Review

When I wrote my first piece on Doctor Who, I said that this would be a big Welcome bacm angels episode, however now I don't think I did them justice, so here it is again

WELCOME BACK TO THE BIGGEST INTERGALACTIC BADASSES IN THE UNIVERSE! DON'T BLINK!

This is the Moffat we know and love, the intricate plot maker who can keep you on the edge of you seat and guessing until the very end, but lets jump straight in:

PLOT

This episode is Moffat to his absolute best. The pre-credit opening was amazing, The idea of sending a message through time to have The Doctor come back to where you sent it, how mind bending is that! I'm going to address the weeping angels later in the ep, but I will state now that they were absolutly scary, especially during the scene in that trailer with the image. The only thing that I did pick up on was that they opace seemed much slower than the last couple of episodes. Thats not a complaint by the way, This kind of timing could have aided last weeks episode. The cliffhanger, oh my god if any fan out there wasn't having a geek-gasm WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???? It was just so sublte the idea that statues were all angels, I mean who was even thinking about counting the heads? If the second episode is anything this one, then this'll become my favourite of all DW 2 parters.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

For the past 3 episodes I have felt that we have either been focusing on one of The Doctor or Amy, The Doctor in the first, Amy in the second and The Doctor in the third. But this episode gave us the best look into both of them, The Doctor tthrough River and Amy through those terrifyingly tense scenes. I was listening to the DWO podcast, they mentioned something about Amy I liked, at the point in the episode when everyone is busy and River calls the Doctor over, Amy sarcastically asks "Anyone need me" and then walks off to amuse herself. If that had been any other companion she would have followed along with what the doctor was doing like a love sick puppy, Karen just brings a sense of equal to the companion role that we haven't seen in the new series before, yhea Donna coame close but she was annoying so she doesn't count. Another thing DWO pointed out was that this episdoe was one of the first ones they filmed, Could you tell? cause I couldn't Matt Smith was pitch perfect in his role, I got chills on the trap line, and his whole personality seemed more fleshed out than it did in the first set of episodes, maybe it was helped by the fact he had River to lead, but Matt still made his own imprint on the episode.

RIVER SONG

Normally I give this section to all of the Secondary Characters, but I feel that the other characters, while present and sutiably strong, were more fodda for The Doctors interactions with River. So here we are with Ms Song, Has there ever been such a complex and intriguing relationship between a Doctor and a companion? Is she his wife? Is she the Rani? Is she the Doctor? Is she a time thief who has stole the real River Song's diary and is now abusing what she knows of old Gallirayan society to manipulate The Doctor? Who knows, but Moffat is definently good enough to keep us guessing. My only real complaint is the Spoilers line, I don't know why, but it annoyed me, still it was good that they didn't dwel on the whole diary and spoilers thing. I've never really watched Alex Kingston, but she brings this really light bubbly sort of feeling to hers and the Doctor's interactions, it's almost as though she knows better than him, which it seems she does. So while I hope we don't learn everything at the end of this 2 parter I would like to find out at least a little bit more to whet my appitite for the Season Finale

ALIEN / ENEMY OF THE WEEK

So here we are, how about them Angels? How scary were they? Everyone knew coming in that this episode would be compared to Blink, so I know when it came to the angels I had conflicting hopes. But Moffat changed what the angels were, giving us a new experience that we hadn't predicted. As the Doctor said, the first set we met were scavengers, barely surviving , they had to wait for people. Howe asy would it been to have had the angel slink around the tunnel picking off the crew one by one and ending up with Jsut the Doctor, Father and River left as Amy is thrust back trough time (this was my prediction). But the image section, the slowly changing of Amy from looking into its eyes, and the Army of angels underground, these are not the angels we knew and loved, these are dangerous and deadly badasses... Oh joy! I'm going to address a question not that I've heard from a few people, why did the angel in the tunnel snap those soliders necks. When Angel Bob was talking to The Doctor he talked about how the Angel needed the Ceribral Cortex and the voice box to comunicate with the Doctor, however why the angel needs to speak with the Doctor remains to be seen. But what if an angel can lie, what if the angel we have seen in the bottem of the maze of the dead isn't the one in the spaceship. These angels must have been trapped in that maze, else they would have gone after the people nearby, so what if they needed the hull of the ship breached to get out? Scary

