Paradox And Duplicates And Character All Work Well For "The Girl Who Waited!"

The Good: Engaging character work, Wonderful performances, Good direction, Wonderful blend of action and humor
The Bad: None, actually!
The Basics: Arguably the best Doctor Who episode of Matt Smith's tenure,"The Girl Who Waited" tells a simple but powerful Amy and Rory-driven character story!


One of the problems with presenting horror in serialized television shows is that there is the high potential for the show to burn out the audience on its suspension of disbelief. For example, on Doctor Who Amy Pond is transformed into a doll in "Night Terrors" (reviewed here!) and then immediately thereafter is put into mortal danger in "The Girl Who Waited." While it is virtually impossible to believe that a Companion will actually be killed off in a one-shot horror episode with creepy doll characters, the "put Amy in a situation where is seems like she will die" trope becomes played out by doing back-to-back episodes where Amy is put in peril. In other words, it is hard for fans of Doctor Who to believe that Amy Pond will be killed in "The Girl Who Waited" when she appears to be in peril yet again.

On its own, "The Girl Who Waited" is both scary and psychologically unsettling, as it features Amy Pond literally running for her life in a giant, apparently abandoned hospital where everyone has been slain by a plague . . . and then when Rory encounters a bitter, aged Amy who resents being abandoned by her men. And, despite the difficulty in suspending disbelief about Amy Pond in jeopardy, director Nick Hurran and writer Tom MacRae manage to create one of the all-time best episodes of Doctor Who with performances that rise to their script and direction!

The Doctor, Rory, and Amy visit the Two Streams Medical Facility on the planet Apalapachia. The Doctor and Rory enter a room and when Amy, distracted, attempts to return to them, she presses a button that puts her in the same room, but in a different time period. Realizing this, and that the plague that the has infected the Two Streams Facility would kill a Time Lord, The Doctor sends Amy out of the room and moves the TARDIS to a different point. Returning to Two Streams and outfitting Rory with the tools he needs to find Amy, Rory is sent into the care facility.

At the facility, Rory encounters Amy, who has been trapped in Two Streams for thirty-six years! Cunning and able, Amy has become older and bitter about The Doctor. Rory appeals to Amy, who has built her own sonic probe and reprogrammed one of the facility's medical droids. As The Doctor tracks down the clues, he discovers a moment when Amy Pond was newly at the facility and the team has to debate altering time and un-making the aged Amy Pond. Rory is forced to choose between rescuing his wife in the past and taking the bitter version of Amy back to the TARDIS.

"The Girl Who Waited" is an acting tour de force for Karen Gillan. Gillan is given a crucial scene where she plays opposite herself and there is something very impressive about her ability to act and react across obvious cuts. Gillan is able to play both emotively and very physically, based on which version of Amy Pond she is playing at a given time. Gillan's ability to portray sadness is powerful in "The Girl Who Waited" and it is heartbreaking and impressive to watch.

The Doctor sits out of most of "The Girl Who Waited" and that allows the episode to develop Rory and Amy incredibly well. It also allows what humor there is in in the episode to flow organically, as opposed to stand out. Rory is given one of his most substantive and complex roles in "The Girl Who Waited" as he recognizes his actual disdain for The Doctor's methods and bonds with the future version of his wife over that.

Despite being somewhat dark and moody, "The Girl Who Waited" is so tight and well-executed that it is overcomes its initial simplicity to become one of the best Doctor Who episodes made.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Imelda Staunton, please check out my reviews of:
Paddington
Malificent
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Alice In Wonderland
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Shakespeare In Love

10/10

For other television episode and season reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fear Inside The Creepy Impossible Dollhouse On Doctor Who: "Night Terrors!"

The Good: Moments of effective creepy mood, Performances
The Bad: No real character development, Simplistic horror plot
The Basics: "Night Terrors" is an incongruent one-off horror episode that allows Doctor Who to incorporate a simple scary doll/haunted house story.


After a massive and important Doctor Who event like the one that culminated in "Let's Kill Hitler" (reviewed here!), the natural direction for a series like Doctor Who is . . . creepy doll episode?! Unlike the Star Trek franchise where massive event episodes and arcs are usually followed by at least one episode of introspection and dealing with consequences, Doctor Who has a tendency to simply leap back to a different, familiar, formula in the form of a creepy bottle episode. After "Let's Kill Hitler," that incongruous episode is "Night Terrors."

Opening in a crowded apartment in the present, a boy is told to put his fears in the cupboard before bed. George's fear is so powerful that it reached out across time and space to The Doctor, who gets a message on his psychic paper. The Doctor arrives with Amy and Rory and as they begin to interview residents of the building, the child, George, continues to get more and more afraid. While The Doctor meets with Alex, George's father, Mrs. Rossiter (a neighbor George is afraid of) is sucked into a pile of garbage. At the same time, Amy and Rory crash in an elevator and wake up in an abandoned house.

Amy and Rory discover that objects in the abandoned dwelling are not all they appear to be (like a copper pan that is actually just painted wood) and they are hunted by a mysterious shadowy creature. The Doctor interviews and hangs out with George, trying to figure out what is going on. When the landlord, Purcell, comes around for the rent, he and Alex square off. Shortly thereafter, The Doctor determines that George is an impossible child when he gets Alex to admit that his wife was unable to have children. Amy and Rory witness a creepy doll absorb Purcell into their ranks right before Alex and The Doctor end up in the dollhouse in the cupboard with them! The Doctor works to figure out exactly what George is and stop him while Amy and Rory fight to survive the creepy dolls hunting them through the dollhouse.

There is something oddly preposterous about the set-up of "Night Terrors" in that writer Mark Gatiss make's a single boy's nebulous fear so powerful that he is able to summon The Doctor. Implicit in that call is the idea that no other fear - like from a child being sexually abused by a parent or impoverished children in Africa suffering as slavers come to their village - has that intensity. That is utter b.s.

Similarly odd is the lack of references to River Song or Melody Pond. Come to think of it, why wouldn't Melody Pond's fear - being alone as a child on the streets of New York in Earth's past - have called the TARDIS?! But, immediately after Amy Pond has been pregnant and tracked down her child, The Doctor's current call has to do with children and there is no mention of the Ponds's child. That seems like a severe character problem in "Night Terrors."

Mood trumps character for the bulk of "Night Terrors" as The Doctor buys into George's fear and the haunted cupboard. Amy and Rory's plotline is all mood as they wander the abandoned house, followed by creepy childish laughter as they discover essential aspects of the house are not real - like the door knobs and clocks. But when the first living doll appears, the mood is broken by The Doctor being strangely ridiculous about whether or not to open the cupboard. The mood snaps right back, though, with Purcell getting sucked into his floor and The Doctor and Alex opening the cupboard while a horrified George looks on in terror.

