Doctor Who Review - 6x05: "The Rebel Flesh"

Dialogue Triumphs

The Doctor: “There are people coming. Well, almost…”

Amy: “Almost coming?”

The Doctor: “Almost people.”

***

Intercom: “Halt and remain calm!”

The Doctor: “Well, we’ve halted, how are we all doing on the ‘remain calm’ part?”

***

Jennifer: “I couldn’t get out of my harness. I thought I was going to die.”

Rory: “Welcome to my world.”

***

The Doctor: “You stopped his heart! He had a heart! Aorta, valves, a real human heart, and you stopped it!”

Dialogue Disasters

Amy: “Right, brilliant… lost?”

Forman Cleaves: “Okay…? Once a reading’s been taken, we can manipulate its molecular structure into anything – replicate the organism down to the hairs of its chinny-chin-chin.”

***

Rory: “For want of a better word: oww!”

***

The Doctor: “It is too dangerous out here with acid leaks!”

***

The Doctor: “Yes, it’s insane, and it’s about to get even more insanerer… is that a word?”

Double Entendres

The Doctor: “Assume the positions!”

The Review

The TARDIS crash-lands onto a small island on Earth after being struck by a solar tsunami. The island is home to an acid mining complex, run by a modest sized group of workers lead by a pragmatic foreman named Cleaves. The miners utilize synthetic flesh to create replicas of themselves, called “Gangers” (short for Doppelganger), that they control from the safety of harnesses, to avoid the natural hazards involved in mining acid. The complex, normally powered by solar flares, is being bombarded by the very solar tsunamis that forced the TARDIS into landing. The Doctor attempts to evacuate the workers, before the entire factory is destroyed, but fails to do so before another tsunami strikes, causing the Gangers to gain sentience from their human controllers. The Doctor not only must keep the Gangers and humans from murdering each other out of hysteria, but somehow get them all off the island before the next solar flare kills them all.

When it comes to a typical season of Doctor Who, there is no such thing as bowling a perfect three hundred. As solid as this season has been so far, it looks like The Rebel Flesh will end up being season six’s gutter ball (though, arguably, some may give that dubious title to The Curse of the Black Spot, although I really liked that episode… pirates-in-space notwithstanding). To be fair, it may be too soon to really label this episode a dud, since it’s a two-parter, and so the story isn’t even complete yet. However, I know I didn’t much care for this episode because after the cliffhanger, I was indifferent about how the story will conclude in next week’s episode. In fact, I almost stopped the episode before the “Next Week” trailer came on at the end credits. By the way, show of hands if you didn’t predict the cliffhanger? Yes, you there, the tubeworm in the back!

The main concept of the episode is clever, but I felt the plot dragged a bit, and the tension between humans and Gangers seems forced. Hostilities between the two factions is raised to the boiling point after Cleaves, in an act that ought to be labeled “Spaz Moment of the Year” for this season, outright kills one of the Gangers with an electrical prod for no other reason than to prove the point that the Gangers are merely equipment and deserve no other treatment. Although Cleaves is a fairly unlikeable character, her act of violence wasn’t really well predicated by any character traits she displayed before, and was wholly unnecessary. None of the characters have very realistic motivations and are mostly forgettable (or in Jennifer’s case, annoying). Why does Ganger-Jennifer become so evil after one of her comrades is murdered? Sure, I expect her to be upset, but “let’s wipe them all out” upset? How does her character go from weepy “I’m just as human as the real Jennifer” to a more sinister “kill them all”? Amy has nothing to do this entire episode but have yet another encounter with the mysterious Hatch Lady, who this time says nothing. Maybe she sensed that this episode wasn’t important enough for dialogue. Meanwhile, Rory spends his time helping Ganger-Jennifer make sense of her new life.

I think the main problem I have with this episode is that it reminded me of last year’s Silurian two-parter, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood: a small group of miners encounter a race of creatures they don’t understand, so they panic, murder one of them, and nearly cause a war of global scale. This time, the stakes don’t really seem all that high, besides The Doctor simply wanting to help new life forms have a fighting chance before they are destroyed by their creators.