NEXT TIME

So the Doctor is under the pump to come up with a way to stop the angels, my suggestion would be to watch this episode again, the answer will be hidden in there somewhere. And Amy continues to struggle with the Angel's Curse (I like that name), the doctor tells her to keep her eyes closed, a backwards blink? And who knows what we find out about River.
I now feel justified, for this entire time I've been saying that the cracks can't be as simple as they seem, and now we find the Doctor is going to deal with one in this episode, so maybe they have no link to the finale, if this is true then what is the running Link, cause Moffat has said there is one (In Moffat we Trust).

Rating: 9.5/10

Favourite Quote:
The Doctor: "The writing. The graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan! The lost language of the Timelords. There were days - there were many days - these words could burn stars, and raise up empires, and topple gods."
Amy: "What does this say?"
The Doctor: "'Hello sweetie.'"

Merchandising!

Thats right folks, got a DW itch that repeated watching of the episodes just won't scratch and tons of disposable income, then maybe you might like to be the new Series 5 merchandise avaliable.

See if you can guess what these are:

Yes it is a Dalek Toothbrush, I bet all those people who said the new Daleks were just a Merchendising opertunity are feeling pretty gratified now

These glow in the dark stickers seem pretty standard, but what does that small cresent moon (the one with X12) mean?

 Yep, A DW bored Game. The thing I like about this one is thatit states it is like racing through time because you can flip the bored over... so If we flip a clock over.... Someone call NASA I've cracked time travel

 Thats right it is a muhat thinks it is a TARDIS, well its in for a shock, because look what else we have:

Thats right, this mug is a tiny replica of the TARDIS, well aside from the bigger on the inside bit.


But thats not all folks, because I have an exclusive, yes right here before your every eyes I have the privilage to unvail 3 new posters promoting some new Doctor Who merchandise:

Everybody get your wallets open

DW Adventure Game: Back to the Skaro(Future)

Yes thats right folks when I make a promise I come through on it... well except for that one time with the Biker chick and my Yeti room-mate.... I digress. So the synopsis for the first of these downloadable video games came out reccently and I must say I'm a little worried, here it is:

"The TARDIS materializes in 1963 - and London is in ruins. The Daleks have seized control of time and the only chance of saving Earth lies in a desperate quest to Skaro, the Daleks' home planet - before time catches up with Amy, the last survivor of the human race!"

 Hmm... am I the only one who gest worried when we see that the Dalek's have taken control of time, I mean here is seems like they are using it as a simple plot device while the main plot is your mission, which I guess is fair in the context of a video game. I think something like this (if they had the budget) would have made a much better episode, you could have the Dalek's trick The Doctor, steal something from his Tardis and race off through time, The Doctor of course follows and then we move into the game plot.

And what about the games plot, well using the aformentioned synopsis and the trailer below, I've come up with some ideas:



1. We'll see a back to the future style thing were Amy begins to fade on Skaro
2. There is some fantastical device holding time in the place the Dalek's have chosen, which is what we are after.
3. At least the White Dalek will escape (Don't you agree that its about time we stoped with the whole 'Huzzah we have killed off all the Daleks and sealed a wormhole loop that will never ever ever ever ever ever be opened' when we all know that with the next season they'll all be back

So thats my brief take on the situation. The Doctor Who Adventuer Game: Back to the Future (Skaro Style) will be out on the 5th of June this year (or the 6th of May, I'm not sure how to read the date)

Clip Show: The Time of Angels

Welcome to another week of clip show, and what have we got for you this time??? Well its our firast look at the big, everything that the Moff has done up to this point all dumped into one episode... clips.

