Season 5/31: A Fairy Tale, Revisited
Aka the season overview that comes sooner than I expected, since I'm stuck on a real life thing and thought I might as well. A few things first: this is not an uninterrupted squee fest, since there were a few elements in the season I wasn't happy about along with many others I enjoyed. (Nor, if course, is it the opposite.) I welcome comments, of course, but I'd be grateful if they weren't phrased following the pattern of "well, maybe you didn't like thing X as you say, but OMG the unspeakable thing Y Rusty did!" RTD's flaws as a showrunner and/or episode writer don't justify anyone else's, including the Moff's. (And vice versa. I don't go for "well, okay, RTD did A and that wasn't so hot, but OMG Moffat did B which was way worse!" either.) Incidentally, while it's entirely possible the two gentlemen in question are faking their mutual admiration society and every single admiring and affectionate word about each other as writers and people has been a cunning lie, I still find their mutual fanboying more enjoyable to read than reviews that use one to beat up the other. Case in point, and as good a lead-in to my praising and nitpicking thoughts about the season under our new overlord, is a quote from The Writer's Tale describing the first post-Moffat accepts the showrunner job meeting between a certain Welshman and a certain Scot:
Benjamin Cook: I meant to ask, did you meet up with Steven Moffat yesterday, in London, for that coffee? (Nice coffee, was it? Milk? Sugar?)
RTD: It was a latte. Freezing, because I wanted to sit outside and smoke. Poor Steven. A kid called Karim recognised us and asked for a photo, and Steven said, 'You'll never know how historic this moment is!' But it was lovely. No great emotions. Well, I had a good time and we had a good chat, but I don't usually get emotional about stuff like that. Except in a good way. I like change. I love it when people move and leave and swap around. It felt good, healthy and natural. I went to our coffee, full of things to tell Steven. I was bristling with them. But as soon as we sat down, I thought very clearly: I don't need to tell him any of this stuff. He knows scripts, he knows writers, he knows what's what. And he knows what he wants to do. He'll invent his own way of doing things. Experience - it's useless! Mostly we talked about the rewriting process, though it's a hard thing to discuss. As I talked, I thought I sounded power-mad. Genuinenly. So I clammed up about it after a while. I didn't like the sound of myself. If anything, I felt a good old fanboy thrill down my spine, because Steven talked about the future in terms of... well, to the exent that I said, 'Don't tell me any more!' I want to find out as a viewer. Nothing quite like it.
What this season managed beautifully, in my opinion as always, was to create its own distinct tone and yet provide continuity to what came before, not just by trivia like picking up running gags from the RTD era like the Doctor/Elizabeth I thing, using the montage from The Next Doctor to great effect in The Eleventh Hour or the lovely little homages like One's library card or Eleven being depicted as One and Two by the macguffin in Vincent and the Doctor, but by larger character-related points; Eleven might deal with his last Time Lord status differently than Nine or Ten did (who themselves dealt differently than each other), but he's still clearly a post-Time War Doctor, not a pre-Time War one who somehow ended up in the wrong era. Amy's inability to remember the Dalek Invasions of years past isn't a throwaway thing but a clue to the season mystery. There is finally a twist to the usual Silurian story ending, which is very much a response to the previous Silurian stories. And so forth.
What is new this season, and I'm really curious whether it will be present in the next one as well or whether it will remain a one-season-event, is the explicit and textual coding of Doctor Who as a fairy tale. I don't mean "new" in the sense that the comparison hasn't been used before; of course it has. Morever, this is a show that has gone meta on itself both in Old and New Who days alike and by doing so investigated the tropes of storytelling and how the viewer/reader responds to them - think The Greatest Show in the Galaxy during Seven's era, Love and Monsters in Ten's, or even way back when Two, Zoe and Jamie ending up in the land of make-belief with its constant rewrites. But that was always a one-adventure-kind of deal. Here, the fairy tale theme is consistently carried through the season.