The direction in "Night Terrors" is adequate for the presentation of a script that has an unfortunately erratic balance between horror and humor. Similarly, the performances are good, but they do not add up to anything more than servicing the creepy mood. In other words, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill do an adequate job of running and looking freaked out by the life-sized dolls that are assimilating people, but that does not lead to any deeper character revelations or any stretching of their performance abilities.

The net result is a horror episode of Doctor Who that does not truly add anything to the series.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Daniel Mays, please check out my reviews of:
Victor Frankenstein
Atonement

2/10

For other movie and television reviews, please visit my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Performances Completely Sell "Let's Kill Hitler!"

The Good: Great acting, Decent plot progression
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: "Let's Kill Hitler" might make the character of River Song an explicit tie-in to earlier incarnations of the character and reveal some of her backstory well, but it does not extensively progress the Doctor Who characters.


Explaining who River Song from "Forest Of The Dead" (reviewed here!) was always going to be a massive task. After all, creating a character who has future interactions with The Doctor creates a potential mess of continuity issues. The purpose of much of the sixth season of Doctor Who is to give answers to who and what River Song actually is. River Song, who has been established before now as a criminal in the future who is working off a prison sentence and given that the season began with allies of The Doctor witnessing his death in the future, the identity of his killer has remained a mystery. By "Let's Kill Hitler," the smart money is on the idea that River Song is manipulated into killing The Doctor somehow.

"Let's Kill Hitler" is a direct follow-up to "A Good Man Goes To War" (reviewed here!) and it is impossible to discuss it without some references to the prior episode. After all, "A Good Man Goes To War" found Amy giving birth to Melody Pond and River Song arriving to reveal that she is the adult version of Melody Pond. "Let's Kill Hitler" ties together the backstory of River Song with the ongoing mystery of the sixth season brilliantly.

Opening months later with The Doctor responding to Amy and Rory's creating explicit messages to the pair in the form of crop circles, the trio is visited by Mel. Mel is an old friend of Amy and Rory's who takes The Doctor hostage and demands to be taken back to Nazi Germany to kill Hitler. In Berlin, 1938, a crew of time operatives replace a prominent Nazi using their time ship filled with miniaturized people. When the TARDIS crashes in Hitler's office, in the ensuing conflict, Mels is shot. Mels regenerates into River Song!

After briefly exploring her new body, River Song makes multiple attempts to kill The Doctor. When she kisses The Doctor, Melody declares that the deed is done. With 32 minutes before The Doctor dies from the poison from the Judas Tree, Amy, Rory and the temporal police hunt down River Song. When the Justice Department wounds River Song, The Doctor learns that River is the one who killed him in the future. The Doctor also learns about The Silence and the prophecy about The Doctor is revealed. To stop the Justice Department, Amy turns the shipboard antibodies against the crew. With the Justice Department ship incapacitated, The Doctor turns to River Song for help in saving her parents.

"Let's Kill Hitler" includes an extensive backstory for Mels and the whole concept would have worked vastly better if Mels had been a character previously established. Instead, viewers are supposed to believe that Mels was left on the streets in the 1960s in "The Impossible Astronaut" where she regenerated, but then did not significantly age before meeting Amy in the late 1990s or early 2000s?! One supposes the only real answer is that there are multiple unseen regenerations of Melody Pond before she becomes Mel, which is somewhat unsatisfying given that it is not made explicit in the episode. In fact, in the episode that is explicitly contradicted as Mels mentions that her last regeneration left her has a toddler on the streets of New York!

Beyond that, "Let's Kill Hitler" finally makes it explicit that River Song is a conditioned assassin designed to assassinate The Doctor. The previously-seen astronaut suit-wearing girl was conditioned to kill The Doctor and now Melody Pond works to achieve that mission. That explanation is surprisingly satisfying even if the mechanics of it are not.

Alex Kingston breaks out as River Song in "Let's Kill Hitler." River is exceptionally well-written in the episode and Kingston rises to the occasion beautifully. Kingston finds the perfect balance of humor and danger in her acting. Kingston has the incredible ability to emote quite a bit with her eyes and she plays the role of the newly-regenerated Melody Pond in a way that allows her to make great use of those talents. Even the confusion that Kingston plays near the episode's climax is delightfully-delivered.

Similarly, Karen Gillan does a decent job of giving a very physical performance for the various incarnations of Amy Pond in "Let's Kill Hitler." When the Justice Department vehicle turns into Amy Pond, Gillan has to play cold and more mechanical and the contrast between the usual expressiveness of Amy and her alternate version is a good bit of acting.

Even Matt Smith does an excellent job with performing in "Let's Kill Hitler." Smith has a physical role in "Let's Kill Hitler" that allows him to effectively juggle invoking laughter and evoking empathy from the viewer. As The Doctor nears death, Smith's performance actually allows the viewer to invest in the impossible; that "Let's Kill Hitler" could see the end of Matt Smith's version of The Doctor!

The special effects and pacing of "Let's Kill Hitler" allow the episode to be incredibly entertaining and hold up over multiple viewings. "Let's Kill Hitler" is a rare example of an episode that ties together a number of key elements that are established in Doctor Who in a satisfying way. It might be simplistic and only minimally develop the characters, but it works!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Richard Dillane, please check out my reviews of:
Argo
The Dark Knight
Rome - Season 2

8.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Testimony Of A Lackluster Doctor Who Christmas Special: "Twice Upon A Time"

The Good: Performances are good, Some of the jokes land
The Bad: Dull plot, Forced sense of conflict, Many of the jokes do not land on a character level, Failure of chemistry
The Basics: "Twice Upon A Time" is fairly pointless, nostalgic Doctor Who that belabors a character conflict that cannot possibly go in a surprising direction.


One of the worst aspects of changing the actor who plays The Doctor in Doctor Who is that who the new Doctor is rapidly becomes the most spoiled information in science fiction at its time. While that might not usually be an issue - and the announcement of Jodie Whittaker being cast as the next Doctor was made months ago - it usually means that the final episode of the current Doctor must be treated with some finesse. After all, Doctor Who viewers already know who to look for at the episode's climax, so the episode's writer and director has to make it interesting to the viewer to get there. Sadly, for Steven Moffat's final episode as showrunner for Doctor Who, "Twice Upon A Time," he forgets all about subtlety and finesse.

