purplecat

I didn't really write about Day of the Doctor when it first aired since it all got tangled up in my birthday Who-watching marathon session. I really enjoyed it at the time, but we had already watched a lot of good Doctor Who by that point and were not necessarily entirely sober. I was anxious to see whether it was still as good on a second viewing.

( It was still good )

The multi-Doctor story is a difficult beast and I think Day of the Doctor is better than all its predecessors. I don't think it's better than Remembrance of the Daleks (but then, as noted above, despite all appearances to the contrary that was not an anniversary story). Where Doctor Who had been succeeding in series 7 it was with tightly focused, fairly serious, stories such as Hide and A Town Called Mercy, so it was good to see it make a success of something much more light-hearted and rambling. It is immensely enjoyable.

I want to like The Crimson Horror. It has Diana Rigg in it, Madame Vastra and her gang, and the plot holds together pretty well, but somehow I can't get over feeling it's all a bit over-the-top and has too much of the grotesque.

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All that said, it is difficult to find a lot to criticise here. The performances are good. The plot makes sense, at least by its own gothic standards. The use of flashbacks, and starting the story in the middle works surprisingly well. Even the unwanted kiss between Eleven and Jenny is more a failing of the era as a whole, than of this story in particular. Still, I it's not a story I find I like much and the best I can say is that my dislike may not really be the episode's fault. Since the story isn't really trying to do anything beyond entertain, it's difficult to even say I can appreciate it even where I don't much like it.

Addendum: Over Christmas The Child discovered Buffy the Vampire Slayer. NuWho viewing has slowed considerably as a result.

I'm still considering my thoughts on this half season, but I think Hide will prove to be the strongest story. Unlike the first three which were solid episodes but which, to a large extent, were retreading well-explored paths, Hide feels like it is bringing something a bit new to the table.

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At the end of this NLSS Child demanded to know why I had said this half-season was a bit disappointing (The Bells of St. John has, in retrospect, been upgraded to "a bit weak" in her estimation) and it is difficult to argue with her judgment so far. However, looking ahead, I'm not particularly excited about re-watching any of the remaining stories this season. This is, I think, as good as it gets.

The Rings of Akhaten introduces us to one of NuWho's only completely alien worlds. Possibly its the only completely alien NuWho story (I'm not sure). Here the value of things is measured in terms of the personal significance of objects which, in turns, ties into the angry god hidden in the sun who must be sung to sleep.

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The Rings of Akhaten is a competent episode but, to be honest, oddly forgettable. Lots of the trappings of Clara that get introduced around now - the book, the leaf, turn out to be irrelevant and the show does not need, yet, to retell the story of what it is and how it works. The Doctor is no longer a mystery to be unravelled and so this is mostly, more of the same, as opposed to something that moves matters forward.

Oh look! We're on Victorian Christmas Planet again (I think this the third in a row and the fourth over all)! The fact that this is actually England in the Victorian era doesn't really help. That aside, like most Christmas specials, this mostly works well enough, trundling along on good spirits and Christmassy imagery.

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I complain a lot about Victorian Christmas planets, not that I don't (mostly) think Moffat does them pretty well, but just because one gets tired of this kind of schtick. I think this is one of his better efforts - certainly better than either A Christmas Carol or Time of the Doctor - I also think it is one of Clara's best stories to date.

I was, and remain, pleasantly surprised by both Chris Chibnall's episodes for this season. At the time I recall this was generally more highly acclaimed than Dinosaurs on a Spaceship though I actually think it is the weaker of the two stories. It is trying to be a little (though frankly only a little) more serious than Dinosaurs on a Spaceship but it doesn't actually manage to tie its ideas together so well.

It is supposed to be the year of the quiet invasion, where the Doctor comes to live with the Ponds. Only he doesn't, he pops in and out, not quite business as usual, but pretty close. The threat from the cubes never really manages to make much sense either. Viewed as a outline the underlying plot seems choppy and rather thin.

Where the story works well, it is as a The Lodger-like light-hearted look at the Doctor intersecting with the every day lives of his companions, with a couple of opportunities for reflection and introspection. Brian Williams, for instance, works really well here, as he did in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship allowing him to provide a sympathetic but external viewpoint on the Doctor's lifestyle. And there is a neat inversion of expectation at the end. The Ponds have grown up and are seriously considering moving on and yet the ending seems to assert that you do not need to grow out of Doctor Who, even if you have redefined your relationship with it. But the moments of domesticity and reflection don't manage to gel particularly well with the more traditional Who story that is ostensibly driving the plot.

All that said, I think both Chibnall's stories from this season mark a genuine leap in quality from things like The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and (*shudder*) Countryside. jesuswasbatman has noted that one of his weaknesses is a desire to insert grimdark elements (e.g., the more jarring parts of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) and Countryside, in particular, was definitely pushing grimdark. One wonders if this is one of those situations where a writer's strengths (which seem in Chibnall's case to be light-hearted froth) don't well reflect what he actually wants to write. Both his stories this season seem to want to entertain first and foremost, and are, I think, the stronger for it.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is basically series 7's big dumb two-parter except that it only has one part and its completely aware of how dumb it is, and is just going for the silliness. I love it.

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*Shrug* There are dinosaurs on a spaceship and, in that context, the family is very, very easy to please.

Oh hi there Victorian Christmas Planet!! Obviously, set during WWII, this story isn't actually on Victorian Christmas Planet but it is mining the same nostaligic tropes to the extent that it might as well be. The episode has a lot in common with A Christmas Carol (unsurprisingly given it's Moffat's second Christmas Special, I suppose). It's bringing his fairy tale aesthetics to the fore, its exploring themes of family, loss and grief (though from a radically different angle), and it wraps it all up into a package that is almost saccharine. Obviously The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is also deliberately riffing on the Narnia books, so much so, that I was momentarily surprised that there wasn't a lamp post on the other side of the box.