Amelia Pond is a fairy tale name, the Doctor tells us so right from the start, and Amy is a fairy tale heroine, complete with orphan origin at the start and magically restored family at the end, monsters preying on her, helpful and mysterious fairy godmothers (with their own fairy tale names - River Song, indeed) the Hänsel to her Gretel, Joringel to her Jorinde, the character who is either the heroine's brother or lover taken by the monsters, held prisoner and transformed, but eventually restored to his old self. Because this is a post modern Grimm inspired tale rather than a Disney one, a lot of this happens in doubles or even triples. Patient Zero uses Amy's memories against the Doctor who in turn uses them against Patient Zero; the grand alliance uses Amy's memories to trap the Doctor and Amy uses them to bring him back. Rory dies and is reborn three times. The TARDIS gets blown up to save the day twice, both times by the Doctor, who starts the season having just been reborn in the middle of an explosion and a crash and finishes it being brought back after an explosion and a crash. Because fairy tales aren't safe at all, his being Amy's imaginary friend is a two-edged sword indeed. His arrival in her life might have temporarily saved her from the crack, but it contributed to the oddness of her childhood of uncertain memories. Maybe because he doesn't want a repeat of the Rose and Mickey situation, he does his best to reunite Amy with Rory and to make Rory part of the adventure, but that is also the very thing that gets Rory (temporarily) killed and erased. He's in a young man's body, but when he looks in particular kinds of mirrors - always a tricky thing to do, in fairy tales - an old man looks back, or several, or one who loathes him than anyone else in the universe. He offers travel and adventure, but he also offers traps, ends in one himself - most certainly a madman in a box, but which box? - and in a way is both the ultimate escape and the ultimate trap.
This is also why I had no problem swallowing the Pandorica first being the ultimate prison, something nobody could open, and then simply accessible via a sonic screwdriver, or Amy's DNA (shades of Dalek and Doomsday, bw), with its atoms partially restoring a Dalek, or Amy only being "mostly dead" after Auton!Rory shoots her. Yes, it makes no scientific sense whatsoever, but it makes fairy tale and myth sense; Pandora's Box, after all, doesn't only contain all the evils of the world but also hope. It's bigger on the inside, just like the TARDIS, who causes the destruction of the universe by exploding and simultanously saves it by hanging on for two millennia, warming the earth, until the Doctor reunites with her again and blows them both out of and into existence.
Little Amelia praying for help and Amy in her wedding dress both conjure the Doctor and the TARDIS into appearing - they do believe in fairies, they do, they do - but there is a difference showing the road between. Amelia doesn't really know what she's asking for, and she becomes the girl who waits. Amy isn't asking but summoning - a bit like River, who summons the Doctor twice that season and has done so in the Library episodes as well -; the power of the spell is with her. There is a parallel there with Rory, who became the boy who waited, literally, but for whom the waiting is finally over not because of a return to the old but because he's part of the creation of something new. In something blue. They won't live happily ever after, but for now, everyone lives. (TM Steven Moffat.)
Now on to the nitpicky stuff. Much as the whole fairy tale construct holds the season together and much as I dig that, the cracks in time as a season-long menace presented a characterisation problem. To wit: the Doctor should have investigated them and their cause far, far sooner than he did, after Flesh and Stone at the latest, and the sole reason he didn't is Doylist and not Watsonian - it wasn't time for the finale yet. And thus we went from "this crack and your missing memories are something we really must deal with right now!" to "off to Venice!", and while Cold Blood was followed up emotionally in the Vincent episode in terms of Rory (and the Doctor consciously, Amy subconsciously remembering him), the menace of the crack - to the entire universe - was once again forgotten. This isn't a problem if your season red thread is a catchphrase like "Big Wolf" or "Torchwood" or "Mr. Saxon", because none of these are universe-threatening by themselves and so it's unterstandable that the Doctor and the companion of the day remembered them but didn't feel the urge to immediately investigate until the finale, but if you establish something as present everywhere (and Patient Zero in The Eleventh Hour already states the cracks are all over the place in the 'verse), as incredibly dangerous, consuming people and their presence in the time continuum (Flesh and Stone) and having already consumed an entire planet (Vampires of Venice), then not making investigating this particular mystery your top priority really makes no sense.
