reanimate the recently dead and drive them to attack the capital cities of the Earth.

In fact, if you want to find pre-George Romero examples of zombie apocalypse stories, the original series of Star Trek has done two. In the episode “Miri” the Enterprise encounters an exact duplicate of Earth, except that humanity has been wiped out by a deadly pandemic that turns every adult human into a violent, raging monster. It’s a premise explored in more detail by Charlie Higson’s YA zombie series The Enemy, and the Netflix series Daybreak.

Star Trek also gives us the brilliantly titled “Operation — Annihilate!”, where a swarm of spacefaring parasites sweep through the galaxy, infecting humanoids and driving them to a violent rage.

Yes, zombie purists might claim both of these are close to 28 Days Later’s “Rage infected humans” than true zombies, but in truth, the genre is big enough to include multitudes, and anything that A: uses human bodies, to B: create more entities like itself, while C: Not appearing to be intelligent, will usually create a story that looks a lot like a zombie story.

Indeed, Star Trek would come back to space zombies again, once more in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, “Impulse” and again in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Is There Death on Mars?

Star Trek is not alone in drinking from this particular well. Early in its run Dark Matter had a space zombie episode. Doctor Who has done two space zombie episodes in the new series alone, “The Waters of Mars”, and “Oxygen” (which used zombie movie tropes for their intended purpose- bringing down capitalism), and that’s just including the ones actually set in space. Hell, even the primitive bandage-and-hospital-gown-wearing Cybermen from “The Doctor Falls” have a very George Romero vibe to them.

The appeal of putting a zombie in a spaceship for a TV show is easy to see. Zombies are a cool and instantly recognisable monster. Spaceships are a cool and instantly recognisable setting. What’s more, while your production values may vary, zombies on a spaceship is a pretty damn cheap concept to realise on screen. Zombies are just however many extras you can afford with some gory make-up. All you need for a spaceship is some suitably set-dressed corridors and maybe a couple of exterior model shots if you’re feeling swish.

And as with the zombie apocalypse genre as a whole, the audience instantly and instinctively understands “the rules” of a zombie story, allowing you to focus on your characters and the solutions they come up with.

The movies are no stranger to the space zombie either. The most straightforward example being The Last Days on Mars, which is pretty much a note-for-note remake of Doctor Who’s “The Waters of Mars” but without David Tennant. Mars is a popular venue, in fact as we see also Martian zombie apocalypses in Doom (2005) and Doom Annihilation (neither of which I watched to research this article, because there are limits). Even the “Ghosts” in Ghosts of Mars (which I did watch) may resemble more of a cross between Mad Max baddies and Evil Dead’s Deadites than zombies, but still, have a certain zombieness about them.

Most recently, in this last year Bruce Willis has starred in not one, but two movies with sub-Doctor Who production values where he fights space zombie-like adversaries (I have watched Breach/Anti-Life and Cosmic Sin, so don’t know why I thought I could get away with being snobby about the Doom movies earlier).

But Doom also raises another point about space zombies – a really popular venue for the extra-terrestrial undead is videogames.

This is for surprisingly very similar reasons to why space zombies are popular on telly and in film. Videogames will get far more creative in designing the appearance of their space zombies  – with the Dead Space trilogy setting the bar with their gloriously gory Necromorphs – but the AI for a zombie, environmental navigation aside, seldom needs to be much more complicated than that of a Pac-Man ghost. Space has been a popular videogame setting for as long as videogames have been a thing, thanks to the handy black background it offers, and once again, corridors.

We’ve seen them in Dead Space, in all the Doom games, but also the Halo games in the form of the fungal, cancerous looking, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis-inspired Flood. Mass Effect gives us colonists zombified by the sentient Thorian plant, as well as the more technological “Husks”. And of course, there’s that one Call of Duty map.

Even now the makers of the original Dead Space games are looking to get back in on the action with the upcoming game, The Callisto Protocol.

And yet, while the appeal of space zombies is undeniable, by the same token they just don’t feel quite like “proper” zombie stories.

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Shout “Brains!”

The problem is this: Your archetypical zombie story is ultimately a siege narrative. Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, even twists on the formula like 28 Days Later, Train to Busan, and Pontypool all operate on a similar premise. You and some humans you probably don’t get on with are trapped in a structure (in Train it’s a moving structure, but still counts). Outside of that structure, there are somewhere between hundreds and thousands of zombified humans who want to get in and kill you. The humans keep arguing until the zombies get in and kill everyone.

For this to work you need a structure with a lot of room around it, and a big population of people to be turned into zombies.