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I'm moderately tolerant of Moffat's Christmas specials. Individually I think they tend to be fairly strong standalone stories. It's only taken as a group that they gain a certain homgeneity that doesn't do them any favours.

I've actually been back and read my previous review of Closing Time because I was interested in seeing how I reacted to the reappearance of Craig. I wrote "I'm glad I don't know who James Corden is" and that sentiment prevails. I still haven't a clue about Corden beyond the confines of Doctor Who and, given other people's comments about him, have no wish to. I think Craig works really well as a character. Hanging a second story from his "ordinary bloke with an ordinary life" schtick is, perhaps, stretching things a bit. But the character and set-up are likeable enough, and the episode sufficiently undemanding that one can forgive it being a little repetitious thematically.

NLSS child was very concerned about Stormageddon and had to be reassured that he would be fine. That done she particularly enjoyed the Doctor's fish-out-of-water moments with the baby. She didn't recognise Lynda Baron as Val, but then I don't think she was ever that fond of Come Outside (a pre-school kids programme which was mostly like the "through the window" bits of Playschool only without the windows and with the addition of a dog and an aeroplane). There was also a lovely moment early one when the doomed shop assistant was checking the changing room. NLSS child became increasingly agitated until the point where she pulled aside a curtain to reveal a Cyberman at which point NLSS child said "OK, so it's a Cyberman, but it could have been someone changing!"* - such are the anxieties of the pre-teen. Interestingly she was less affected when the Doctor did precisely the same thing only to find a woman changing, I suspect the framing of the moment as comedic made the difference.

Closing Time is a nice little episode with few pretensions. It's not as good as The Lodger who's basic set-up it recycles and is deliberately less significant than many companion-lite episodes. However it has plenty of charm and the wisdom not to pretend to be more than the filler it is.

* Sadly, and this from a child who frequently complains about the prudishness of her own contemporaries in changing rooms.

I recall being mildly disappointed by Let's Kill Hitler on first viewing (though looking back at my my review at time I see I loved it but thought it was a bit of an acquired taste). But it doesn't really continue on from A Good Man Goes to War tonally, even if it does carry the plot forward. I think that may suffer from the the burden of expectations. We'd had to wait over the summer before the episode aired and we were expecting more of the same epic scope and spectacle. Instead Let's Kill Hitler is primarily a frothy comedy.

We've jumped ahead several months in time. Amy and Rory have, apparently, grown tired of waiting for the Doctor and resolve to summon him, a la River Song, by leaving conspicuous graffiti somewhere. This is interrupted by their best friend Mels who more or less hijacks the Tardis, takes them back to World War II (allegedly in order to kill Hitler), regenerates into River Song and attempts to murder the Doctor. This is all played with a deft comic touch, particularly Amy, Rory and the Doctor's reactions to Mels and River. NLSS Child was genuinely surprised and delighted by the reveal of Mels identity, having been prepared for previous revelations by her "How to be a Time Lord" book. She also loved the flashbacks to Amy, Rory and Mels as children.

In continued arc plot nit-picking, I feel bound to note that it is strongly implied that Melody Pond is the result of the child's regeneration we saw at the end of Day of the Moon. This entirely fails to explain how, as a toddler, she got from New York 1969, to Leadworth in, presumably the early 21st century. It also doesn't tie in well with River's description of her first meeting with the Doctor in The Impossible Astronaut which implied strongly that she, like Amy, had been a child at the time. It is just about possible, I think, that the Doctor did actually find her in 1969 and bring her forward to Leadworth, but I think you have to read a lot into what we get to draw that conclusion.

There was a discussion in the comments to my review of The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon about whether it was the regeneration that triggered River's conditioning to kill the Doctor. I think it is difficult to say, particularly without knowing much of Mels' back story. It is true she doesn't immediately attempt to kill the Doctor, but she does point a gun at him, and apparently fires it within the Tardis, and River (like the Doctor) rarely takes the shortest path between two points. The flashbacks establish her interest in using time travel to meddle with history so it is plausible that she was waiting to make her move until the Doctor had brought her to Berlin. Again this is really not at all clear and adds to my feeling that River's story was presented in a very confused fashion.

daniel_saunders, I know, feels that the aftermath of the events in A Good Man Goes to War, particularly as they effect Rory and Amy, were never really dealt with. I think we do see the repercussions, particularly in the way Amy reacts to discovering she is now infertile in season 7. However I think it is fair to say that the production team shied away from ever explicitly showing us their distress. Let's Kill Hitler skips us forward several months from the events of Demon's Run, giving them time to start coming to terms with the situation, and then gives us a comedy in which any direct exploration of Amy and Rory's emotional state would be inappropriate. Like the Doctor's own awkwardness around human emotion, the show seems uncomfortable with actually confronting how Amy and Rory feel, preferring that we should infer this from small clues. I suppose, in a way, the whole thing is terribly British.

Like so much of this season, Let's Kill Hitler, is very good in isolation. I think a comedy was also the only logical direction to take after A Good Man Goes to War if the show didn't want to directly present Amy and Rory's grief. Whether that was, overall, a good way to drive the ongoing drama is less clear.

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metanews coding: <a href=http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/167025.html>NuWho Rewatch: Let's Kill Hitler</a> (DW) <i>Discussion of the sixth series episode</i>