Then there are the clunkers, aka the "these really needed heavy rewriting!" episodes, Victory of the Daleks, Vampires of Venice and Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. Each of these had season-important stuff in addition to the standalone stories they told; Victory of the Daleks foreshadowed Auton!Rory (and The Power Of Love To Defy Programming), as well as showcasing bits of Amy's memories missing, Vampires of Venice was the first episode where we get a sense of Rory as a person beyond his quick introduction in the pilot, and there was, as mentioned, a crack-swallowed planet to report, and Chibnall's Silurian two parter didn't just contain that nifty twist on the usual Silurian tale but also the rewriting of timelines and the temporary death of Rory. But in each case, there was also so much that was missing from the execution and/or elements that were questionable to bad. This might be something of a deceased equine of mine, but the whole Churchill & Daleks premise could have been used ever so much more interestingly if instead of Churchill's jolly old Winston characterisation and the iDaleks and spitfires in space, we'd have had a DW episode with a genuine moral dilemma for both the Doctor and Amy - Churchill winning WWII several years ahead of time via Dalek tech but then proceeding to use that same tech to keep up the British Empire instead of conceding Indian independence (or anyone else's independence), convinced imperialist that he was. Something more along the line of the Big Finish Audio Jubilee (which was already the basis for Dalek the tv episode in parts), where the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn find a 20th century British Empire using Dalek tech which is a horrible dystopia. Leaving wasted opportunities aside, there is also the heavy-handedness of the big android-professor-maintaining human identity scene (just compare it to the Rory ones much later). And this was when I noticed that while Amy had a strong debut in The Eleventh Hour, she now felt very generic to me, which wasn't to change until Amy's Choice. I realize this is subjective, and wasn't the case for many other viewers. But I really felt you could have replaced Amy with any other companion without this making any difference, and I had still very little idea of what made Amy Amy instead of Companion No.#12445 at this point.
This became glaring in Vampires of Venice, because there we had the Rory characterisation to contrast and compare. Not only did he come across clearer in terms of personality and got the more interesting scenes with the Doctor, but the Amy and Rory relationship, which should have been a focus - what does she feel for him? why did she want to marry him instead of Jeff or Boy XYZ from Leadworth or, indeed, anyone at all? - came across as almost an afterthought. (This changed in the very next episode, which was a big relief to me.) Vampires of Venice' other problem was the unintentional subtext created by casting Isabella and her father with two black actors, combined with Isabella's unnecessary death. (The space fish/vampires were already established as ruthlessly taking human lives, so that point was made.)
Speaking of unintentional subtext: our old pal Chris Chibnall struck again, with his Silurian two parter featuring not only aggressive and irrational women and rational men (really, just switching genders between the Silurian leader and one of the two military Silurians would have avoided that) but the Australian outbacks and the Sahara casually declared people-free, which would be news to the people living there, who just happen to be non-white for the most part. (Oh, not so joyful memories of Uganda being briefly considered as an alternative to Palastine by the Brits in terms of establishing a Jewish state, without, of course, asking the Ugandans.)