I will point out that I'm actually really looking forward to this episode, but it still has the feeling that he came up with the idea for this episode before he even began writing the series opener, wether thats good or bad remains to be seen.

So here we go first clip:


2 things I want to say about this clip, firstly The Doctor acting like a spoilt child who has had his favourite toy taken off of him is kind funny here, but if it becomes something that recurs throughout the episode, it'll really grate on my nerves. Secondly, just putting it out there, this seems like the best proof we have that either River is,
a. A Time Lady (this seems unlikly as The Doctor has said that if there were any of his kind left he would be able to feel them, also I think that the Moff is above such a cheap trick)
b. The Doctor (Again unlikley as that would mean that the Doctor has an established death, also she genuinly sacrifices herself in the Library so I doubt this is right)
c. A Companion whose timeline we will follow backwards to the start (This seems most likley of all the predictions, but the likelyhood that the Doctor would tell River so much if this is the big reveal doesn't sit right)
d. Something that none of us have though of either becausde it is:
         1. Too Bizzare
         2. Staring us in the face

My money is on d.



I really hope spoilers doesn't become a catchphrase with River, it was kind of endeering in the Library but it wouls all to easily get on my nerves.



For anyone who (like me) thought that Moffat couldn't recapture that tense scary edge that Blink had, we were wrong. Even only vaguely watching this clip made me jump, something about those eyes are so creepy.

So thats the clip show for another week I'm going to put up one more Whovian thing before the review this week. With the synopsis of the first DW Adventure Game just released, I'm going to stick up some thoughts, and maybe even a possible plot


Spoilers!

1 true deadpool

Over the past year and a half I have been intrigued, more so, by comic books. One of my favourite characters has to be deadpool (After reading Secret Invasion I was hooked). However I have to admit that after a year and a half he is beggining to grow stale in the comic books. That said, I stumbled upon this about a month ago and I have refallen in love with deadpool. This was the video brought me back:



Now while I found it funny it still didn't quite understand it, so I went back and watched the first episode:



I love this guy, If you want more then go here: ItsJustSomeRandomGuy, If you have the time, watch his hour series, starts with after hours, then happy hour and finally zero hour, the most recent one is brilliant

Review

Or How to Depress a Dalek

This week delivered everything I ever wanted in a Doctor Who episode, an angry Doctor, actually scary Daleks and the Doctor using some sort of impossible object to save the day. I even enjoyed the most preposterous solution to a bomb ever. Also I have a new room-mate who would like to give its opinion, but let’s jump straight in:

PLOT

Well this week we were off to the time of the Second World War and the London Blitz, with the Doctor’s old friend Winne Churchill who has a brand new scheme to defeat the terrible Nazi menace, and their old friends of the Doctor, the Dalek’s but whatever could they be up to this time? In all honesty from the line old friends until this time could have been the description of the Dalek, Daleks in Manhattan and the Stolen Earth, so while I was interested to see what this new era would do with the Daleks, but I wasn’t jumping up and down about it (my room has a fan so that is inadvisable anyway). I really enjoyed the episode especially the whole subservient Daleks at the start was quite amusing, as was the whole set of scenes on the Dalek ship. There was just something about this episode that was engrossing, and as I previously stated I even liked the whole scene with the android Bracewell (Someone motioned to me that in this episode there was a Star Wars homage in the part where the Daleks shoot off his hand and say ‘No, we created you’, much like ‘NO, I am your father’) I will admit it made no sense, but the pure emotion of the scene and of Bracewell (Bill Patterson) made me believe.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

