NuWho Place Like Home?
Not being one for changing horses in mid-stream, I'm plunging on with today's instalment of Pond Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikv0QbubV7Y
In which the Doctor and Amy seem to have no problem with the concept of forced labour, although Rory, to his credit, feels bad about it...a bit...as he tucks into his Full English. Good lad, that.
It actually made me remember the existence (which I had somehow suppressed from my mind) of the S4 story Planet of the Ood, with its charming suggestion that opposing and destroying slavery, both de jure and de facto, is absolutely the right and moral and heroic thing to do...unless you end up making the people who benefit from that slavery feel a bit guilty or uncomfortable while you're at it, because that's just rude.
An-y-waaay, as Ten would have said at this juncture, let's plunge on. Last night I gave you my bottom three stories of S6 of NuWho, and tonight I intend to press on with...
The Three Who Rule:
3. The Girl Who Waited. Again, I have no clear idea what the general feeling in fandom is about this one, because by that point the brewing fan-war over whether Moffat was Gandhi Reborn or The Great Satan had made me tune out a bit from most discussions other than the one going on in my head. All I can say is that I really liked this one, on a very basic, gut sort of level when I first watched it, and have continued to enjoy it on rewatches (pretty much the opposite, then, of my reaction to A Good Man Goes to War). I agree with some of the comments I did see, that there is something rather problematic about the way the final choice between the two Amy's is framed, but at the end of the day when you put yourself in the situation (because obviously things like that happen all the time in real life), it feels like a real dilemma, not the sort of made-up dilemma that Chris Chibnall, say, might pose in that probable rejected Torchwood script with the Silurians (not that I'm bitter about that story or anything). And the Doctor's intervention on Rory's behalf feels like the sort of thing the Doctor would do, as a friend, even if on some level his decisiveness and willingness to act where a guy like Rory couldn't was as scary as hell. You know, without the unnecessary "that Doctor, he's such a badass and definitely not a goody two-shoes - no, good men don't need no stinkin' rules" bombast of...that other story I mentioned yesterday.
Two things really make this story, though - the utterly horrible situation stemming from a simple, chance mistake, and the performances by the three regulars. Especially Karen Gillan, who here gives the lie to all the people who doubted her acting credentials in S5.
2. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. I'm counting the two-parter as one story. You know, because it is. I liked this one right from the get-go, but having rewatched it a couple of times since, now I think I love it. A strong start to the series, I thought, as well as one that promised so much (so much that the rest of S6, very arguably, failed to deliver). But this one had it all - a fantastic opening that really set up the whole story arc that was to follow; Matt Smith absolutely knocking it out of the stadium as a subtly older, wearier, slightly nastier Eleven than we saw at the end of the previous series. Ace Sixties US setting (as Eleven points out, all of that oldschool space stuff is really cool). I especially liked the portrayal of Richard Nixon, which I wasn't expecting at all, rising as it did above the sort of simplistic approach NuWho normally adopts with actual historical figures who aren't acting as de facto companions (Winston Churchill?) to portray a genuinely ambivalent, but clearly deeply troubled, piece of work. "I can't trust anyone!" he says at one point, and it's simultaneously a statement of fact, a droll historical comment and a cry for help.
On top of that we have the Silence - vividly realised monsters looking like something from some classic lost UFO-themed Buffy episode, gently whispering their sadistic glee as they kill without mercy and then vanish from memory. That, the memory-erasure concept, was really well handled as well and added to the tension and unsettling atmosphere of the story.
I think a big part of this story's appeal for me, though, was ace guest character Canton Everett Delaware III, played by legendary genre "hey, it's that guy" Mark Sheppard with obvious relish. Seriously, I would watch a spinoff starring this character, being all cool and sarcastic every week as he led some late-60s American equivalent to Torchwood or something. Make it so, somebody.
1. The Doctor's Wife. There could be only one. This might count as the conventional choice, but that's because it's the obvious one. Head and shoulders the best story of S6, and up there in the NuWho "top x" of great stories, I would argue. Let's get the obvious out of the way; no, not just because it's by that chap. You know, that writer chap, what's his name?