Now: these episodes contained enjoyable stuff as well. (Except for Victory of the Daleks. I'm not budging on this one. Boo, hiss. Even the acting wasn't as good as in the other episodes. The anger scene with the Daleks was the only time in the entire season Matt Smith's acting didn't concince me and he came across as a young guy trying to hard.) Nasreen in the Silurian two parter has to count as one of the best guest characters of the season, the Silurian twist was great (though I have to say, in terms of "Old Who character/enemy introduced to New Who in ways that hopefully pleases both old watchers and makes new ones not feel they're not part of the club", The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood doesn't work nearly as well as Dalek in s1 for, welll, the Daleks, Utopia in s3 for the Master, and even good old Davros in Journey's End; it's on a level with the Cybermen (who aren't actually old school Cyberman) in Age of Steel). I really liked the Doctor-Elliot interaction, down to his quiet little apology to Elliot near the end. Along with the fairy tale coding, one of this season's distinctions was the way children were used; little Amelia, Andrea in "The Best Below", Elliot in the Silurian two parter, they're all distinct individuals and taken as seriously as the adults in their stories, and I think we have to go back to Seven and Ace in order to find the Doctor characterized as that noticable paternal in relation to them. (While at the same time being a fellow child; Eleven spitting out and throwing away food or his first scene with Elliot are cases in point.) It ties beautifully in the whole "imaginary friend" angle of the Doctor-Amy relationship (and is one of the reasons why Doctor/Amy as a romance would squick me, but that's another matter). And much as Amy's characterisation (or lack thereof) in Vampires of Venice irritates me, Rory's is good, plus Helen McCory as Rosanna is awesome. So it's not like I wish the episodes away in their entirety. I just wish someone had taken their basic ideas and what was good about them, thrown away the bad stuff and replaced it with more quality.
All the episodes I just critisized were not written by Steven Moffat, which is why it's a good thing that two of the season's best weren't written by him, either, otherwise I'd say the show has a serious problem. (Seeing as he doesn't intend to go JMS and write them all.) But Amy's Choice (Simon Nye) and Vincent and the Doctor (Richard Curtis), both by writers new to Doctor Who, as it happens, were truly excellent, they fit in the larger season context and offered some of the best character exploration. Additionally, the mature way they dealt with depression in the case of Vincent and the Doctor, and showcased, literally, the Doctor's darker side in Amy's Choice proved that the fairy tale arc does not exclude this kind of drama at all. Gareth Roberts' The Lodger I could take or leave in the sense of that I thought it was adorable fluff, but not one that made me want to rewatch it many times the way some of Roberts' past lighthearted comedies like The Unicorn and the Wasp did. But I really couldn't decide between Nye and Curtis for most outstanding contribution to the season, and I really hope one of them gets a nomination next year.
Returning to Moffat's own writing, not as showrunner but in terms of individual episodes, I thought The Eleventh Hour was a great season opener, The Beast Below was good (yay Liz Ten!) if a bit heavy handed at times (the space whale is a metaphor for the Doctor, DID YOU NOTICE? DID YOU? LET AMY SPELL IT OUT AGAIN!), and had a slight case of red herrings not holding up logically upon rewatching (to wit, the smilers and winders frightening children and a general police state aura at the start). The Angel two parter changed the rules for the Angels on us which much as I loved it otherwise still bothers me; you can explain the fact they don't send anyone in the past and now kill people via broken necks away by lack of power and the general emergency situation, and the change in the Doctor's description of them from "loneliest" to "most malevolent" life form by the differences between Ten and Eleven, but not the gratitious supervillain gloating via Angel Bob - the Angels in Blink by contrast weren't malicious, they were simply very alien, which I much prefered. This aside, however, I did love Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone a lot, both in terms of new guest characters (Father Octavian was immensely likeable and got one hell of an affecting and dignified death scene), old guest characters (this was when I fell in love with River Song, who had intrigued me in the Library two parter, but no more than that), Moffat bringing on the scary (the whole sequence with the Angel materializing out of the view screen was awesome, and also showcased Amy's cleverness, starting with her keeping one eye open and one eye closed and switching and ending with her using the blurr in the footage to get rid of the Angel), visuals (speak of about fairy tales - Amy in red in the woods, with the angels surrounding her) and relationship development (the Doctor going from still trying to avoid River, presumabl because he has seen her die and thus knows how their relationship will end, to engaging with her and being willing to risk that unknown-except-for-the-end future). The Pandorica Opens brought more River (love her methods of contacting the Doctor, I must say), and the immensely affecting reunion(s) between (Auton!)Rory, Amy and the Doctor plus the big twist of the Pandorica as a trap, but as an episode of its own, even in regards to being the first half of a two parter, I don't think it's as strong as Time of the Angels. (And no, not just because a few seconds of Corny!Churchill are in it. I'm not letting that go any time soon.) To much set-up, but as a lead-in to the season finale, this is pretty much unavoidable. As for the season finale itself, it is, to quote Jackson Lake from RTD's The Next Doctor with what is still one of my fave descriptions of the show by the show, "marvelous nonsense", and I loved it unreservedly. (Well, okay, except for the Dalek. Like I said in my original review, that scene with River would have lost nothing and even gained more if it had been any other DW monster/enemy but an iDalek. But other than that.) If I'm hesitant with the "best finale ever" accolades, it's because these are really difficult to hand out with 40 years of canon in mind. Plus "best" does not always have to equal "favourite". But I think it's pretty smashing, and it really makes me look forward to the next season.
