Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
May. 12th, 2013 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatHmmm, yes, I'll chalk this one up as an interesting failure though, in all fairness, I think it is the resolution that particularly lets it down. But the ending is always a bad place to make a mis-step.
There were a number of things I really liked about this, particularly the early scenes of Clara exploring the interior of the TARDIS styled as some kind of steam-punk wonderland fantasy. As the story developed I also formed a half-theory that the monsters were a TARDIS defence mechanism, and I was enjoying the idea of the TARDIS itself as an independent and not entirely safe place. This seemed to tie in pretty well with the antagonism between Clara and the TARDIS that the show had been stressing for several episodes. It also harked back to things like The Edge of Destruction (NB. which I've never seen) where the TARDIS is responsible for invoking strange behaviour in its passengers as a defence mechanism.
In short I thought some really interesting stuff was going on. In which, as it turns out, I was wrong.
I was rather disappointed with the direction/acting of Jenna-Louise Coleman, for the first time this season. In the scenes immediately after the crash she really doesn't look like she is under rubble that weighs anything. I was also very confused about what was going on with her hand. She wasn't treating it at all like you would expect someone with a burn severe enough to imprint letters on flesh. I spent a lot of time thinking maybe she was revealing her true nature and all the blowing was some kind of magical healing ability, the beeline she made for the history of the time war book also heavily suggested to me that she knew more than she was letting on. However the final scenes, and hints and trailers since, rather suggest this isn't the case.
The three brothers were basically surplus to requirements. The whole not-an-android sub-plot seemed to come from nowhere, go nowhere, and have no real connection to the rest of the episode - unless Clara turns out to be an android but that seems a disappointingly mundane explanation.
And then time reset itself. Moffat's love of the Timey-Wimey is beginning to get a little old. I'll continue to have time for it, when it's being interesting and original, but here it just felt like the writer (Stephen Thompson) had written himself into a corner and needed a reset button to get out.
I was really looking forward to a fantasy-style adventure with the Tardis environment featuring as some kind of protagonist. This was almost, but not quite it.
There were a number of things I really liked about this, particularly the early scenes of Clara exploring the interior of the TARDIS styled as some kind of steam-punk wonderland fantasy. As the story developed I also formed a half-theory that the monsters were a TARDIS defence mechanism, and I was enjoying the idea of the TARDIS itself as an independent and not entirely safe place. This seemed to tie in pretty well with the antagonism between Clara and the TARDIS that the show had been stressing for several episodes. It also harked back to things like The Edge of Destruction (NB. which I've never seen) where the TARDIS is responsible for invoking strange behaviour in its passengers as a defence mechanism.
In short I thought some really interesting stuff was going on. In which, as it turns out, I was wrong.
I was rather disappointed with the direction/acting of Jenna-Louise Coleman, for the first time this season. In the scenes immediately after the crash she really doesn't look like she is under rubble that weighs anything. I was also very confused about what was going on with her hand. She wasn't treating it at all like you would expect someone with a burn severe enough to imprint letters on flesh. I spent a lot of time thinking maybe she was revealing her true nature and all the blowing was some kind of magical healing ability, the beeline she made for the history of the time war book also heavily suggested to me that she knew more than she was letting on. However the final scenes, and hints and trailers since, rather suggest this isn't the case.
The three brothers were basically surplus to requirements. The whole not-an-android sub-plot seemed to come from nowhere, go nowhere, and have no real connection to the rest of the episode - unless Clara turns out to be an android but that seems a disappointingly mundane explanation.
And then time reset itself. Moffat's love of the Timey-Wimey is beginning to get a little old. I'll continue to have time for it, when it's being interesting and original, but here it just felt like the writer (Stephen Thompson) had written himself into a corner and needed a reset button to get out.
I was really looking forward to a fantasy-style adventure with the Tardis environment featuring as some kind of protagonist. This was almost, but not quite it.