Psychic was wrong about 20 dead bodies.
Last week police got a tip about 20 dead bodies, including children, in a Texas home. There was a brief, but big, to-do about it. Lots of media and a major police search of the property (including the local sheriff, the Texas Rangers, and the FBI). They found nothing. Now we hear that it was a psychic who provided the tip. Moreover, she won't be charged "because she did not act with malice or criminal intent."
OK, fine, I get that. But what I really want to know is why aren't we AT LEAST firing the idiot who approved a multi-department manhunt for two dozen dead bodies on nothing more than the word of a local psychic? Can we at least garnish his wages until the cost of such an operation is recovered? Perhaps make it a formal policy not to spend taxpayer funds on mystically derived law enforcement speculation? Anything?
Also...
I was REALLY let down by the mid-season finale of Doctor Who (and only partially because Dr. Who is now doing mid-season finales).
For example, how can the Doctor blow up an entire fleet of Cybermen with no provocation--an act that is just not in character at all--and then pat himself on the back for taking a little asteroid "without spilling a drop of blood?"
(Especially if he used any information they provided to get to the asteroid?)
And why where there cybermen anyway? They seemingly played no role in the plot against him. Did they just spend so much money on cyberman suits they have to keep freaking using them?
And then why did Rory wear his Roman gear? Aside from when he WAS a Roman, it's never been his thing.
And why was Red all like "our people know him as the last centurion" when that whole pandorica time line was erased in the universal reboot so noone other than a small handful know about that at all?
And then half a dozen people DID kill each other in the Doctor's trick to win the asteroid so how was no blood spilled?
And then River was all like "he will reach his highest high" and we're to believe his highest high is finding Pond and liberating an asteroid?
A dude who has defeated the Daleks four hundred and thirty twelve times, rebooted the universe, and done all these other fantastical things and this was his highest high? Plus, we only really know it was his highest high because of the other characters blatantly informed us of it: "Congratulations Doctor, you have reached your highest high!" while he sat there all nonchalant.
Plus, who are all these people who owe him these "major" debts? He needs the best help for his greatest fight to reach his highest high and instead of picking Jack Harkness or Canton Delaware or some elite unit...he grabs a fat blue dude we've only seen once in passing (and not even interacting with the Doctor) and a handful of others we've never even met. All of whom apparently owe him these great debts?
(Now, if we see these debts get incurred in the second half of the season, maybe it pays off, but otherwise they're just random characters we don't care anything about.)
And then there was that whole weird name translation bit where the translation took a while to kick in despite chick traveling on the TARDIS for months and her psychically linked clone literally living on it for a while. What was that about?
I liked the bigger plot points just fine, but one thing Moffett has never had on Davies is a grasp of subtly or build. Whereas Davies could build a complex plot over an entire season with brilliantly woven clues (like missing planets or Bad Wolf graffiti), Moffett has to zoom the camera in on every crack we see and unveil spanning plots (like the Pandorica) essentially out of the blue. This episode played to some of the larger mythology just fine, but the story within the episode seemed random and disjointed. and had none of the emotional gravitas they tried to pretend it did. I'm not going to accept that conquering a small asteroid to save a friend is his "highest high" just because some heavy-fisted dialogue insists that to be the case.
OK, fine, I get that. But what I really want to know is why aren't we AT LEAST firing the idiot who approved a multi-department manhunt for two dozen dead bodies on nothing more than the word of a local psychic? Can we at least garnish his wages until the cost of such an operation is recovered? Perhaps make it a formal policy not to spend taxpayer funds on mystically derived law enforcement speculation? Anything?
Also...
I was REALLY let down by the mid-season finale of Doctor Who (and only partially because Dr. Who is now doing mid-season finales).
For example, how can the Doctor blow up an entire fleet of Cybermen with no provocation--an act that is just not in character at all--and then pat himself on the back for taking a little asteroid "without spilling a drop of blood?"
(Especially if he used any information they provided to get to the asteroid?)
And why where there cybermen anyway? They seemingly played no role in the plot against him. Did they just spend so much money on cyberman suits they have to keep freaking using them?
And then why did Rory wear his Roman gear? Aside from when he WAS a Roman, it's never been his thing.
And why was Red all like "our people know him as the last centurion" when that whole pandorica time line was erased in the universal reboot so noone other than a small handful know about that at all?
And then half a dozen people DID kill each other in the Doctor's trick to win the asteroid so how was no blood spilled?
And then River was all like "he will reach his highest high" and we're to believe his highest high is finding Pond and liberating an asteroid?
A dude who has defeated the Daleks four hundred and thirty twelve times, rebooted the universe, and done all these other fantastical things and this was his highest high? Plus, we only really know it was his highest high because of the other characters blatantly informed us of it: "Congratulations Doctor, you have reached your highest high!" while he sat there all nonchalant.
Plus, who are all these people who owe him these "major" debts? He needs the best help for his greatest fight to reach his highest high and instead of picking Jack Harkness or Canton Delaware or some elite unit...he grabs a fat blue dude we've only seen once in passing (and not even interacting with the Doctor) and a handful of others we've never even met. All of whom apparently owe him these great debts?
(Now, if we see these debts get incurred in the second half of the season, maybe it pays off, but otherwise they're just random characters we don't care anything about.)
And then there was that whole weird name translation bit where the translation took a while to kick in despite chick traveling on the TARDIS for months and her psychically linked clone literally living on it for a while. What was that about?
I liked the bigger plot points just fine, but one thing Moffett has never had on Davies is a grasp of subtly or build. Whereas Davies could build a complex plot over an entire season with brilliantly woven clues (like missing planets or Bad Wolf graffiti), Moffett has to zoom the camera in on every crack we see and unveil spanning plots (like the Pandorica) essentially out of the blue. This episode played to some of the larger mythology just fine, but the story within the episode seemed random and disjointed. and had none of the emotional gravitas they tried to pretend it did. I'm not going to accept that conquering a small asteroid to save a friend is his "highest high" just because some heavy-fisted dialogue insists that to be the case.