[Doctor Who] 6.12 "Closing Time"
I am going to try very hard not to crack any Semisonic-related jokes.
( Though, to be fair, the song lyrics are kind of appropriate . . . )
( Though, to be fair, the song lyrics are kind of appropriate . . . )
See, I thought he was hiding because he didn't expect to run into them (seriously, what were they doing in Essex) and knew from his previous experience that he didn't meet them again until Utah, so he wanted to make sure they didn't see him and contaminate the timeline. Actually aside from the bit about Amy being a model the episode makes a fair bit of sense taking place in April 2011, although it does make the timing on Alfie's conception a bit dodgy.
Moffat's at his best when he's going for tragedy and scariness.
Also I think part of the problem is he likes puzzles, and he really likes puzzles that play with time in unusual ways ("The Girl in the Fireplace", "Blink", "The Big Bang"). Moffat is remarkably good at sustaining his timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly puzzles over a single episode, but he's having a hard time adjusting to playing out his puzzles over the course of an entire season. Last season mostly downplayed the puzzle aspects of the plot and worked fairly well. This season -- if you will allow me to toss a few cliches into a blender -- has really disappeared down the rabbit hole of mysteries within enigmas and paradoxes and questions, and there are so many balls in the air at any one point that he can't juggle them all with his usual skill. So you wind up with a bunch of episodes zooming through plot at hyperspeed and warping the characters so he can just hit the plot points he needs to lay down the next piece of the puzzle.
Plus, while seeing River's story out of order was a neat idea in theory, in practice, it did not really work out. I get the feeling that if we had been watching her story in chronological order, it would have been a fascinating progression, but getting it in reverse made it come off of as a regression, instead . . .
A large part of what's left me unsatisfied with how River's story has played out is how fast it's been going by. I would have preferred for the mystery to play out over a much longer period, maybe let us spend more time with Non-Crazy River, but in the space of 13 episodes we have gone from knowing nothing about River to knowing pretty much everything about River. There's never been any time for the characters to reflect on or react to these revelations, and we never really get to spend time with any of these different versions of River. Stuff just gets flung at us and then the story leaps ahead to the next plot point.
I guess honestly it encapsulates my biggest complaint about this season: I really wanted less story, more character. This season has been too busy with plot to spend much time with the characters as characters.
And then we've got a Christmas special coming up and no new Who until late next fall. (Damn Olympics.)
I suppose I'm going to have to take up ficcing again to console myself during the long gap. I was going to be snarky and point out that they managed just fine during 2008 and 2010, but they also didn't have the Olympics on their doorstep the last time around. Bah. Stupid Olympics.
And it's the summer ones too which means there is nothing I am interested in happening. At least the Winter Olympics have figure skating and ice dancing. Lamesauce.
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Agreed. That said, at the very least, I would've just been happy with some general acknowledgement that whenever something happened, it actually meant something. I mean, they had a lot of really traumatic stuff happen to them this season, but that's okay! They're fine! Stolen baby? What stolen baby? What do you mean Amy was kidnapped and used as an incubator for nine months and woke up in labor in the middle of a sterile tube with no idea how she got there? NONE OF THAT STUFF IS THE SLIGHTEST BIT TRAUMATIC. Have some tea! It's fine! That stuff happens to me all the time! No big! Pfft!
And it's the summer ones too which means there is nothing I am interested in happening. At least the Winter Olympics have figure skating and ice dancing. Lamesauce.
I'm going to be a dork and confess that I am a HUGE fan of rhythmic gymnastics - an event which hasn't been televised in the US since the mid-90's. And that was the only event I really cared about. (If I'm really bored, I can watch the gymnastics competitions, but that's about it.)
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Yeah, I've been banging that drum for a while myself. Like I said last week, I kept hoping for a big dramatic confrontation, or at least some acknowledgement of the enormity of what had happened to Amy and Rory. And it just kept not happening, or we'd get these little half-gestures. Which, I guess it's fine if that's not the story Moffat wanted to tell, but it's the story I wanted to see.
Suppose that means I should start exercising my fic muscles again. Okay. I can do this. Ready . . . now. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while the Doctor pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore . . ."
Hmm. Needs work.
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