Come on: you didn't ACTUALLY think Helen and I could wait until we got home Sunday afternoon to watch the Mid-Season Finale for Doctor Who?!
Inevitably, everyone, SPOILER-TASTIC
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Still here? Good.
Needless to say: we loved it. Helen felt vindicated after she had worked out what was going on with River Song during the week (and I had refused to let her even speculate to me - amazingly I had managed to stay pretty spoiler-free under the circs and I wanted no part of random storyline development speculation).
Come about 11.30pm last night we set up the hotel iMac and got the BBC iPlayer going and sat down to indulge.
What I loved
* Sorry, but as much as I know it annoys some people - both old skool DW fans and some of those acquired during the Tennant years - I really love the twisty timey wimey too-clever-for-it-own-good storylines that Moffat provides. Yes, quite often my brain hurts from the stretching to keep up and make some sense of it all, but I LIKE that. If I can cope with Inception, I can sure cope with 'ganger' figures. Didn't see the 'ganger' trick with Melody coming at all ...
* the Doctor/Matt Smith: he's pretty damn good isn't he? Totally different from Tennant in the best possible ways, but just so Doctor-ish. Loved the Captain Runaway speech.
* Rory: ah, Go Rory! What a wonderful trajectory this character is continuing on. I punched the air with glee as he delivered his message from the Doctor to the Cybermen with the explosion behind him. I wanted to hug him when I realised - with hindsight - the significance of his meeting with River where she refuses to go to Demon's Run yet. And just generally he was, brilliant. He's the real Xander of this narrative isn't he?
* Amy: she is DEVOTED to her husband; the relationship to the Doctor is something else entirely. But bless her poor bereaved soul for losing her child again (and yet....)
* Song of Pond, River of Melody: awh, I just LOVED the way this was revealed. I don't care what limited sense it makes, I don't care if it makes the relationships weird. I just care that in that moment Helen squeed and danced a dance of victory for being right in her speculations and the loveliness of the prayer mat literally lit up the screen.
* The humour: oh what Moffat gets away with. To put in such a gratuitous 'joke' about the Silurian (1) and her female companion was hysterical (Neil took great pains to point out whether this was really appropriate for a children's programme, but heck they coped with all the Captain Jack stuff!). "Why do I stay with you?" (cue tongue flicking across the room to disable an errant prisoner). All that AND the lactating Sontaran, dedicated to his nurse role with the same passion they usually reserved for war. Hilarious (clearly I'm about 9 years old, though an incredibly socially advanced 9 year old).
* Body Horror: I exchanged comments with Frank Collins last week as we delighted in the return of body horror to DW in a fashion not really seen for some time now. Headless Monks - shudder.
What worked less well (but which I could cope with):
* the returning 'foes' on the Doctor's side. I sort of got it, but it did ring of the 'throw everything into the pot' approach. Could have worked just as well without some of these. I mean, did Moffat REALLY have to go to the trouble of paying RTD for 2 seconds of Judoon?
* Cybermen. I'm still waiting dude for when this pays off... I know it will, but at present it was really mostly an excuse for showing off the costumes again. Did still REALLY like Rory's speech to them though!
Overall verdict
I still love Doctor Who. Like The Fall, it's always different but always the same. And I like that. I love watching this, and rewatching this. And I can't say fairer than that for something that has been around for so long in so many different guises. The experience of watching it never makes me less than thrilled - heck I even liked the Pirates episode (which was pretty uniformly hated). And Saturday's episode just made me hit the ceiling with delight. The perfect end to the perfect day....
When's Hitler getting killed then? Four months time it seems....
(1) yes, I know: we can argue another time about Silurians / Eocenes / Sea Devils etc on another occasion
1 comment:
Wow, you sure SQUEE! a lot. Must be nice to have so many things to SQUEE! about.
I really liked the Wife episode the best - this one (except for the River reveal) was too - too - something. And all the untied lines - who shot the doctor? why was the girl in the suit? how did she end up with those guys on Earth? why did she die in that alley? we already know River's end, in the library, but so many possiblities until then.
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