This episode was quite Amy light, so I’ll get her out of the way first, Amy continued to shine as one of the doctor’s most useful companions, working out all the clever things we expect from the Doctor. Now for the man of the episode, Matt Smith showed his full range of the Doctor traits, the absolute frustrated fury he had for the compliant Dalek, the calm brilliance that was on display when he held them for ransom (with a biscuit, I challenge you to find another TV hero who can confront his greatest enemy with only a biscuit?) and the absolute terror of the rebirth of his worst enemy. While I still feel bad after yesterday’s Tennant review, I think Mr Smith (if only his name was John) has so far been brilliant, and seems to be getting better.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Let’s start with Mr Churchill, the whole buddy-buddy thing that he had going on with The Doctor was really nice, I felt like it was two old friends having a catch up (the whole handshake over the TARDIS key was a nice touch). There are some people who think that Ian McNeice conveyed the insurmountable pressure that Winston was under very well. And then there was Bracewell.. I thought he was the most human character in the episode; the emotion on his face during the bomb defuesal was completely believable, basically I thought they were both much better than last week’s offering.

ALIEN/ENEMY OF THE WEEK

Well lets all have a big welcome back for the Daleks, while there has been a lot of Dalek overkill during the RTD era it was nice to see them back at their fearsome best, with a new design and paint-job too. I also found the Daleks at the start, pretending to be compliant to the humans; hilarious asking the doctor as he tries to destroy it “would you like some tea”. And using the Doctor for their master plan how surprising and interesting was that (am I being sarcastic or sincere? You be the judge). Now to explain the depressed Dalek and my room-mate, on Thursday I purchased a small Dalek (Laser non-operational of course) and as we sat down to watch the episode (well he was strapped down to stop it trying to beat me to death) it was... upbeat?? Well it was yelling exterminate rather loudly so it seemed okay. However by the end it seemed almost depressed as it tried to now kill its self over its replacement, I’m not quite sure what to do with it.. I’m thinking of showing it the stolen planet, where the Dalek kills to doctor, to cheer it up (better not show it the genocide at the end though).

NEXT TIME

River song is back, and so are the weeping angels, hidden within a myriad of stone statues, will the doctor find it before something terrible happens? Also note that in the trailer there is an image of around five of them in a corridor, is this single angel on a rescue mission?

The Crack is back, I maintain that something this obvious must be a ploy to distract us from something else, could it be the final villain in the first episode Mister Moffat alluded to in a recent interview?? Also the Stolen Earth Reset, how will this play in?

Rating: 8/10

Favourite Quote: “Don’t mess with me sweetheart”

Now I feel bad

I was browsing the interwebs when I stumbled across a Youtube page for a tuber named Seduff. I quite enjoyed the stuff I'd seen of here before so I was interested to see what she'd been up to (and as a fellow Aussie DW lover I felt patrioticaly abliged).

This is what I found:




I absolutly loved this video, but it reminds me of how great David was and tears me between my love for the DT and my budding romace with MS. Well before I make any value judgements, lets see how MS does with a true Who villian (he hasn't really tackled one yet). Also I've heared that the events of The Stolen Earth and Journey's End will be reset.

God Bless Stephen Moffat (Or Mark Gatsis if it was his idea)

Clip Show: Victory of the Daleks

The Clips are up for Victory of the Daleks, and they are alot more interesting than previous ones:



So Churchill knows the Doctor from earlier in the war, and he wants the TARDIS key... is this why the doctor is here, why the Dalek's chose not to kill him? The time energy?



Everytime I hear that line I get a chill, 'I am your sooolider'



This hopefully shall be good. I make no promises after last week.

Harry Potter is out to send your children to hell

I have recently had it brought to my attention by a very reliable, and not at all petty and manipulative, group that Harry Potter is really turning our Children into tiny Hitlers and Demon posessed Blood drinkers, watch below for the shocking proof:



Now for those of you who are curious I have a video below which is the most evil and vile thing to come from this Potter craze.


 I cannot in good faith embed it so you will have to follow the link

WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

Those sick bastards!