The one plus I’ll grant the episode is that the special effects are great. I like the look of the Gangers, when they are in “flesh form” (resembling Otto from Deep Space Nine). There’s a neat scene where Ganger-Jennifer seamlessly switches between human and Granger. Besides taking place in a drab, uninteresting location, the overall look of the episode is good.

Perhaps next week’s “The Almost People” will wrap everything up in satisfactorily enough that it’ll salvage this episode!

Next week…

Doctor Who Review - 6x04: "The Doctor's Wife"

Dialogue Triumphs

The Doctor: “There’s a living Time Lord left, and it’s one of the good ones!”

Rory: “You said there weren’t any of the Time Lords left.”

The Doctor: “There aren’t any Time Lords left anywhere in the Universe, but the Universe isn’t where we’re going! See that snake? The mark of The Corsair – fantastic bloke! He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration; he didn’t feel like himself unless he had that tattoo, or herself a couple of times, ooh-hoo-hoo, she was a bad girl!”

***

The Doctor: “Why am I thief? What have I stolen?”

Idris: “Me! You’re going to steal me! You have stolen me. You are stealing me. Oh, tenses, they are difficult, aren’t they?”

***

Rory: “We’re not actually going to stay here, are we?”

The Doctor: “Well, it seems like a friendly planet… literally.”

***

Rory: “So, as soon as the TARDIS is refueled, we go, yeah?

The Doctor: “No! There are Time Lords here, I heard them, and they need me.”

Amy: “But you told me about your people, and you told me what you did.”

The Doctor: “Yes, yes, but if they’re like The Corsair, they’re good ones, and I can save them!”

Amy: “And tell them that you destroyed all the others?”

The Doctor: “I can explain… tell them why I had to…”

Amy: “You want to be forgiven.”

The Doctor: “Don’t we all?”

***

The Doctor: “You gave me hope then you took it away, that’s enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows, what it will do to me. Basically… run!”

***

The Doctor: “You know, since we’re talking with mouths, not really an opportunity that comes very often, I just wanted to say, ya know, you have never been very reliable.”

Idris: “And you have?”

The Doctor: “You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.”

Idris: “No, I always took you where you needed to go.”

***

Idris: “You ever wonder why I chose you, all those years ago?”

The Doctor: “I chose you. You were unlocked!”

Idris: “Of course, I was. I wanted to see the Universe. I stole a Time Lord and ran away… and you were the only one mad enough.”

***

The Doctor: “Hang in there, Old Girl. We’ll be there soon.”

Idris: “…always liked it when you called me ‘Old Girl’…”

***

House: “Fear me; I’ve killed hundreds of Time Lords.”

The Doctor: “Fear me… I’ve killed all of them.”

***

Idris: “There’s something I didn’t get to say to you…”

The Doctor: “Good-bye?”

Idris: “No… I just wanted to say: hello… hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.”

***

The Doctor: “The House deleted all the bedrooms, I should probably make you two a new bedroom, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Amy: “Okay, um, Doctor, this time could we lose the bunk beds?”

The Doctor: “No! Bunk beds are cool! Beds… with a ladder! You can’t beat that!”

Dialogue Disasters

N/A

Double Entendres

Idris: “The first time you touched my console, you said I was…”

The Doctor: “…the most beautiful thing I’d ever know.”

***

The Doctor: “Oh, sorry, uh, do you have a name?”

Idris: “700 years and finally he asks.”

The Doctor: “What do I call you?”

Idris: “Don’t you call me… Sexy?”

The Doctor (flustered): “Only when we’re alone!”

Idris: “We are alone.”

The Doctor: “Huh. Come on then, Sexy.”

***

House: “So are we having fun yet? I rather enjoy the sensation of having you running around inside me.”

***

The Doctor: “She’s a woman, and she’s the TARDIS.”

Amy: “Did you wish really hard?”

The Doctor: “Shut up, it’s not like that.”

Idris (To Amy and Rory): “Hello, I’m… Sexy.”

The Doctor: “Ooh, still, shut up!”