Seriously, the build up to this one was deeply strange and unsettling, the level of unprecedented hype leaving a lot of people, myself included, with the strong feeling that however good it ended up being it would be a disappointment. But it wasn't, it wasn't at all. It's probably highly self-indulgent to quote oneself, but I don't think I can express it any better than I did in my reaction post at the time:
"Sorry to parade my fanwank in front of you like this, but to be honest in the context of this story fanwank seems entirely appropriate. I have absolutely no idea what a non-Who fan would make of this, and to be honest I don't really care. I think the genius of this story (and I have to be careful using words like that in relation to anything Gaiman or Moffat were in any way involved in, for fear that Larry Miles will somehow track me down! ;D) is that it does manage to be game-changing and canon-busting, in some quite interesting ways, without actually changing the game or busting any "canon" (if Who even has canon in the Trek sense)... The other thing working in this story's favour was the absolute black-as-pitch fairytale element... And probably the real "whoah - that's a bit strong!" moment for me - Rory's withered years-old corpse surrounded by wall after wall covered with embittered graffiti expressing his hatred for Amy. That it turned out just to be an illusion didn't really make it any better..."
Add to that a great performance by Suranne Jones as "Idris" and perhaps - perhaps - the boy Smith's best-ever turn as the Doctor. Gold.
Honourable mentions this time go to The God Complex, which was my fourth choice - a fantastically creepy and unpleasant sort of tale, with a bonus Horns of Nimon reference to push my fannish buttons - Let's Kill Hitler and Closing Time, which were fun but a bit slight to make my top three and last but not least The Wedding of River Song, which had me, the non-River fan of all people, absolutely hooked until the ending (not the wedding itself, but the very, very last scene or two) totally baffled me as to Moffat's intent all along.
Well, that's that for now. There may be some more nonsense coming your way tomorrow, if I can think of anything, as I determinedly carry on my countdown to S7. For now, content yourselves that there are...
Two days left!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikv0QbubV7Y
In which the Doctor and Amy seem to have no problem with the concept of forced labour, although Rory, to his credit, feels bad about it...a bit...as he tucks into his Full English. Good lad, that.
It actually made me remember the existence (which I had somehow suppressed from my mind) of the S4 story Planet of the Ood, with its charming suggestion that opposing and destroying slavery, both de jure and de facto, is absolutely the right and moral and heroic thing to do...unless you end up making the people who benefit from that slavery feel a bit guilty or uncomfortable while you're at it, because that's just rude.
An-y-waaay, as Ten would have said at this juncture, let's plunge on. Last night I gave you my bottom three stories of S6 of NuWho, and tonight I intend to press on with...
The Three Who Rule:
3. The Girl Who Waited. Again, I have no clear idea what the general feeling in fandom is about this one, because by that point the brewing fan-war over whether Moffat was Gandhi Reborn or The Great Satan had made me tune out a bit from most discussions other than the one going on in my head. All I can say is that I really liked this one, on a very basic, gut sort of level when I first watched it, and have continued to enjoy it on rewatches (pretty much the opposite, then, of my reaction to A Good Man Goes to War). I agree with some of the comments I did see, that there is something rather problematic about the way the final choice between the two Amy's is framed, but at the end of the day when you put yourself in the situation (because obviously things like that happen all the time in real life), it feels like a real dilemma, not the sort of made-up dilemma that Chris Chibnall, say, might pose in that probable rejected Torchwood script with the Silurians (not that I'm bitter about that story or anything). And the Doctor's intervention on Rory's behalf feels like the sort of thing the Doctor would do, as a friend, even if on some level his decisiveness and willingness to act where a guy like Rory couldn't was as scary as hell. You know, without the unnecessary "that Doctor, he's such a badass and definitely not a goody two-shoes - no, good men don't need no stinkin' rules" bombast of...that other story I mentioned yesterday.