Review

Well well well, here we are, Week 2 and Moffat tries to bring the darkness... with limited results, Amy saves us from the Doctor, and the Smilers are revealed ... and don’t satisfy. But lets jump straight in:

PLOT

Okay, this episode sees us aboard the Starship UK, where things aren’t as they seem (wouldn’t be much of an episode if things were exactly as they seem I suppose), and as one might expect it is up to the Doctor and Amy to get to the bottom of it. So far as plots go, I really felt let down by this one, Early moments with the smilers gave them a real scare appeal as these evil watchers, who are working rouge to bring society down. However one of the aspects I did like was how SM showed that given the option humanity will do terrible things and just simply choose to erase them, it made a good point and was a generally nice touch.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

Being only the second episode, the relationship between these two is still kind of being explored, but we got to see how the ‘Last of the Time Lords’ idea was presented in this new series. I quite like how Matt Smith played it, choosing to be more distant too it and accepting of it than DT. I also liked the contrast at that point between the Doctor and Amy, they both knew terrible things and while Amy chose to hide from it, the doctor chooses to live on with the knowledge of his past, in order to find other ways of saving everyone. Now the ending, This is the sort of ending that reminds me of Dalek during the Eccleston series, where the Doctor is ready to kill but the Companion (in Dalek, Rose) stops asnd saves the Alien, this time however Amy sees something that the Doctor doesn’t, its nice that Amy seems to be more akin to the Doctor than any other new series companions, but the ending still did feel right... as though there is still something missing to this Doctor

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

The secondary Characters of this episode (Liz 10 (reminds me of the kids show Ben 10) and Mandy) were probably the most paper thin characters that I have seen from SM in his entire Who writing time, from the man who delivered Sally Sparrow and Madame de Pompadour, it hurts to watch these characters flap about on the screen. Mandy, while providing a good comaprrison between the doctor and the Space Whale, wasn’t all that interesting and once we got past Amy getting abducted, she seemed to serve no further purpose. As for Liz 10 I just didn’t find here interesting, although I will admit here line "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule" was quite awesome, but past that I just didn’t care about her.

ALIEN/ENEMY OF THE WEEK

Enemy:

The Smilers, touted as being one of the better big bads of the new season these guys were pretty pathetic, offering only a minor chill factor, they didn’t really kill anyone or do anything, they were just mere tools of the system, nothing to interesting here.

Alien:

The Space Whale, I liked how this entity was portrayed as the main villain of the piece controlling everything, but turns out to be a doctor like creature (hmm... maybe humanity should have been put as the enemy) But once much like the other characters was completely un-interesting, and a little bit silly

NEXT TIME

Churchill and the Daleks, for a guy who seems so happy with his new best friends, why would Churchill call on the Doctor... something doesn’t ring true here.

FUTURE

As we can see there is a crack, much like the one on Amy’s wall on the side of the ship. Is the crack following the doctor? And if so who is opening them? Is this something to do with the Pandorica? Who the hell knows, but this smells an awful lot of a Bad Wolf scenario.

Clip Show: Beast Below

A couple of clips were released this week for Beast Below, so I've got them up for you:

(On a more personal note I'm back from my holiday, so the blog is back from hiatus, huzzah!)








Review up tomorrow

Review

On the 1st of January man Who fans mourned the loss of the Tenth Doctor (Mr Dacid Tennant) and were saddened by the leaving of Russell T. Davis, most of us belived that no one would ever be able to fill their shoes, and on April 3rd... We were proven right, because on that day 2 new men ( an old hand and a fresh face) walked into town, wearing their own set of shoes, while the old shoes were left behind (... I don't think this analogy is working to well any more), and one thing is for certain, nothing will ever be the same

THE OLD HAND

Using all the brilliant episodes of DW written by Mr Moffat that have come before, I still didn't know what to expect. Could he make an episode that was quick witted and interesting, and still maintain that slightly dark adult edge he'd always given us before? Well the doctor has just regenerated, the TARDIS is rebuilding its self, the Sonic Screwdriver is broken and there is a shape-shifting alien prisoner on the loose... Oh and the world is going to be incinerated in 20 minutes, did I mention that the companion has gone through 12 years of therapy because of the doctor? I loved this episode it had the perfect mix of introdution and story, while we still learnt so much about this new doctor and who all our new characters are, but at the same time we got an interesting story with real enemies and pace. If we can consider this a view as to what is to come, I must say that I'm quite happy.