Review

The Doctor receives a distress signal from an old Time Lord acquaintance, and races to the rescue, all the way through a rift into another universe. The TARDIS lands onto a living planet named House, which has accrued piles of junk that has traveled through the rift over the years. The distress signal turns out to be a trick for luring Time Lords, so that House can consume their TARDISes. House extracts the living soul of the TARDIS, implants it into the body of a woman named Idris, possesses the TARDIS itself, and takes off with Amy and Rory trapped inside. The Doctor must team up with Idris to pursue the TARDIS before it escapes to the real universe, leaving The Doctor trapped forever.

I must admit, I was a little apprehensive about this episode, despite it being written by the brilliant Neil Gaiman, because the title put me in mind of the utterly disappointing, not to mention misleading, season four episode, The Doctor’s Daughter. Whereas that episode was a rigmarole of hopeless nonsense, this episode is a delightful exploration of the relationship between The Doctor and his TARDIS, something that has never been done in the 20-plus years of Doctor Who’s tenure on television. We’ve always heard that the TARDIS was a living ship, but never had we the opportunity to meet her, besides, perhaps, the time that Rose was possessed by the Time Vortex in the season one finale, The Parting of the Ways; even then, it was rather ambiguous.

The other parts of the episode, the characters of Aunt, Uncle, and even the main baddy, House, are absolutely superfluous – even , at times, slightly annoying. Amy and Rory don’t have much to do but run around, being terrorized by House. Speaking of which, it must be said, Rory has died onscreen more times than any companion in Doctor Who history. Poor Arthur Darvill must be a nervous wreck, wondering which death will be the last. If this keeps going on, eventually Amy will find Rory’s lifeless body, and, instead of collapsing into tears, she’ll just roll her eyes in annoyance.

Finally, after so many years, the TARDIS temporarily gets a voice of her own, and it’s a wonderful experience. I loved how The Doctor and Idris, the woman within whom the TARDIS is forcibly installed into, bicker and reminiscence like an old, married couple. Guest-star, Suranne Jones, and Matt Smith have fantastic chemistry, which greatly helps believe the long-term nature of their characters’ relationship. Credit should also be given to Neil Gaiman, who managed to deliver an episode worthy of the series, and one that will probably be a fan favorite for years to come. Not since Douglas Adams (who wrote the famous Fourth Doctor story, “City of Death”, among other gems), has a famous writer been able to leave such an indelible mark on the show. I am definitely crossing my fingers for Gaiman to write another for next season.

After watching this episode, I do believe that the TARDIS is, indeed, The Doctor’s wife, and one with no equal.

BTW> Did anyone else notice how the Doctor mentioned how The Corsair regenerated into a woman a couple times? So, apparently, that answers the question on whether or not a Time Lord can switch genders during regeneration... interesting...

Next time... "The Rebel Flesh"...

Doctor Who Review - 6x03: "Curse of the Black Spot"

Dialogue Triumphs

The Doctor: “Yo ho ho! …or does nobody actually say that?”

***

Avery: “I’m confused…”

The Doctor: “Yeah, well, it’s a big club, we should get t-shirts.”

***

Hatch Lady: “It’s fine… you’re doing fine… just stay calm.”

***

Amy: “Good night, Doctor.”

The Doctor: “Good night, Amelia.”

Amy: “You only call me ‘Amelia’ when you’re worried about me.”

The Doctor: “I always worry about you.”

Amy: “Mutual.”

The Doctor: “Go to bed, Pond!”

Dialogue Disasters

N/A

Double Entendres

Avery: “Take the doxy below to the galley. Set her to work, she won’t need much feeding.”

***

The Doctor: “You know, you shouldn’t feel threatened, your ship is much bigger than mine…”

***

Rory (to Amy): “I love the get-up, that’s great! You should dress as a pirate more often!”

***

The Doctor: “And the guns are back, you’re big on the guns. You know, Freud would say you’re compensating…”

***

Amy: “I’m his wife, for godsake, why can’t I touch him?”

Review

The TARDIS lands in the hold of a becalmed pirate ship, the crew of which is slowly being picked off by a beautiful Siren who only targets the freshly injured. If one is even so much as nicked by a loose nail, a black spot appears in their palm, marking them as the next victim for the Siren to disintegrate. After Rory gets marked, The Doctor quickly takes command of the vessel in order to stop the Siren, before Rory dies for the third time in the new series (poor Arthur Darvill – always wondering if his next death scene will be his last!).