(Sidenote: I feel for people irritated by it being declared ever so much more logical than previous outrageous ways to save the 'verse at the end of seasons, though. Which it's not. IMO one of the reasons why many a viewer is feeling more generously towards logical inconsistencies here is that this is the first New Who finale without either a companion departure or a Doctor regeneration, and thus leaves a general feel-good quality behind instead of OMG-must-fix angst.)
Not least because the next season will feature an OT3 in the TARDIS. My nagging about Vampire of Venice and the Silurian tale not withstanding, the episodes from Vampires to Cold Blood felt like a breath of fresh /(and yet old-fashioned) air, and when this ended I thought sadly, ah well, should have known, because post-Five Who is sort of married to the only-one-companion-at-a-time concept, three ep interludes not withstanding. My glee about this not being the case hasn't abated since Sunday morning, which was the last time I posted about it. What season overview would be complete without a wish list for the next season, though? So, here we go:
- no killing off Rory (three times was enough, really); keep the TARDIS threesome, with repeated visits by River, of course
- speaking of: more River, which I think is guaranteed
- a guest appearance by Jenny would be nice; come on, Moff, you were the one who persuaded RTD to let her live
- no more episodes written by Chris Chibnall. I was amused by Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and think Adrift is a strong Gwen character episode in TW's second season, oh, and the Ianto flashback in Fragments is okay, too, but other than that, I'm really not a fan of his writing in the Whoeverse, and Cyberwoman remains one of the worst things ever inflicted on the viewing public
- Mark Gattis is on probation as well. He can come back as an actor if he wants to, though
- NO MORE iDaleks AND JOLLY OLD CHURCHILL
- if the voice at the end of The Pandorica Opens is the person responsible for the TARDIS exploding to begin with, and if this person is an Old Who villain (the Valeyard, Omega, Davros once more - definitely not the Master, who'd never pull of this kind of stunt without being around to gloat and have the Doctor admire his cleverness, and anyway, it's way too early for him to be back), then please, oh mighty Moff, handle the reintroduction a bit more smoothly than the Silurians and the Cybermen were handled; I want Utopia and Dalek like quality
- if the voice is a new villain, I won't have to worry, because Moffat is great with his new villains
- I haven't got a problem with Amy's "you may most definitely kiss the bride" because in that moment, who wouldn't, but I don't want Amy/Doctor UST, and that goes independently from Rory. He could dissolve into thin air and I still wouldn't want it, because the season and especially the finale really sold me on the Doctor relating to Amy in a (grand)fatherly/mentor-like fashion, and if that were to change, it would seriously squick me.
- otoh, River flirting with Amy in addition to flirting with the Doctor would be okay. Even if she's Amy's fairy godmother.
- a first name for Amy's mother would be nice, because I love that her father is called "Augustus" and hope for something that sounds similarly nifty in combination with "Pond"
- some follow-up on Rory having two thousand years of memories in his mind now (or clarification that he doesn't), and follow-up on Amy remembering at least two, if not three childhoods and adolescences
- more alien planets. Actually, I feel simultanously smug and sad here, because back when Moffat was first announced as the post-RTD show runner, I predicted that fandom's expectations regarding the Moff abanding the Earth-centric format would not come true. If anything, this season has been more, not less-Earth centric than the RTD seasons. More changes of location would really be good, even if the BBC cuts down the budget again.
