[Review] - Doctor Who s6e2 - Day of the Moon
So this will be a bit more in depth, both good and bad, concerning my thoughts on episode 2.
As some of you know, I like stories. Stories are fun. I like when they are well told and executed.
This was not those things. From the "throw things at the wall enough so people won't notice I can't be bothered to put my plot together" approach to the "only characters matter" to the "damn, cliffhangers are hard, I'll just skip on to something else" Crash TV pacing, this was really irritating.
Ultimately, this may just be the old "I am not the target audience" problem. I'm starting to worry Moffat only has three plots, and this wasn't obvious until he had to write more than one episode a year.
So yes, I didn't like this episode as an episode because it just felt badly done and full of fridge logic. It makes me very worried for the rest of the season. I know woodwardicon and w1ldc47 both have mentioned the "it shows there will be a season long arc"/"this is a 13-part story" angle and that my complaints that it felt unfinished are mistaken because all that will be answered. I am doubtful. I can't see any reason to believe Moffat wants to do, or is capable of doing, a season-long arc as a focused project. We already know there are lots of other writers, so he certainly isn't doing it directly, and anyone who has seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer knows it is very difficult to pull off. Far more likely he will do what he did last year and have a little sting and/or arc word and that wrap it up at the end. Which is fine, but one still needs the individual episodes to hold on their own.
However, I know lots of people liked it, and that's primarily because it is chock full of awesome moments.
1) Character. While I don't like the general TV idea that the only thing that matters is the character moments, so just ignore plot as long as you can get your big angsty scenes, (see the massive failure of Lost and BSG's finales) it is here to stay so you at least should be good at it. Moffat is VERY good at it. Hopefully this closes the "Amy/Doctor secret crush" thing and has us firmly safe in the idea that Rory and Amy love each other. I thought that was already settled, but it seems they needed to go to it once more. If it comes back, I will be annoyed, because this was really handled well.
Ditto River's last kiss with the Doctor. As much as the whole "we are exactly backward" thing doesn't seem to fit right, the whole tragedy of knowing the end/beginning is coming is lovely and I like seeing these moments.
Anything with Canton Everett Delaware III, although that might be just because I'm a Mark Sheppard fan.
Affable, helpful Nixon cracked me up no end. There was something so brilliantly absurd about that, right down to "I'm sure he had a really good reason" as a response to the Doctor breaking into the Apollo project. He's so the grand villain to so many, that a slightly goofy version just slew me.
2) Shocking SWERVES! He does do moments well. Killing all the companions? Dramatic. Wasted, but dramatic. The Doctor's solution to the Silence? Fiendishly clever.
3) Mystery! Say what you will, but Moffat loves bringing everything he has around to be used. It may result in nonsense you shouldn't think too hard about like the Alliance to Stop the Doctor last season, but at least he remembers he has access to all those aliens. So you know that all the things he threw out here WILL show up later in some form.
- The Silence. We still don't know their motivation, and these rather unimpressive an ineffectual specimens really don't seem like they could take over and blow up a TARDIS. So what happens? Are they even behind what happened last year? Why are they called the Silent anyway? It's not like they don't talk. Why were they rampaging through cracks in the universe that seemed to obviously destroy them as well?
(I have a theory, of course, but we shall see.)
- The Kid. Both the girl in the suit and the Schrodinger's Baby. (Who may well be the same entity.) Perhaps Amy's baby has a Time Head. Was creation of that baby the point of what the Silence was trying to do? The whole "Tell the Doctor" thing seemed to be to get Amy to tell him she was pregnant. (And that she wasn't. "Tell him what he must know and must never know.")
- The Transcendantal Inter-Dimensional Alien Robo-Ship. We saw it last season as a working Time Ship. It's not clear if it is working now, or if they are trying to build it. Still, it presumably plays into something.
- The woman in the orphanage. The one behind the sliding panel that vanishes. I fully expect her to show up again.
So ultimately, it all ties into The Silence and what is/was their plan. My leading idea right now is that they have been around as parasitic creatures for a while, and with the Time War opening up a power vacumn, they've decided to set themselves up as the new Time Lords. Do they blow up the universe by accident, trying to blow up the TARDIS in order to power their new ships? Are they breeding fake Time Lords to get pilots? Were they feeding Amy subconscious messages so that when she rebooted the universe she brought them into existence? Do they just need Time Lord DNA to get it done? (The body is valuable, and the only other Time Lord dna body floating around is Jenny from Season 3, who Moffat specifically asked to be kept alive.)
So will see. I am hoping there aren't any more Moffat-written episodes until maybe the season break and the finale. That might help.