I didn’t expect much out of this episode, if only because the 2-parter season opener was so good, and kick started so many interesting seasonal arc subplots, the prospect of watching a filler episode about pirates seemed a slap in the mouth. Fortunately, Curse of the Black Spot turned out to be a delightful romp, which includes a plot turn that, though it’s arguable that it regurgitates concepts from previous Doctor Who episodes (The Girl in the Fireplace meets The Doctor Dances, with a dash of pirate – aaaargh!), was still a satisfying twist.

Once again, performances were good by all. Hugh Bonneville plays Captain Avery with appropriate gravitas. One definitely can sense that Captain Avery comes from a distinguished Navel background, rather than having risen through the ranks of a pirate ship. Also, it must be mentioned that Lily Cole, as the Siren, did a fantastic job as well, even though she didn’t have any spoken lines beyond singing pretty (which, in all likelihood, was dubbed anyway). Nevertheless, she did a fine job with the material she had, lighting up the screen (so to speak) whenever she appeared. Besides being absurdly hot, Lily Cole has a lot of natural charisma, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she landed a bigger role in future episodes (just like Karen Gillan landed the role of Amy Pond, after playing a nameless soothsayer in The Fires of Pompeii – going even further back, just like Freema Agyeman landed the role of Martha Jones after her bit part in Army of Ghosts).

While the episode is mostly very goofy, what with Amy somehow managing to deftly sword fight with pirates, and then the silly “pirates-in-space” ending, a fun episode like this turns out to be just what the Doctor ordered (hehe) after the emotionally heavy season premiere, and what showrunner Stephen Moffat promises to be an even more emotionally intense mid-season finale.

Plus, if there’s anything that can be taken from this episode, it’s that The Eleventh Doctor can add “Pirate hat” to his growing list of quirky hats he’s worn over the course of his run.

Verdict: S’alright!

Next time... The Doctor's Wife (written by Neil Gaiman - squee!)

Doctor Who Review - 6x02: Day of the Moon

Dialogue Triumphs

The Doctor: “As long as there’s been something in the corner of your eye, or a creaking in your house, or breathing under your bed, or voices through your wall. They’ve been running your lives for a very long time now, so keep this straight in your head: we are not fighting an alien invasion – we’re leading a revolution. And today the battle begins.”

***

Amy: “I love you. I know you think it’s him. I know you think it ought to be him, but it’s not – it’s you. And when I see you again, I’m going to tell you properly just to see your stupid face. My life was so boring before you dropped out of the sky. So just get your stupid face where I can see it, okay? Okay.”

***

The Silence: “You should kill us all onsight!”

The Doctor: “You have given the order for your own execution, and the whole planet just heard you. And one whacking great kick up the backside for the Silence. You just raised an army against yourself! And now, for a thousand generations, you’re going to be ordering them to destroy you every day. How fast can you run? Because today is the day the human race through you off their planet, and they won’t even know they’re doing it. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘Oops’.”

***
River: “What are you doing?”

The Doctor: “Helping!”

River: “You got a screwdriver! Go build a cabinet!”

The Doctor: “That’s really rude!”

***

Amy: “What’s the matter with you?”

Rory: “You called me stupid.”

Amy: “I always call you stupid.”

Rory: “No, but… my face. I wasn’t sure who you were talking about… me… or…”

Amy: “…him?” (referring to the Doctor)

Rory: “You did say ‘dropped out of the sky’.”

Amy: “It’s a figure of speech, moron!”

***

The Doctor: “You know what they say: ‘there’s a first time for everything’!”

River: “And a last time.”

***

Mysterious Little Girl: “It’s alright… it’s quite alright… I’m dying. But I can fix that. It’s easy really… see?”

Dialogue Disasters

N/A

Double Entendres

Nixon: “This person you want to marry… black?”

Canton: “Yes…”

Nixon: “I know what people think of me, but perhaps I’m a little more liberal than…”

Canton: “…he is.”

Nixon: “I think the moon is far enough for now, don’t you, Mr. Delaware?”