Two things really make this story, though - the utterly horrible situation stemming from a simple, chance mistake, and the performances by the three regulars. Especially Karen Gillan, who here gives the lie to all the people who doubted her acting credentials in S5.
2. The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. I'm counting the two-parter as one story. You know, because it is. I liked this one right from the get-go, but having rewatched it a couple of times since, now I think I love it. A strong start to the series, I thought, as well as one that promised so much (so much that the rest of S6, very arguably, failed to deliver). But this one had it all - a fantastic opening that really set up the whole story arc that was to follow; Matt Smith absolutely knocking it out of the stadium as a subtly older, wearier, slightly nastier Eleven than we saw at the end of the previous series. Ace Sixties US setting (as Eleven points out, all of that oldschool space stuff is really cool). I especially liked the portrayal of Richard Nixon, which I wasn't expecting at all, rising as it did above the sort of simplistic approach NuWho normally adopts with actual historical figures who aren't acting as de facto companions (Winston Churchill?) to portray a genuinely ambivalent, but clearly deeply troubled, piece of work. "I can't trust anyone!" he says at one point, and it's simultaneously a statement of fact, a droll historical comment and a cry for help.
On top of that we have the Silence - vividly realised monsters looking like something from some classic lost UFO-themed Buffy episode, gently whispering their sadistic glee as they kill without mercy and then vanish from memory. That, the memory-erasure concept, was really well handled as well and added to the tension and unsettling atmosphere of the story.
I think a big part of this story's appeal for me, though, was ace guest character Canton Everett Delaware III, played by legendary genre "hey, it's that guy" Mark Sheppard with obvious relish. Seriously, I would watch a spinoff starring this character, being all cool and sarcastic every week as he led some late-60s American equivalent to Torchwood or something. Make it so, somebody.
1. The Doctor's Wife. There could be only one. This might count as the conventional choice, but that's because it's the obvious one. Head and shoulders the best story of S6, and up there in the NuWho "top x" of great stories, I would argue. Let's get the obvious out of the way; no, not just because it's by that chap. You know, that writer chap, what's his name?
Seriously, the build up to this one was deeply strange and unsettling, the level of unprecedented hype leaving a lot of people, myself included, with the strong feeling that however good it ended up being it would be a disappointment. But it wasn't, it wasn't at all. It's probably highly self-indulgent to quote oneself, but I don't think I can express it any better than I did in my reaction post at the time:
"Sorry to parade my fanwank in front of you like this, but to be honest in the context of this story fanwank seems entirely appropriate. I have absolutely no idea what a non-Who fan would make of this, and to be honest I don't really care. I think the genius of this story (and I have to be careful using words like that in relation to anything Gaiman or Moffat were in any way involved in, for fear that Larry Miles will somehow track me down! ;D) is that it does manage to be game-changing and canon-busting, in some quite interesting ways, without actually changing the game or busting any "canon" (if Who even has canon in the Trek sense)... The other thing working in this story's favour was the absolute black-as-pitch fairytale element... And probably the real "whoah - that's a bit strong!" moment for me - Rory's withered years-old corpse surrounded by wall after wall covered with embittered graffiti expressing his hatred for Amy. That it turned out just to be an illusion didn't really make it any better..."
Add to that a great performance by Suranne Jones as "Idris" and perhaps - perhaps - the boy Smith's best-ever turn as the Doctor. Gold.
Honourable mentions this time go to The God Complex, which was my fourth choice - a fantastically creepy and unpleasant sort of tale, with a bonus Horns of Nimon reference to push my fannish buttons - Let's Kill Hitler and Closing Time, which were fun but a bit slight to make my top three and last but not least The Wedding of River Song, which had me, the non-River fan of all people, absolutely hooked until the ending (not the wedding itself, but the very, very last scene or two) totally baffled me as to Moffat's intent all along.
Well, that's that for now. There may be some more nonsense coming your way tomorrow, if I can think of anything, as I determinedly carry on my countdown to S7. For now, content yourselves that there are...
Two days left!