The Doctor As Show Man and Space 1889 Cosplayer

The Doctor As Show Man and Space 1889 Cosplayer
(Spoiler Alert!)

It's been a busy two weeks, so when I finally sat down to catch up with Doctor Who, I had two episodes to watch. The first episode, The Lie of the Land, is actually part three of the two previous episodes which I found to be mediocre as best. 

Was I expecting anything better for this storyline's finale? No, not really. The Lie of the Land didn't disappoint on that respect. It was mediocre in script and well-done in acting and execution. Bill is still a strong, sympathetic character willing to lay down her life to save others, Nardole is still a loyal aide-de-camp willing to go the extra mile to help out, and the Doctor is... Well, he's a show man of sorts, selling the evil monks' "new history" to the unsuspecting public through slick commercials. Why the evil monks ever go to the extent they do to take over the world is never satisfactorily explained, including the gigantic statues of their mummy-like visages. They should have taken a lesson from the Daleks and Cybermen. Good ol' fashioned firepower and metal suits work just fine to invade Earth in Doctor Who.

Missy is seen once again in The Lie, but her cameo doesn't seem particularly necessary to the plot, as the Doctor should be able to figure things out himself with his abilities and resources. She's incarcerated in a TARDIS-styled vault and seems content to be locked up. There's hints she's not as sociopathic/psychopathic as she once was, but she's still not portrayed as a positive middle-aged female image, but rather as a figure of ridicule/hate. Actress Michelle Gomez could do better and deserves a stronger role.
 
The Orwellian overtones of "He who owns the past owns the future" are good in The Lie, but the overall arc of the trilogy of episodes isn't quite pulled off.  A good script editor could have helped cobble these three disparate episodes together in a more coherent and effective manner and brought out the strengths in each. As is... nice try, but it's very sad how this trilogy falls flat. At least Bill has a decent hairstyle this time out, and I enjoyed the "Maoist China" style of bland/uni-colored clothing of the populace as well as the Doctor's "worn" jacket.

Empress of Mars is a stronger episode in that it doesn't try to be anything it isn't.  The Doctor meets his old foes, the Ice Warriors. They've been updated a bit without losing their lovable "monster of the week" look about them that they've sported since the Patrick Troughton era. My husband was pleased to see the Victorian-era military men on an expedition on Mars, very reminiscent of the characters one takes on in the role playing game Space 1889. (The military costuming was accurate historically according to hubby who is an expert on such things, too.)

Why there is oxygen underground on Mars is never explained, especially since the surface is dead and there's no obvious plant life left.  The frozen/hibernating Ice Warriors are very similar to the Patrick Troughton series Cybermen who were hibernating on Mondas in a pyramid-like set-up. 

Hmm... Pyramids and spacesuits seem to be returning images in this season, as the Doctor and Bill have been seen in spacesuits in Empress of Mars, Oxygen and in underwater diving suits in Thin Ice. The evil monks have a spacecraft (I assume that's what it is since it "flies") that's pyramid-shaped in Nemesis, The Pyramid at the End of the World,  and The Lie of the Land. Is there some kind of connection we're suppose to make with the reoccurring imagery? I have to say, Peter looks great in a form-hugging spacesuit. I hope the hoodie look has been put to rest for good.

With only a few more episodes to go in Peter Capaldi's last year as the Doctor, fingers crossed we get another Mark Gatiss-written story. What's your take on these last episodes? Please write your comments below. Thanks.

 Can't get enough of the man in the spacesuit, can you? :)

Coming Soon... The Loving Who series from Devine Destinies Books!

The Logic Gaps of (New) Doctor Who

The Logic Gaps of (New) Doctor Who 

by Cynthianna 

***Spoiler Alert! You might want to watch the show first.***

I apologize if this is a bit late, but we’re in between two sci-fi cons and life keeps getting in the way. We hope to see you this weekend at Conclave in Dearborn, Michigan. 

After seeing this week’s episode, Under the Lake, I am in two minds about it. First off, the special effects and sets are superb. When the Doctor and Clara walk out of the TARDIS and into the underwater base it looked like the real deal and had that “lived-in” look. Very nicely done! Secondly, the viewer has to check his/her brain in at the door when trying to explain the plot to another person because the logic gaps in the story are bigger than a sinkhole after a flood. 

Since I live with a British person, I usually go to him for explanation about the setting. He informs me that the town in Scotland isn’t on a lake but lies along the North Sea, so the title seems a bit misleading. Even if it’s one hundred years into the future and climate change has raised the ocean levels, this town in Scotland probably isn’t going under he assures me since Scotland is actually rising up as the southern part of Great Britain tilts down and will receive the worse of the sea inundation. So, are they in “fresh water” or “salt water” in this story? Confusing. 

Another confusing story detail—why would they be drilling for oil in Scotland a century from now? Sure, it could be used for plastics and the like, but wouldn’t they still be pumping the petroleum from the North Sea platforms and using the sideways drilling techniques the fracking industry espouses? And why would you go underwater and live in an underwater base to drill in the first place? It’s pretty costly. Once again, geography and geology don’t quite jive. Doctor Who has traveled a long way from its original premise of being a family friendly show that tries to teach science and history to its audience. 

The “ghosts” haunting the underwater base were creepy, but I also found them somewhat confusing. They could lift and carry solid objects of size, but then they couldn’t take them through walls with them. Usually, ghosts can’t touch or manipulate solid matter, so perhaps next week we’ll find out what they really are? Aliens? Here’s hoping! The casting of a deaf actress (one assumes) as leader of the group was a pleasant surprise. It’s nice to know the Doctor can read sign language even if he can’t figure out the alien runes on the inside of the spaceship. 