Instead, "Twice Upon A Time" quickly establishes a ridiculous premise that the viewer knows cannot possibly come to pass as Peter Capaldi's Doctor refuses to Regenerate. "Twice Upon A Time" attempts, vainly, to get the viewer to believe that Capaldi's Doctor might well be the final incarnation and that rather than regenerate, The Doctor is ready to die. The instant failure of suspension of disbelief quickly turns to a joke-filled love note from Steven Moffat to his own prior works as "Twice Upon A Time" packs in references to prior Doctor Who episodes Moffat wrote and/or produced, like "Into The Dalek" (reviewed here!), "The Pilot" (reviewed here!), and - most recently - "The Doctor Falls" (reviewed here!). Despite the flashback nature of the very opening of the episode, "Twice Upon A Time" picks up right after the final scene of "The Doctor Falls."

The First Doctor, following an incident with the Cybermen, takes the TARDIS to the South Pole, where he refuses to Regenerate. There, he encounters the latest (Peter Capaldi) incarnation of The Doctor outside his TARDIS. The First Doctor, considering death instead of Regeneration, seems to be enough to stop time for everyone but the two Doctors and a confused World War I Captain who suddenly appears there. After a brief flashback to explain how the Captain arrived at the South Pole - after encountering a mysterious, glasslike form of a woman - the two Doctors and the Captain retreat to the TARDIS, where the First Doctor is critical of its style and upkeep. The TARDIS is abducted and taken aboard another ship. The First Doctor leaves the TARDIS and is miffed by how The Doctor is referred to as The Doctor of War. The current Doctor, recognizing the reference and Bill, who appears from a room on the ship, leaves the TARDIS and begins to question his Companion.

Bill is confused when she cannot find Heather (who she recalls rescued her from the Cybermen). The Doctors investigate the ship, which belongs to the Testimony. The Testimony is a time-traveling library that goes into the past and extracts people in the moment of their death, downloads their memories, stores them and then returns the significant individual to their moment of death. The two Doctors, Bill and The Captain retreat to the First Doctor's TARDIS, where they begin a quest to find who the Testimony's template is based upon. To that end, they travel to the center of the galaxy to access the biggest database in the galaxy and The Doctor encounters "Rusty" the Dalek who rejected the rest of the Daleks. There, The Doctor learns about Testimony and he and the First Doctor return to Earth to face their destiny.

"Twice Upon A Time" hinges a lot on the viewer having an expert level knowledge of Doctor Who which, admittedly, I do not. As a result, I feel unqualified to discuss the quality of David Bradley's performance. Bradley mimics some of the obvious mannerisms of William Hartnell's Doctor - based on the archive footage I've seen in prior episodes and clips - but whether Bradley gets the character's voice and attitudes right is something I am not qualified to evaluate. The unfortunate aspect here is that the First Doctor spouts a lot of racist and sexist lines and mannerisms that might have been a sign of the times in the early 1960s when the show began, but make no sense for a character from Gallifrey. Unless when The Doctor was born on Gallifrey black women were maids, for example, some of the jokes fail to land on a character level.

Even as a person only marginally fluent in the current (2005 and up) Doctor Who some of the episode's "big surprises" fail to land. The identity of The Captain is hardly surprising and outside his lineage and being miffed when The Doctor references "I" after referring to the World War, the character is somewhat pointless in "Twice Upon A Time." The Captain's presence is an obligatory nod to the history of the franchise, as opposed to a vital character in his own right.

"Twice Upon A Time" belabors the humor while poking fun at inconsistencies and issues within Doctor Who. The First Doctor calls the sonic screwdriver absurd and questions how The Doctor could wear sunglasses indoors. The Doctor repeatedly crow's Missy's early line "you know who I am" to the First Doctor and Moffat and director Rachel Talalay use the opportunity to play with un-armored Daleks. But the First Doctor's sexism and the jokes predicated on outdated attitudes quickly wear thin.

Thematically, "Twice Upon A Time" is all about people who are too afraid of death desperately trying to run away from their inevitable mortality. The First Doctor and The Captain are not ready to die and are afraid of what might come next and The Doctor recognizes that his life is on an exceptionally short fuse and he tries to solve one last mystery before his death. But the significance of any discussion of mortality and acceptance of it is lost because the viewer already knows The Doctor's decision. In fact, we know the First Doctor's decision (to regenerate), that Bill is already dead, and that the Captain is not a significant enough character to care about his impending demise. So, "Twice Upon A Time" ought to be The Doctor's acceptance of life and his determination to regenerate and continue, but it meanders around fairly pointlessly until it gets to where it always had to.

The theme of "Twice Upon A Time" offers a natural opening for David Tennant's Doctor to make an appearance and it is disappointing that he is only in archive footage. Tennant's Doctor essentially begged for more time before his end and thematically, that fits "Twice Upon A Time" exceptionally well. The lack of an appearance by River Song - technically, she never dies, so that makes sense, save that Moffat already brought an image of her back once following her demise - is similarly disappointing.

Finally, the plot conceit of "Twice Upon A Time" builds into something painfully familiar. The "tour around the Best Of" idea wears thin and when a long-gone character appears, it quickly reminds viewers of just how limited Steven Moffat's writing has become. The "dead character living for an adventure" conceit was, essentially, the whole concept behind Clara's final exit with Ashildr.

The result is that Moffat guts much of his own creation on his way out. After finding amazing chemistry for The Doctor and Bill, they return stiff in "Twice Upon A Time" and the regeneration into the first female Doctor occurs without any reference to Missy or commentary on why The Doctor would regenerate as a woman this time (did it just not occur to him before?!). The result is something of an obligatory bridge episode that lacks a spark or genius and merely muddles through to the inevitable.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Tenth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other Doctor Who Christmas episodes, be sure to check out:
"The Return Of Doctor Mysterio"
"Voyage Of The Damned"
"Last Christmas"

3.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"A Good Man Goes To War" Assembles A Pretty Vast Doctor Who Team!

The Good: Good acting, Decent special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: Very basic plot, Plot-heavy with minimal character development
The Basics: "A Good Man Goes To War" finally begins to give explicit answers for what has been going on with Amy Pond when Melody Pond is born and abducted by a futuristic military organization.