Unfortunately the living conditions in space, even in our wildest space future fantasies, tend to be A: Quite claustrophobic, and B: Don’t have many people in.

Even in Dead Space, arguably the best example of a space zombie story, you very often find yourself thinking that if zombies hadn’t killed off this mining ship/space station/mining colony, overpopulation would have.

At the same time, spaceships, space stations and colonies tend to have really good, robust metal doors separating any two parts of the habitat, quickly reducing any zombie plotline to this XKCD cartoon.

But there are workarounds, and ways to use these restrictions to your advantage. Zombies are, by nature, pretty rubbish, slow-moving, stupid, easy to kill in small numbers. Most zombie stories get around this issue by throwing loads of them at you. Space zombie movies can make use of those corridors we mentioned earlier, showing how much scarier a single zombie can be in enforced close quarters.

Zombies also have one major advantage over their living victims – they don’t need to breathe. This is a major plus point in space, offering you the chance to have hordes of zombies crawling along the outer hull of the ship – something we’ve seen in Dead Space and Doctor Who’s “Oxygen”.

At the same time, the space setting also emphasises another key aspect of the zombie story – resource management. In space there is no huge abundance of well-stocked shopping malls or bunkers full of firearms. One of the ways The Last Days on Mars manages to make its very small number of zombies threatening is that their small hab modules have very little that you could use as a weapon.

And yet, space zombies still lack a certain something of their terrestrial counterparts.

It’s Undeath, Jim, but Not as We Know It

The thing is, aside from anything else, zombies are a transformation of the familiar. They look like more beaten-up versions of your neighbours and co-workers. The zombie apocalypse is a scene you can easily imagine on your street, at your pub, your local shopping centre.

Army of the Dead gets this – no matter where you are in the world, the iconography of the Las Vegas strip is familiar and we enjoy seeing it overrun by the undead.

And spaceships just aren’t. You might conceivably end up on holiday in Vegas. You’re statistically unlikely to be an astronaut.

But it’s more than that. Zombies are far more than cheap monsters that require little in the way of make-up or AI programming. The symbolism they carry is incredibly weighty. Earthly zombies have been used to represent capitalism, conformity, Vietnam soldiers, couch potato culture, mob mentality, our instinct towards violence, poverty, our obsession with mobile phones, and our ability to dehumanise one another.

Divorced from our world, from us as we recognise ourselves, that symbolism becomes a lot harder to nail. The zombies in The Last Days on Mars are just zombies. Dead Space’s Necromorphs are maybe a legally-safe satire on Scientology? Pandorum gives us extremely pale evolved human descendants that are extremely zombie-ish, and they certainly exhibit some of the worst bits of humanity, but they also live in a darkened, claustrophobic Hell, so it’s hard to hold it against them.

Zombies rarely represent anything in the way Earth-bound zombies do.

At least, nothing human.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin features a sentient alien slime mould-like creature that, in its curiosity and need to explore, infiltrates and takes over the nervous system of the humans it encounters. To an outside observer, they look extremely like zombies, but the lifeform itself isn’t aggressive, just very, very alien. Andrew Skinner’s Steel Frame gives us not only space zombies, but space zombie mechs, and again the “Flood” (not the Halo one) that infects them is implied to be a kind of hivemind.

Most of the space zombies we’ve seen here aren’t what purists would call “true zombies” but are some manner of hivemind. This is true of Halo’s Flood, Mass Effect’s Thorians and Husks, and if we throw the doors to zombie-dom wide open, while they’re very different in the TV series, the Borg of Star Trek: First Contact come across as alien cyber-zombies.

One book to feature relatively harmless alien-created zombies is Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic. In that book the aliens aren’t robots or little green men, we just encounter their leftovers and garbage, which are artefacts strange and incomprehensible to humans. That these artefacts somehow raise the dead as mindless automata is a minor side issue – the book is about how alien intelligence might be something so different from ourselves we don’t even recognise it as intelligence.

If there is a space for alien zombies and zombie astronauts in the zombie pantheon, maybe it’s there. Space zombies are scary because they look like us but think so differently that we can’t comprehend them, while Earth zombies are scary because we have oh so much in common with them.

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Chris Farnell is the author of Fermi’s Progress, a series of novellas about a prototype FTL ship that blows up every planet it encounters. The latest instalment, Descartesmageddon, features an alien planet undergoing a very different kind of zombie apocalypse. It is available at Scarlet Ferret and Amazon.

The post The Trouble with Alien Zombies appeared first on Den of Geek.

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