Sunday, March 31, 2013

Beware the wi-fi: or "why didn't I realise what 'The Bells of St John' referred to? (Doctor Who season... ep 1)

It's back!



The Doctor is back!  And Clara is here (again!)



And why the HELL did I not realise what "The Bells of St John" would be referring to?



Ah yes?  I know why: I keep well away from indulging in "Spoilers"* I'm so spoiler-phobic that I don't even read most of DWM** until after I have seen the appropriate episodes.  I try to live for the surprise.

Oh and I can reiterate as stated previously, that since the disappointing series 5+6 Gavascon titles, the opening titles sequences have been getting more and more imaginative?  The colour-changing and increasingly sickly green ones for series 7 part 1, deteriorating as the episodes progressed to the doom of Amy and Rory was genius, and I'm LOVING the new titles which hark back to my youth with beautiful delight.

Awesome,

So: to the episode itself, which had plenty of whizz-bang action, a fair amount of cross-referencing pleasures for the nerds amongst us, and of course the spiffy Clara.




I have hopes for Clara: she's had her best introductions already of course (the Dalek! the governess!) so this episode had an impossibly high hurdle to climb over, but Clara still comes out swinging.

Okay, so I'd like them to tone down the sexy angle (bit tooooo flirty) but otherwise, I like that she's inquisitive without being too stupid.  Fractional things annoyed me: at least a line or action SHOWING the TARDIS doors shutting after the motorbike rides out would have been nice.  How much did the Shard pay to get to be in Doctor Who?  I hope it was a lot - generally the SFX were really nice looking this episode.  Oh yes, and good use of Celia Imrie as a HORRIBLE guest star.

Of course there is an irony in that trying to write this review I'm stuck with the internet connection (or rather lack thereof) from hell not-bloody-functioning-land.  And no I'm not using the bloody wi-fi.  Indeed, our wi-fi is secure but I do wonder if the neighbourhood net connections are not affected by stream-a-holics downloading gigabites of footage.

If I'm really lucky, they'd at least be streaming Doctor Who.

Hey ho.  Don't get lost in the Internet folks!




* On which note, I recently purchased the boxset of series 6 (The 'Silence' season, with Melody Pond and all that jazz), and I have to say REALLY enjoyed the little mini-episodes "Night and the Doctor")

* Doctor Who Magazine - and yes, note to self, I still don't have a bloody subscription.  Years of reading each month and yet I still don't save myself the money by getting a sub.  Truly am a numbskull.

4 comments:

Persephone said...

I wasn't spoiled because I had completely forgotten the plot of the Christmas special. (I just don't watch as carefully and frequently since David Tennant left -- I'm not proud of this.) And did you really think Celia Imrie's character was so horrible when it was revealed what she really was?

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

The thing that was in Celia Imrie's body/mind was horrible. Agreed - I didn't make that distinction clear ---- and it was pretty horrific to think that "factory settings" indicated that she'd been under the influence since she was a girl (since the blokes on the 'shop floor' [so to speak] returned to being plumbers etc. She'd been inhabited for a LONG time. *shudder*

JoeinVegas said...

The jumped right into the major season villain, didn't they?
I would much rather have Clara's smile than Amy's smirk.

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

I was awfully fond of Amy pond - not least because I totally loved Amelia Pond and itwas hard to separate the two in my mind. But yeah Clara has the most dazzling SMILE.