Having come in comparatively late to the Doctor Who phenomenon, there are a number of elements that I have been eagerly watching for as I make my way through the series. Having seen Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax in "Deep Breath" (reviewed here!), I have been attentively watching for their origin story in Doctor Who. Indeed, when the Earth-based Silurians were explored in "Cold Blood" (reviewed here!), I eagerly watched for clues as to how Vastra would have been on the surface of Earth while the rest of her people slept for a couple hundred more years. It's not there (though there is a throwaway line in the two-parter about the "others" which might be enough to imply a splinter cell of Silurians who were active while the rest of the populace slept) and neither is there a true introduction or meeting between The Doctor and Vastra. Instead, Vastra appears at the outset of "A Good Man Goes To War" and is thrown into the mix with River Song and Rory in a way that is supposed to immediately give the viewer the credibility and weight of Vastra as someone akin in The Doctor's life to a Companion. But, lacking any prior context, the appearance of Vastra, Strax, and Jenny fighting at The Doctor's side at the outset of "A Good Man Goes To War," the appearance of a sudden, new Doctor Who super team is painfully abrupt.

If you feel like you've come in on the middle of a review, welcome to "A Good Man Goes To War," where The Doctor and a whole team of Companions and previously-unseen allies are suddenly a part of a significant conflict. The conflict came as a result of the events at the climax of "The Almost People" (reviewed here!) and given the reversal coming at the end of the episode made it prohibitive to discuss it in the review of that, we open "A Good Man Goes To War" with a sidebar of how improbable it was that we got here at all. Throughout the current season of Doctor Who, there have been hints about The Silence, Amy Pond is reading as both pregnant and not-pregnant at the same time, we've seen memory-erasing creatures that are part of The Silence, and Amy Pond has had hallucinations of a mysterious woman with an eye patch who appears in incongruent places. At the climax of "The Almost People," it is revealed that Amy Pond has not, in fact, been aboard the TARDIS for some time; she was replaced with a ganger "flesh" version of Amy at some point in the past and in cutting the psychic link to her very pregnant self, The Doctor destroyed the duplicate version of Amy. That is where "A Good Man Goes To War" begins, with the momentum of one Amy liquefying into goo and the actual Amy Pond beginning to go into labor in captivity somewhere else.

But here's the things; how did we get to this point? The Doctor was studying the strange readings that indicated Amy Pond was both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time and he took the TARDIS to the time and place of the nascent version of the flesh for "The Almost People" in order to confirm his suspicion about Amy. When one steps back from this, to look at it objectively, it is a painful leap of scientific analysis to get from point A to point B. The Doctor has a theory - the Amy Pond has been replaced, apparently - but in a universe and 900+ years of experience with robots, alternate universes, Sontaran duplicates, mind control, TARDIS equipment malfunction, etc., he manages to narrow his suspicions down to The Flesh, a replicating technology that he admits he has insufficient experience with (hence the trip to the time and place of "The Almost People"). To the viewer, in the time frame of the sixth season, this is incredibly unsatisfying as The Doctor makes no clear explorations of any alternate theories; he guesses correctly on his first try that Amy has been replaced by the thing he knows virtually nothing about. Really?!

And so, after an increasingly unlikely guess proves The Doctor's theory and he is able to remedy the deception by cutting the link between Amy Pond and ganger Amy, the viewer is thrust into "A Good Man Goes To War!"

Opening at Demon's Run, Amy Pond has had her baby and she is surrounded by military personnel led by the mysterious woman in the eye patch. Amy pledges her baby, Melody, that the baby's father is coming for them. Thousands of light years away from the facility, the Cybermen are under attack and Rory extorts them for information on where Amy is. Elsewhere on Demon's Run, a space station, Lorna Bucket recalls her brief experience with The Doctor while the Headless Monks get a new member and The Doctor's allies are called from various points in time and space. When Rory goes to pick up Dr. River Song, she is unwilling to join them on the mission. Madame Kovarian, the woman with the eye patch, visits Dorium Maldovar, who reveals that he knows where her forces are holed up and that there is a prophecy involving The Doctor going to war at Demon's Run.

The war at Demon's Run is an extraction mission where The Doctor arrives with his allies to stymie the military forces and rescue Amy Pond. But after an initial success at thwarting the military, Colonel Manton marshals his forces and The Doctor has to call in his reinforcements. But Kovarian is playing a deep game and when putting together the pieces of Amy Pond being on the TARDIS while having a signal beamed through time and space from Demon's Run makes Amy and Rory suspicious of why Kovarian wants Melody Pond at all. In studying Melody, The Doctor and his allies realize Melody Pond is human and time lord. Kovarian reveals that Melody Pond was created as a weapon to be used against The Doctor as the military forces converge upon The Doctor's allies at Demon's Run!

"A Good Man Goes To War" is packed with new creatures and characters in a way that makes viewers feel like they have missed something. Madame Vastra is introduced in 1888 with Jenny after having defeated Jack The Ripper . . . before declaring she has an old debt to The Doctor and leaving with him. Strax is picked up in the 4300s (how did he end up in the 1800s with Vastra and Jenny for "Deep Breath" then?!) and between the plethora of new characters and the wide range of settings and alien creatures there, "A Good Man Goes To War" feels initially jumbled and packed. Throwing in Lorna Bucket, a military officer who met The Doctor somewhere in his time stream, the episode starts to feel deliberately cluttered. Given how very many ancillary characters there are throughout the Doctor Who narrative at this point, that Steven Moffat did not use any of the already-present background characters for Bucket's role is needlessly complicated.

As a result, the hype surrounding the Headless Monks, an entirely new race, feels like filler. The point of the Headless Monks within "A Good Man Goes To War" is to work for the big rebeal of The Doctor into the narrative. But, rewatching The Doctor's allies gathering, amidst sudden creature menace from The Headless Monks and a massive military presence at Demon's Run, the ultimate entrance of The Doctor seems far more obvious than it is clever - it's like Steven Moffat frontloads the first act with red herrings and then expects viewers to be surprised when The Doctor exposes one of the many red herrings for what it is.

"A Good Man Goes To War" illustrates an interesting dark side to The Doctor which is a definite transition for the character and actually makes for a natural foreshadowing of the Peter Capaldi version of The Doctor. Capaldi's Doctor hates soldiers . . . but Matt Smith's Doctor uses soldiers. While Vastra declares that Demon's Run has been taken without any blood spilled, but she neglects the Spitfires shooting up Demon's Run, the destruction of the Cybermen fleet and the conflicts between the military and the Headless Monks. The Doctor has no problem using others to kill on his behalf in "A Good Man Goes To War" and that is a troubling character twist.

Outside being light on character development, "A Good Man Goes To War" is not bad, though it has a very simplistic plot. This is a confrontation episode where the participants do not know the motivations of the other side and the episode belabors putting together the pieces already in play. "A Good Man Goes To War" is built to a reversal that is emotionally virtually identical to the reversal in the prior episode, especially in terms of mood.