Canton: “I figured it might be.”

***

Rory: “You should have told me that you thought you were pregnant! I’m a nurse, I’m good with pregnancy!”

Amy: “Not, as it turns out, that good.”

Review

Three months after the events of The Impossible Astronaut, The Doctor and his companions discover that the mysterious, black suited aliens, who reveal their names to be “The Silence”, secretly inhabit the entire planet Earth, and have manipulated human history for thousands of years. The Doctor immediately concocts a daring plan to defeat them, using the Apollo 11’s mission to the moon. Meanwhile, Amy has another strange encounter with the little girl in the astronaut suit from the previous episode, but it’s cut short when The Silence kidnap Amy and hold her hostage. Now The Doctor must save the Earth, and Amy, from the enigmatic designs of the Silence before it’s too late.

As far as two-parters go, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon has been a hell of a fun ride. I’m beginning to think that the reason season five was so uneven, and ultimately unsatisfying, was because it was Moffat’s warm-up – a year for him to get used to the new responsibilities as showrunner, and to give Doctor Who fans time to get used to Matt Smith as the new Doctor. Season six is shaping up to be where the real shit hits the fan, and Moffat gets to remind everyone why he inherited the reigns in the first place.

The story of Day of the Moon was fast-paced, suspenseful, and did a great job of wrapping up most of the events set up by The Impossible Astronaut. I must admit, I am a little confused as to the point of the first act though – why the charade involving FBI agent, Canton Delaware, pretending to kill the Doctor’s companions, while The Doctor is imprisoned for three months in Area 51? In the previous episode, it seemed that the US government was fully in support of the Doctor’s assistance, and suddenly they’re being hunted down? Was the entire ruse for the sake of fooling The Silence? Also, there were a lot of cliffhanger elements that just weren’t entirely wrapped up from the last episode. The last we saw Rory and River, they were about to get blasted by the The Silence. Amy had just show the Astronaut, much to the dismay of The Doctor. Now, without explanation, they’re all getting hunted by the government, one-by-one, as a clever trick set up by The Doctor? It just seemed like a strange way to link both episodes together. However, I did love the Doctor’s solution to defeating The Silence, which is Doctor Who at its best. I also loved the plot device of the marks on the skin, or the blinking light of a voice recorder, for whenever The Doctor and his companions encounter The Silence. You see, The Silence have ruled Earth for so long because whenever one takes their eyes off them, one immediately forgets one saw them. So, that makes for a very difficult enemy to face.

Once again, the acting was top-notch. All the principle actors turned in great performances, especially Matt Smith, who seems completely familiar with his Doctor by now. The guy who played Nixon stretches believability though, and the goofy “Hail to the Chief” music that played whenever he entered a scene began to get silly. I was also kind of annoyed by the strange housekeeper for the children’s home the mystery girl apparently lives at.

While that summary covers the main plot of the episode, there are so many other pieces of the larger puzzle going on. For example, while searching for the astronaut girl, Amy comes across a strange woman, with an eye patch, who glares coldly at Amy through a hatch before dismissively saying, “No, I think she’s just dreaming” and closing the hatch. When Amy opens the door to confront the woman, nobody is in the room. Hmm…

Then there is Amy’s confession to The Doctor of being pregnant, which, in this episode, she denies. When The Doctor scans her, he gets mixed readings, which suggest some kind of trippy time/space situation is going on in Amy’s sexy womb (did… did I just call Amy’s womb sexy? Yes. Yes I did.) Hmm…

Just what was The Silences’ ultimate objective, and why did it involve installing a little girl into an astronaut suit brimming with alien tech? Why does, presumably, this same girl show up in the aforementioned suit, in 2011, to murder the Doctor in cold blood?

As if these mysteries weren’t enough, the last 2-minutes of the episode will leave your jaw hanging open. However, I most certainly do not want to spoil this ending. Needless to say, Moffat seems to have gone to the school of Lost when it comes to setting up fascinating puzzles to entice audiences to keep watching. Let’s hope this season ends with more satisfying plot resolutions than the entire series of Lost did.

Next time... "Curse of the Black Spot"