THE FRESH FACE

Now I know I may have rambled on the teeniest tinyest bit about shoes before, but now I'll explain what I mean, DT left a large shadow that many people though (yes, your reverant blogger included) Matt Smith would only get lost in. But we never even looked at him as the guiy who is replacing David, he was very much his own man, while he's still the mad brilliant Doctor we know and love, he brings just brings an energy to the doctor that gives it a new and different life (I particularilly enjoyed the Custrad fish fingers and how Amy bested him quite a few times). I look forward to seeing what else we learn about this new (Nothing like DT) doctor.


Kiss'O'Gram

So what about miss Pond? Looking at the most reccent set of comanions, everyone has been reliant on the Doctor, and while he may let them down for a moment, he is always quickly back to make things right. But for Amelia Pond, he has always let her down; because of him she was subjected to 12 years of therapy and a futher 2 years of anxiety when he skipped off again. So why did she go with him? He can't really be trusted and you're getting married tomorrow. But he is the man she has dreamed of/ imagined for most of her life. So while I remain unsure of how this thing will develop, I'm sure it'll be interesting to watch.




So How was...

           The Story

Cosidering the standard set by RD in the way season openers, this exceeded what I expected, I will admit that it didn't quite have the enemy element of 'Rose" or 'The Christmas Invasion', but it did come across as a mush smarter episode. I also liked the character intorductions, we learnt about the doctor and amy, through their interactions which were generally quite interesting. Another aspect which I did enjoy, and can see becoming a staple of this doctor, was the back-track view, where we searched Rory and Prisoner 0's human form. It was this use of new technology along side the nods to clasic Who that really sold me.

The Sceondary Characters

The secondary character development in this was quite good, while I would say we didn't see the usual range of colourful characters that Moffat's Who episodes have given us, this story had to be more focused on the Doctor and Amy, so it would be hard to introduce more characters. That being said, I did like his introduction of Rory, I found Rory to be very real, noticing the world around him before the doctor even arrives, he isn't like some characters (first season Micky for example) who only seem to do things in relation to what either the doctor has told them to do, or that the doctor is doing.

Alien of the week

Prisoner 0, during the first half an hour I was not impressed by this snarly growly creature, he just seemed to run around anc hase things, no thought at all. However when at the end he started talking and practically taunting the doctor, as thought he knows him, or is part of something bigger, like say... I don't know... THE  PANDORICA!!! More on this to come 

The other aliens were the Atraxi... I wasn't a big fan of these guys either, they were necessarilly big eyes in snowflake style ships, that look an awful lot like the ones piloted by the empress of the Raknos. For me I would ahve been just as happy if the Judoon had been used, but then again I guess we would have lost the bit at the end where Matt Smith steps through the images of the doctor, which was quite awsome

NEXT TIME...

So what are we up to next week and what could be coming back? Well to address the later question, Prisoner 0 alluded to the Pandorica and silence, now there have been rumours that the Pandorica would be in the finale, so lets assume those confimred, but how does 0 know about it?? I'm not too sure wether this is the last we'll see of 0 (remeber because it took the doctor 2 years to come back with the Tarids 0 could have escaped, been shot, had kids settled down, we just have to remember that stuff could have happened). Now to the next episode, well we have London in space and wierd Smilers in some sort of red room. So thus far it looks good :).

Rating: 7/10

Clip Show

In preparation for Saturday, I've trawlled through the net and found as many clips from episode one as I could, enjoy the first glimpses of the new doctor (I'm still reserving judgement until I see the full episode, but I do feel better)