The performances in "A Good Man Goes To War" are good, especially for Matt Smith. Smith makes a pretty powerful emotional transformation in the course of "A Good Man Goes To War" as he begins as his familiar cocksure, almost goofy version of The Doctor. But as the episode progresses, The Doctor loses everything and Smith plays him as shocked and hurt and frazzled and Smith makes the transition incredibly well.

The climax of "A Good Man Goes To War" is frustrating, though, as The Doctor leaves the narrative before the big reveal is made explicit. His leaving is pointedly awkward as he takes the TARDIS with him, leaving someone else to get various allies back to their correct places and times . . . without the TARDIS. Similarly, the TARDIS translation matrix is explicitly called upon . . . after the TARDIS disappears, which seems very strange.

But, "A Good Man Goes To War" is a generally good set-up episode that is a remarkably satisfying initial answer to many of the season's mysteries. And it leads into "Let's Kill Hitler" perfectly!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Simon Fisher-Becker, please check out my reviews of:
Les Miserables
"The Pandorica Opens" - Doctor Who
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

7/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Simple Sequel Until The End: "The Almost People"

The Good: Performances are good, Final moments of the episode
The Bad: Inconsistent characterization, Dull plot, Predictable reversals, Wonky special effects
The Basics: "The Almost People" belabors the process of finally revealing just what is going on with Amy Pond, even if the episodic aspects are something of a mess.


When it comes to doppelganger episodes where a main character has been duplicated, it is tough to imagine that there is a permutation in the plot that has not already been done. The negative aspect of being a genre fan is that there is, ultimately, surprisingly little left that can surprise one. "The Almost People" in Doctor Who makes a fairly good attempt at surprising viewers, even if the ultimate reversal that connects the episode to the larger season's arc only occurs within the final moments of the otherwise mundane episode.

"The Almost People" picks up where "The Rebel Flesh" (reviewed here!) left off and it is virtually impossible to discuss the second part without some references as to where the first part left off. After all, "The Rebel Flesh" climaxed with a ganger version of The Doctor appearing, as the dopplegangers prepared to go to war with their source humans.

The ganger Doctor is reacting poorly to the way he was created and struggles to maintain his form. The Doctor and his team are smoked out by the three gangers led by ganger Cleaves using acid on the monastery's stone structure. The ganger Jennifer suddenly recalls being melted down repeatedly and tries to inspire the other gangers to contact the gangers off-site who are toiling for humans in dangerous situations and inspire them to revolt. With the humans trying to escape the monastery, they call for extraction.

As Rory tracks down the two Jennifers, The Doctor leads a team to rescue him. When Jennifer turns off the thermostatic controls, the boiling acid begins to rise and undermine the monastery's superstructure. Rory and Jennifer find a pile of discarded Flesh after the ganger Cleaves reroutes the rescue shuttle by accurately figuring out the code word from her source human. The Doctor appeals to one of the gangers's core human emotions to get him to turn as the situation reaches its peak.

Cleaves almost entirely redefined for "The Almost People." In "The Rebel Flesh," Cleaves was the clear leader who was happily organizing the aggression against the humans. In "The Almost People," ganger Cleaves just wants to survive and be left alone until Jennifer talks her into being aggressive against the humans.

Matt Smith plays off himself at the outset of "The Almost People" very well. There is something charming about watching Smith act against himself and that fits The Doctor's character. After all, The Doctor frequently talks to himself, so seeing him literally talking to himself is an organic transition and Matt Smith performs it nicely with a good balance of humor and realism. When The Doctor taps into The Flesh and freaks out, Matt Smith portrays the anger and frustration he has to convincingly.

Amy Pond is characterized as surprisingly prejudiced in "The Almost People" as she expresses a subtle disdain for the ganger Doctor. It is odd to see Pond prejudiced, as opposed to actually being thrilled to have two Doctors in her life.

The special effects in "The Almost People" are mediocre. The wall of eyeballs is appropriately creepy, but it is nonsense for any sense of reality. Similarly, when Jennifer elongates her mouth, the viewer is supposed to think, what? That ganger Jennifer consumes Buzzer?!

The whole point of "The Almost People" is to lead into the next episode and finally explain what it is that Amy Pond has been seeing the prior few episodes. The result is a dull, winding episode that gels poorly with the first part that climaxes in a must-see scene.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other episodes with duplicated main characters, please check out my reviews of:
"The Poison Sky" - Doctor Who
"By Inferno's Light" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"I Will Face My Enemy" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

3/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Rebel Flesh" Is An Intriguing Mess!

The Good: Sense of ethics, Good performances, Interesting basic concept, Rory's character
The Bad: Some ridiculous special effects, Predictable reversals, Somewhat choppy flow, Erratic characterization for The Doctor
The Basics: "The Rebel Flesh" finds The Doctor and his Companions in a situation where they are in danger from acid and their own doppelgangers!


A truly wonderful aspect of serialized television is that, when it is well-constructed, elements and episodes that initially appear as mundane or unattached to the larger arcs can be used to make big reveals and tie things together. In the sixth season of Doctor Who, there were, initially, minimal serialized elements. In fact, fans were left incredibly disappointed that, after beginning the season with the Companions and allies of The Doctor witnessing his death in "The Impossible Astronaut" (reviewed here!), The Doctor's death was left unresolved and ignored for a few episodes. The only obviously serialized element of the earth sixth season were flashes Amy had of a mysterious woman with an eye patch, telling her to remain calm. Those flashes came out of nowhere and were incongruent with the main stories for the prior few episodes. "The Rebel Flesh" is the start of a story designed to explain just what is going on.

"The Rebel Flesh" is an initially intriguing idea that raises the same fundamental questions raised in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Measure Of A Man" (reviewed here!), albeit on Doctor Who, the concept is illustrated instead of prevented. "The Rebel Flesh" is a first part of a two-parter that introduces the idea of disposable workers who are struggling to define themselves and that is clever and relevant, especially in today's world, dominated by capitalism. Unfortunately, some of that social commentary is dulled by the way the episode works to fit into the larger Doctor Who plot for the season.

Opening on an island, where three (apparent) people enter a room and one falls into a vat of acid . . . only to have, moments later, the man who is dissolving in the acid appearing fine and talking about getting worker's compensation. Aboard the TARDIS, Rory and Amy are playing darts while The Doctor continues to scan Amy, who appears to be both pregnant and not at the same time. The TARDIS is called off course to Earth, where they arrive on the island, where a 13th Century monastery is being used as part of an acid mining endeavor. Inside the monastery, The Doctor and his Companions encounter a room full of people in stasis and their alive doppelgangers who are walking around doing dangerous work.