This entry was originally posted at http://lightcastle.dreamwidth.org/210764.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
As some of you know, I like stories. Stories are fun. I like when they are well told and executed.
This was not those things. From the "throw things at the wall enough so people won't notice I can't be bothered to put my plot together" approach to the "only characters matter" to the "damn, cliffhangers are hard, I'll just skip on to something else" Crash TV pacing, this was really irritating.
Ultimately, this may just be the old "I am not the target audience" problem. I'm starting to worry Moffat only has three plots, and this wasn't obvious until he had to write more than one episode a year.
So yes, I didn't like this episode as an episode because it just felt badly done and full of fridge logic. It makes me very worried for the rest of the season. I know woodwardicon and w1ldc47 both have mentioned the "it shows there will be a season long arc"/"this is a 13-part story" angle and that my complaints that it felt unfinished are mistaken because all that will be answered. I am doubtful. I can't see any reason to believe Moffat wants to do, or is capable of doing, a season-long arc as a focused project. We already know there are lots of other writers, so he certainly isn't doing it directly, and anyone who has seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer knows it is very difficult to pull off. Far more likely he will do what he did last year and have a little sting and/or arc word and that wrap it up at the end. Which is fine, but one still needs the individual episodes to hold on their own.
However, I know lots of people liked it, and that's primarily because it is chock full of awesome moments.
1) Character. While I don't like the general TV idea that the only thing that matters is the character moments, so just ignore plot as long as you can get your big angsty scenes, (see the massive failure of Lost and BSG's finales) it is here to stay so you at least should be good at it. Moffat is VERY good at it. Hopefully this closes the "Amy/Doctor secret crush" thing and has us firmly safe in the idea that Rory and Amy love each other. I thought that was already settled, but it seems they needed to go to it once more. If it comes back, I will be annoyed, because this was really handled well.
Ditto River's last kiss with the Doctor. As much as the whole "we are exactly backward" thing doesn't seem to fit right, the whole tragedy of knowing the end/beginning is coming is lovely and I like seeing these moments.
Anything with Canton Everett Delaware III, although that might be just because I'm a Mark Sheppard fan.
Affable, helpful Nixon cracked me up no end. There was something so brilliantly absurd about that, right down to "I'm sure he had a really good reason" as a response to the Doctor breaking into the Apollo project. He's so the grand villain to so many, that a slightly goofy version just slew me.
2) Shocking SWERVES! He does do moments well. Killing all the companions? Dramatic. Wasted, but dramatic. The Doctor's solution to the Silence? Fiendishly clever.
3) Mystery! Say what you will, but Moffat loves bringing everything he has around to be used. It may result in nonsense you shouldn't think too hard about like the Alliance to Stop the Doctor last season, but at least he remembers he has access to all those aliens. So you know that all the things he threw out here WILL show up later in some form.
- The Silence. We still don't know their motivation, and these rather unimpressive an ineffectual specimens really don't seem like they could take over and blow up a TARDIS. So what happens? Are they even behind what happened last year? Why are they called the Silent anyway? It's not like they don't talk. Why were they rampaging through cracks in the universe that seemed to obviously destroy them as well?
(I have a theory, of course, but we shall see.)
- The Kid. Both the girl in the suit and the Schrodinger's Baby. (Who may well be the same entity.) Perhaps Amy's baby has a Time Head. Was creation of that baby the point of what the Silence was trying to do? The whole "Tell the Doctor" thing seemed to be to get Amy to tell him she was pregnant. (And that she wasn't. "Tell him what he must know and must never know.")
- The Transcendantal Inter-Dimensional Alien Robo-Ship. We saw it last season as a working Time Ship. It's not clear if it is working now, or if they are trying to build it. Still, it presumably plays into something.
- The woman in the orphanage. The one behind the sliding panel that vanishes. I fully expect her to show up again.
So ultimately, it all ties into The Silence and what is/was their plan. My leading idea right now is that they have been around as parasitic creatures for a while, and with the Time War opening up a power vacumn, they've decided to set themselves up as the new Time Lords. Do they blow up the universe by accident, trying to blow up the TARDIS in order to power their new ships? Are they breeding fake Time Lords to get pilots? Were they feeding Amy subconscious messages so that when she rebooted the universe she brought them into existence? Do they just need Time Lord DNA to get it done? (The body is valuable, and the only other Time Lord dna body floating around is Jenny from Season 3, who Moffat specifically asked to be kept alive.)
So will see. I am hoping there aren't any more Moffat-written episodes until maybe the season break and the finale. That might help.
This entry was originally posted at http://lightcastle.dreamwidth.org/210764.html. Please comment there using OpenID.