But what really had us scratching our heads was the idea that the “ghosts” were sending out a message to a rescue mission somewhere in the vicinity of the constellation of Orion. Somehow, by killing more and more humans, it makes a stronger “signal” to broadcast to the alien rescuers. Huh? Last time I checked, usually you needed a device such as a radio dish to send out a message across interstellar space. Maybe this bit of confusion will also be solved by next week’s episode? 

I found Peter Capaldi channeling Tom Baker throughout Under the Lake intriguing. He’s slightly more lovable this season so far, even when he’s acting arrogant and ill-mannered. Clara’s personality has all the clarity of a cipher, however. No flashbacks to her horrible experiences losing her boyfriend at all? It’s like she’s a completely different young woman. Odd, really. Whenever most people lose a loved one it leaves a lasting mark on the psyche that’s noticeable by their words and actions. 

Creepy baddies and a cool set are nice, but a story and characters that aren’t as full of holes as Swiss cheese would be welcome.

The Crudeness of (New) Doctor Who

 The Crudeness of (New) Doctor Who

by Cynthianna

Will the Doctor ever play the recorder again?

***Spoiler Alert!*** 
(If you've not seen the first episode yet, you might want to read this later. Just sayin'!)

Last week, I wrote about The Charm of Doctor Who, comparing and contrasting the Doctor’s various personas in the classic series. This week I thought I’d give a short review on the new series' latest episode, The Magician’s Apprentice.

First off, I’m not very clear on the title. The Doctor seemed to have a helper in Bors, but is he really an “apprentice” and is the Doctor a “magician” or just wearing a red lined magician’s jacket? Is Clara to become an “apprentice”? There’s no real hint of that being the case yet, and of course, it’s “to be continued” so we’re forced to watch the next episode to find out. At least we can see that Clara is over her dead boyfriend, Danny, and has moved on with her teaching career while moonlighting for U.N.I.T. on the side. (One wonders whatever happened to Martha Jones and Mickey Smith—aren’t they still working for U.N.I.T.? Perhaps they’d be better agents to contact in these type of situations?)

Second thing, the “charming” element of the show seems to have gone for good, replaced by crudeness and lewd behavior. Of course, I'm referring to the scene where Missy (still wearing the Mary Poppins’ outfit) makes an off-color adult remark about the TARDIS and then strokes the Dalek’s “ball” in his “crotch area”. Uh, yeah… That’s pretty much killed any family-friendly rating for the entire series in my opinion, but it’s perhaps what the current show runner wants. After all, if your target audience is seventh grade boys, then why not litter the show with middle school boys’ locker room humor? Heck, you don’t even need to think about pleasing the female viewers or more mature adults in the audience, do you? (And those pesky seven and eight year olds—who said you could stay up late and watch, Doctor Who, huh? Mom, Grandma—get those little ones in bed!)

The best elements of the episode (disconnected as they are) were the fact that Peter Capaldi plays a mean guitar and the opening five minutes with the young boy Davros standing in a battlefield. The Davros-as-a-young-boy scene harkened back to the Tom Baker era when the Fourth Doctor pondered, “Should you kill a race knowing that one day they could become mass murderers?” The Fourth Doctor didn’t commit genocide that day, and you do wonder if that decision ever plagued him later. But after the first five minutes, the big yellow tank (however did the Doctor transport it there?) and the guitar playing (the Doctor gave up tooting the recorder, huh?) took over, and then came the crude comments of the psychopathic Missy on the Dalek's home world which sullied the whole story concept.

Dear ol' Crazy Sue White...

I mean, was the character of Missy even necessary for this story? (No explanations given on why she’s still alive or how the Doctor knows how to contact her to give her his last will and testament.) Couldn’t more emphasis be put on the Doctor and his “decision” with the boy Davros and how he might make right his decision not to commit genocide against the Daleks previously? The Magician’s Apprentice held the kernel of a great story idea, but instead we get stuck with a foul-mouthed middle aged woman dressed as Mary Poppins burning up the screen. Why are women of a “certain age” (I being one of them) to be portrayed as homicidal lunatics with lewd behaviors and horrible taste in clothing? (I don’t own any Edwardian-era purple traveling suits myself. None of my friends do, either.)

Oh, well, at least Clara was shown to be level-headed and not riddled with angst about lying to her soldier boyfriend this time out. She’s a lot less irritating than last year—so far. But why do we need to be stuck with Michelle Gomez’s repetition of her crazy hospital administrator Sue White from Green Wing? Surely she’s got more acting chops than just playing crazy and crude psychopaths?

We’re lucky, however. We get Retro TV,  and this week Retro TV is broadcasting the classic series Jon Pertwee adventure Inferno. Companion Liz Shaw and the scientist Petra Williams are both written as strong, intelligent and independent females who help the Doctor solve the mystery of why it’s so dangerous to frack our planet. (Okay, they’re drilling into the Earth’s crust and not fracking, but it’s similar!) The Third Doctor even time-warps into an alternate reality and meets up with an evil Sergeant Benton and a scarred-face Brigadier in a pirate’s eye patch. Exciting sci-fi adventure with no crude commentary allowed. As long as we have these older episodes available, the charm of Doctor Who lives on.

What do you find "charming" about Doctor Who? Do you find it in the classic series or the newer series? Leave your comments in the comment box below. Thanks!