The work site has recently survived a solar flare and The Doctor is concerned that the solar storm affected The Flesh. The Flesh is a plastic that can be used to create duplicate life forms of people who are unconscious and connected to it using a stasis control harness. The team witnesses Jennifer creating her ganger while the rest of the workers avoid The Doctor's warning that the solar storm is coming back and going to be calamitous if the work site is not prepared for it. The storm is predictably does damage to the work site; acid is all over and the gangers are now able to exist independently of the miners now that the miners are no longer in their harnesses. While Rory tries to comfort Jennifer, she turns upon him and The Doctor recognizes many of the people he is with was their ganger versions. As the gangers become fully self-aware, they begin to assert themselves and fight for autonomy.

Jennifer Lucas is one of the most interesting and well-rounded guest characters to yet appear on Doctor Who. Lucas was instantly attracted to Rory and she and her ganger version have the same memories, so "The Rebel Flesh" actually spends some time giving her a backstory to make her easy to empathize with. Rory becomes defensive of the Jennifer Lucas ganger in a way that reminds the viewer that he was originally characterized as a nurse. Rory's commitment to saving Jennifer Lucas's life makes him very compelling.

The Doctor in "The Rebel Flesh" oscillates wildly between being goofy and clever. It is interesting to see Rory start out with a stronger ethical stance than The Doctor. The Doctor's initial goofiness makes it hard to believe that he knew what is going on with Amy from the outset. The Doctor is looking into Amy at the episode's outset and his concern for her is genuine, but he does not present it as being of critical importance in "The Rebel Flesh." Instead, The Doctor is intensely worried about Amy but then abandons his concern for the Latest Goofy Adventure. And while it is familiar for the viewer to see The Doctor act as a peacekeeper in "The Rebel Flesh," the scope of the episode is so small that it is hard to take some of his intensity - when he gets around to caring about the immediate problem - seriously.

Miranda Cleaves is a painfully generic villain. She sets up a conflict between the gangers and the source humans that is incredibly inorganic. The gangers want to live and survive; the humans, led by Cleaves, suddenly become paranoid and violent against them. There is no real period of discovery in "The Rebel Flesh." Instead, the new characters suddenly turn on their gangers out of anger without actually taking the time to process what it means that the gangers are now autonomous. One key element missing from the episode is anyone pondering if the gangers can even last indefinitely when unattached to a human mind. So, Cleaves leaping to violence and anger instantly comes across as a forced conflict designed to quickly get the episode to the inevitable "us vs. them" mentality.

Throughout "The Rebel Flesh," The Doctor admonishes Amy to breathe and that ties into the serialized element of the episode. The Doctor continues to watch Amy throughout "The Rebel Flesh" and when the truth is revealed in the climax of "The Almost People," it is enough to make viewers return to "The Rebel Flesh" to watch for all of the seeded clues as to what is going on in the serialized plot.

Ultimately, "The Rebel Flesh" is a fractured episode that is a good idea, erratically-rendered, which makes for decidedly average television.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other television episodes with doppelgangers, please visit my reviews of:
"The Adversary" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Invasion
"The Zygon Inversion" - Doctor Who

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Doctor's Wife" Is An Erratic Throwaway Episode Of Doctor Who.

The Good: Moments of performance, Moments of character, Concept
The Bad: Inconsistent plot elements, Jumbled mood
The Basics: "The Doctor's Wife" is one of the best examples of inconsistency within an episode of Doctor Who.


One of the interesting aspects of going back to a series that has been around for a few years is discovering episodes that might not be as memorable as others. When it comes to Doctor Who, one of the most forgettable episodes of the new Doctor Who is "The Doctor's Wife." While "The Doctor's Wife" might generate a lot of interest in general fandom - as it was written by genre favorite author Neil Gaiman - it is a creepy little episode that has so little impact in the larger Doctor Who narrative that it becomes utterly unmemorable. That said, there are moments of brilliance in "The Doctor's Wife" that makes it interesting to watch. But the brilliant aspects are not consistently executed and the episode transitions with a painful awkwardness from quirky and interesting to generically horrifying and into an exceptionally predictable resolution. The Doctor makes it from delighted and intrigued to angered and offended before going into full-on problem solving mode and then longing for, essentially, his lost love. Yes, "The Doctor's Wife" is all over the map.

Following on the heels of the predictable "The Curse Of The Black Spot" (reviewed here!), "The Doctor's Wife" is another episode that includes a pocket universe or alternate dimension (which is essentially what the hospital ship in the prior episode was). Neil Gaiman presents an episode packed with so many different elements that he almost manages to disguise the fact that the episode serves a very simple purpose and is exceptionally predictable. Will the TARDIS fall to an evil new personality? Probably not. Will The Doctor actually get stranded in a pocket universe where he does not actually have the technical skills or raw resources to escape? Doubtful. Will the human personification of the TARDIS burn through its human body at a rate similar to Rose and Donna Noble? No, the plot requires her to be around for a bit longer than that. So, we get a high-concept execution of a very simple plot.

While Amy and Rory worry about telling The Doctor about his impending death, the TARDIS is visited by a little box. The Doctor recognizes the sigil on the box as the tattoo belonging to the Time Lord Corsair and when they bring the box aboard the TARDIS, the TARDIS is pulled out of the universe into a parallel dimension populated by three crazy people, at least one of whom appears to be a Time Lord (or regurgitating Time Lord regeneration energy). The TARDIS arrives at the scrapyard in an alternate universe, which is where the distress beacon from The Corsair took them. There, The Doctor and his Companions meet the three crazies, the lead of whom speaks in mixed tenses and warns The Doctor that the little boxes will make him angry.

When an Ood joins the trio of crazies, The Doctor repairs its translation device and it starts transmitting Time Lord distress beacons. The Doctor is freaked out by that and in communicating with House, the planet itself, The Doctor learns that many Time Lords have visited this particular planet. After sealing Amy and Rory into the TARDIS, The Doctor learns that the junkyard is essentially a trap. One of the women on the asteroid reveals herself to The Doctor as being the TARDIS, incarnated! While House takes over the TARDIS and takes it and the Companions back to the universe, The Doctor and Sexy (his name for the TARDIS before House identifies her as Idris) start construction on a TARDIS by cobbling together pieces from the wreckage from all of the other TARDIS's there. Amy finds herself trapped on the TARDIS with a temporally-deranged Rory, who exists in different times within the TARDIS after they get separated. The Doctor and Idris escape the pocket universe and have to reconnect with the TARDIS to stop House!

"The Doctor's Wife" is a prolonged, convoluted, explanation for a very simple premise. The essential purpose of "The Doctor's Wife" is to definitively explain what happened to every other Time Lord that was not on Gallifrey when The Doctor ended the Time War and, similarly, to explain why there are no other TARDIS's. The pocket universe is essentially a TARDIS graveyard and House is a predator that feeds on TARDIS's, which is a cool idea (though how would such a creature ever evolve?!). Even the TARDIS predator, though, is somewhat erratically-executed; if it so thoroughly consumed TARDIS's, how could there be enough functional parts left over to rebuild a working TARDIS? In analogous terms, if a creature feeds on something, the waste that is left over should be just waste; The Doctor is essentially attempting to make a cow based on the shit of a thousand hamburgers. So, the set-up in "The Doctor's Wife" is brilliant; the solution to the fix The Doctor and Sexy find themselves in, less so.

The other purpose of "The Doctor's Wife" is to present the TARDIS as a character and that is fun and an interesting idea. Idris (the TARDIS personified in a human body) is a fun character and she is played very well by Suranne Jones. Jones finds the right balance between humor and seriousness for her role, making for a compelling characterization of the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, Jones is something of an exception to the rule in "The Doctor's Wife." "The Doctor's Wife" has one of the most terrifying concepts of any Doctor Who episodes. House is a truly impressive and horrifying adversary (evolutionary requirements of it notwithstanding). The idea of an entity that feeds upon TARDIS's is creepy and the TARDIS graveyard is a well-executed image of desolation and destruction that implies the raw power and evil of House. Indeed, the wreckage plays off the feminine persona for the TARDIS with an expert sense of literary contrast.

But "The Doctor's Wife" is not presented as a horror episode; The Doctor jokes through the dire situation and he plays off a beautiful incarnation of the TARDIS that is completely unlike the two crazies cobbled together from Time Lord bodies. Yet, amid The Doctor delightfully interacting with Sexy, there are scenes of devastating psychological horror as Amy and Rory make their way through the House-infested TARDIS.

Which brings me to the writing problem for "The Doctor's Wife." "The Doctor's Wife" is a cobbled-together collection of scenes and ideas that awkwardly is strung together into a single narrative. When one steps back from the episode, it is easy to look at "The Doctor's Wife" and get the impression that the executive producers of Doctor Who said to Neil Gaiman, "We'll give you one episode of Doctor Who to do anything you want in the franchise" and Gaiman shot together every idea he ever had for Doctor Who. Cobbled together Time Lord bodies? Sure, throw those in, even if it is an idea that does not actually go anywhere. Creepy time hallway horror? Absolutely, but it's not an idea that can sustain a whole episode! Generic villain that is terrifying until it is no longer plot convenient? Sure, we have that right here! And hey, did Gaiman or Steven Moffat actually watch any of Russell T. Davies's Doctor Who?! Because in "Rise Of The Cybermen" (reviewed here!), Doctor Who became defined as being trapped within our universe, unable to travel between parallel universes.

Ultimately, "The Doctor's Wife" is an insular episode of Doctor Who that is hampered by its own inconsistencies and its own concept. It is packed with far too many tangents for a single episode to be a satisfying narrative and the ideas in the episode could have made for a compelling season of the show, if they were stretched out and developed better, but that is not what this season was going to be. So, instead, we are given an episode of Doctor Who that is more of a throwaway episode; the novelty of it wears poorly as the promise of the concept quickly fades to a jumble of ideas and generic villains and twists.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Michael Sheen, please visit my reviews of:
Alice Through The Looking Glass
The Twilight Saga
Jesus Henry Christ
Tron: Legacy
30 Rock - Season 4
Alice In Wonderland
Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans
Frost/Nixon
Blood Diamond
The Queen
Laws Of Attraction
Underworld

4/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page where the reviews are organized!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Generic Pirate Episode For Doctor Who: "The Curse Of The Black Spot"

The Good: Special effects, Early humor, Acting is as good as the writing
The Bad: No real character development, Dull plot, Poor writing
The Basics: "The Curse Of The Black Spot" makes a pirate episode for Doctor Who . . . which is pretty much the same as any other episode of Doctor Who with a creature that appears at first to be supernatural.


One of the interesting aspects of Doctor Who is that, as an episodic work that can go anywhere in time and space, the show has license to go anywhere it wants and it can do so fairly organically. So, if the show wants to do a circus episode, it can; if it wants to go to an underwater city next week, there it goes. Given the infinite potential range of Doctor Who, it is almost a surprise that it took the show so long to get to a pirate episode since it returned to television in 2005. The pirate episode is "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and while it might initially appear to be a divergence from Doctor Who, it does not take long before it falls into the very standard Doctor Who formula.

In other words, and there are no spoilers here, while there is initially something that appears supernatural, it turns out to be something alien. Anyone who has watched any five episodes of Doctor Who that have a creepy artifact or an apparent supernatural creature like a ghost, will recognize this as the formula. "The Curse Of The Black Spot" follows that formula very closely.

Opening with a rowboat full of pirates returning to their ship, the returning pirate is alarmed to learn that one of his crew was wounded. The wounded pirate has a black mark on his hand and almost immediately after the captain sees the mark, the song of the siren begins and the wounded pirate suddenly disappears. The Doctor, Amy and Rory appear in the ship and Captain Avery decides they must be stowaways. While The Doctor and Rory are threatened with walking the plank, Amy gets a sword and holds the five pirates at bay. When Amy cuts one of the pirates very minorly, a black spot appears on his hand and Rory is similarly wounded and marked. When The Siren begins singing, Rory gets wacky . . . and then the Siren appears to drag the two wounded men away. Amy manages to save Rory, but the other pirate dies.

After another pirate is killed, the survivors move to the armory because The Doctor realizes that the Siren can transport out of any water source and the magazine is the driest place on the ship. Inside the armory, Captain Avery discovers his own son has stown away. With his son so marked, Captain Avery and The Doctor set out to retrieve the TARDIS. While they are in the TARDIS, the other pirates mutiny against Avery to try to save themselves. But after the TARDIS disappears on its own, The Doctor realizes that the Siren can burst out of any reflective surface to kill. With only their wits, The Doctor and his friends must try to survive.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" has The Doctor playing ridiculous right away and the humor starts very organically and cutely. But as the situation turns increasingly horrific, The Doctor's humor becomes terribly forced. What is far more irksome is the fact that The Doctor shows no care when Rory is marked for death. His jokes about death fall particularly flat when Rory is in mortal peril and he continues to act casual about it.

Karen Gillan is given a poor part to play in "The Curse Of The Black Spot." Amy seems more upset that the brainwashed Rory found the Siren attractive than she does by his imminent death. The problem is in the writing, but Gillan is unable to make the jokes land or the concern about something so trivial seem at all reasonable.

Hugh Bonneville makes Captain Avery into a credible captain and a reasonably well-rounded pirate. When Avery has to dump all his loot overboard, there is a moment when Bonneville uses his eyes to emote the moral dilemma going on in his character's mind where he weighs the crown vs. his son's life. It's a compelling moment and an exception to the rule of the episode.

Lily Cole plays the Siren and her job is basically to look as good as she does in the episode. She succeeds. The disappearing TARDIS feels very contrived in "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and the serialized element in the episode - Amy seeing the mysterious woman with the eye patch, who tries to reassure Amy, but ends up alarming her - stands out appropriately.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" is more contrived and formulaic than it is ever engaging or impressive.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Lily Cole, please visit my reviews of:
The Zero Theorem
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

3/10

See how this episode stacks up against other episodes and seasons of Doctor Who by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Proper Introduction To The Silence Comes On The "Day Of The Moon!"

The Good: Good performances, Engaging plot progression, Special effects, Concept of the episode's resolution
The Bad: Insular plot with limited character development, Final scene
The Basics: "Day Of The Moon" resolves the Earth's occupation by The Silence in 1969 while leaving a lot for Amy Pond to do!


Doctor Who mysteries are some of the most erratic on television. The executive producers of Doctor Who have tried season-long arcs, but inevitably they have bottle episodes that are only semi-serialized. As a result, most Doctor Who mysteries are contained within an episode or two, with threads that connect to other episodes in a season. "Day Of The Moon" is a second part of a Doctor Who mystery and the irony of it is that it completely resolves one plotline - that of an alien invasion in 1969 - while completely leaving the mystery of the little girl from the prior episode unresolved.

It is impossible to discuss "Day Of The Moon" without some references as to where "The Impossible Astronaut" (reviewed here!) left off. After all, the entire mission in "Day Of The Moon" occurs after The Doctor has been killed and his Companions are reunited wth an earlier version of him. Just after revealing to The Doctor that she is pregnant, Amy Pond shot at the astronaut who appeared to be a little girl. "Day Of The Moon" involves tracking down the origins of the little girl and has The Doctor's team trying to learn about The Silence.

Three months after Amy shot at the Impossible Astronaut, Amy is running through Utah, away from Canton Delaware and his g-men. After Canton shoots her, he returns to Area 51 where The Doctor is being held prisoner. Delaware then hunts down River Song in New York City and then Rory at the Hoover Dam. The Doctor is being blocked into a prison that will keep out The Silence and once it is completed, Delaware reveals that he has saved The Doctor's companions, The TARDIS and they have all learned what they can about the occupying force of The Silence on the Earth.

After implanting a device in each of their hands, The Doctor tasks his Companions and Delaware with finding the little girl who was abducted to become the astronaut. Amy and Delaware visit a children's home where the manager believes it is not yet 1967 and he has no children in his charge. Amy finds a whole hive of the creatures that erase memory. After Amy is abducted, The Doctor, River and Rory begin to learn about The Silence and figure out what the purpose is of the space suit the little girl was in. Delaware gets a video of one of The Silence declaring that all humans should shoot them on sight, which inspires The Doctor to alter history and deputize humanity to turn humanity against the occupying force on Earth. After locating Amy Pond, The Doctor brings the TARDIS to rescue Amy from The Silence.

"Day Of The Moon" marks the first experience Amy Pond has with the apparent hallucination that comes up through the entire season. There is a woman with an eye patch who Amy briefly sees and hears and her appearance is instantly evocative of Rose's flashes throughout the fourth season of Doctor Who (reviewed here!). Moffat starts playing a season-long arc that Davies had done only two years prior on Doctor Who in "Day Of The Moon." The season-long arc for the sixth season of Doctor Who involves a disparity between Amy Pond being pregnant or not and the clues given in "Day Of The Moon" play off information that comes up later in the season.

River Song's arc in "Day Of The Moon" is intriguing. River continues to exhibit absolute trust in The Doctor and she works with Rory quite well. While some of that might simply be that Alex Kingston was not yet aware of the backstory connections between Rory and River, "Day Of The Moon" allows Rory to reach out to River and for her to actually lean upon him. The assignment The Doctor has River and the Companions on comes as Song is reeling in shock from The Doctor's death. River becomes a leader in "Day Of The Moon" and Kingston makes her into both a credible scientist and leader.

Amy Pond is a pretty classic "damsel in distress" in "Day Of The Moon" and Karen Gillan does the whole "see something terrifying and scream" thing fine. "Day Of The Moon" finally begins to add depth to the relationship between Rory and The Doctor in scenes after Amy is captured. Rory has been a supporting character who was so distant from The Doctor's attention that he initially seemed like a cheap re-casting of Micky and The Doctor knows virtually nothing about him. While Rory has been a champion for Amy, he and The Doctor have not actually bonded . . . until now.

The technological device that The Doctor suddenly produces in "Day Of The Moon" is cool and easy for viewers to invest in. What is far less believable is the technology being used in Area 51 to seal in The Doctor. "Day Of The Moon" did a poor job of illustrating how technologically advanced The Silence members were to make it credible that they would have the materials that Delaware could find to seal in The Doctor and his Companions. That said, the special effects and the make-up effects used the characterize The Silence are pretty incredible.

"Day Of The Moon" spends a lot of time examining the nature of The Silence and the mechanisms by which they controlled the mysterious little girl. Unfortunately, the episode comes to an abrupt end before the nature, identity and character of the little girl can be truly explored. The reason that is worth mentioning is that there is an incredibly unsatisfying resolution to "Day Of The Moon" from the fact that The Doctor explicitly mentions they can actually look into the little girl and why the Silence wanted her or they can just go off on some random adventures . . . and the little girl is shown six months later completely alone, so viewers know that The Doctor, Rory and Amy are headed off to do random things as opposed to follow up on the major loose end connecting the alien occupation of Earth to The Doctor's death.

But, a tremendously bad end does not stop "Day Of The Moon" from being unworth watching. "Day Of The Moon" effectively delivers on the promise of setting up a season-long mystery; it is not the episode's fault that it is abandoned in a ridiculous way at the end.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with President Richard Nixon in alternate realities, be sure to visit my reviews of:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Watchmen
Forrest Gump

8/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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