Benjamin Cook: I meant to ask, did you meet up with Steven Moffat yesterday, in London, for that coffee? (Nice coffee, was it? Milk? Sugar?)
RTD: It was a latte. Freezing, because I wanted to sit outside and smoke. Poor Steven. A kid called Karim recognised us and asked for a photo, and Steven said, 'You'll never know how historic this moment is!' But it was lovely. No great emotions. Well, I had a good time and we had a good chat, but I don't usually get emotional about stuff like that. Except in a good way. I like change. I love it when people move and leave and swap around. It felt good, healthy and natural. I went to our coffee, full of things to tell Steven. I was bristling with them. But as soon as we sat down, I thought very clearly: I don't need to tell him any of this stuff. He knows scripts, he knows writers, he knows what's what. And he knows what he wants to do. He'll invent his own way of doing things. Experience - it's useless! Mostly we talked about the rewriting process, though it's a hard thing to discuss. As I talked, I thought I sounded power-mad. Genuinenly. So I clammed up about it after a while. I didn't like the sound of myself. If anything, I felt a good old fanboy thrill down my spine, because Steven talked about the future in terms of... well, to the exent that I said, 'Don't tell me any more!' I want to find out as a viewer. Nothing quite like it.
What this season managed beautifully, in my opinion as always, was to create its own distinct tone and yet provide continuity to what came before, not just by trivia like picking up running gags from the RTD era like the Doctor/Elizabeth I thing, using the montage from The Next Doctor to great effect in The Eleventh Hour or the lovely little homages like One's library card or Eleven being depicted as One and Two by the macguffin in Vincent and the Doctor, but by larger character-related points; Eleven might deal with his last Time Lord status differently than Nine or Ten did (who themselves dealt differently than each other), but he's still clearly a post-Time War Doctor, not a pre-Time War one who somehow ended up in the wrong era. Amy's inability to remember the Dalek Invasions of years past isn't a throwaway thing but a clue to the season mystery. There is finally a twist to the usual Silurian story ending, which is very much a response to the previous Silurian stories. And so forth.
What is new this season, and I'm really curious whether it will be present in the next one as well or whether it will remain a one-season-event, is the explicit and textual coding of Doctor Who as a fairy tale. I don't mean "new" in the sense that the comparison hasn't been used before; of course it has. Morever, this is a show that has gone meta on itself both in Old and New Who days alike and by doing so investigated the tropes of storytelling and how the viewer/reader responds to them - think The Greatest Show in the Galaxy during Seven's era, Love and Monsters in Ten's, or even way back when Two, Zoe and Jamie ending up in the land of make-belief with its constant rewrites. But that was always a one-adventure-kind of deal. Here, the fairy tale theme is consistently carried through the season.
Amelia Pond is a fairy tale name, the Doctor tells us so right from the start, and Amy is a fairy tale heroine, complete with orphan origin at the start and magically restored family at the end, monsters preying on her, helpful and mysterious fairy godmothers (with their own fairy tale names - River Song, indeed) the Hänsel to her Gretel, Joringel to her Jorinde, the character who is either the heroine's brother or lover taken by the monsters, held prisoner and transformed, but eventually restored to his old self. Because this is a post modern Grimm inspired tale rather than a Disney one, a lot of this happens in doubles or even triples. Patient Zero uses Amy's memories against the Doctor who in turn uses them against Patient Zero; the grand alliance uses Amy's memories to trap the Doctor and Amy uses them to bring him back. Rory dies and is reborn three times. The TARDIS gets blown up to save the day twice, both times by the Doctor, who starts the season having just been reborn in the middle of an explosion and a crash and finishes it being brought back after an explosion and a crash. Because fairy tales aren't safe at all, his being Amy's imaginary friend is a two-edged sword indeed. His arrival in her life might have temporarily saved her from the crack, but it contributed to the oddness of her childhood of uncertain memories. Maybe because he doesn't want a repeat of the Rose and Mickey situation, he does his best to reunite Amy with Rory and to make Rory part of the adventure, but that is also the very thing that gets Rory (temporarily) killed and erased. He's in a young man's body, but when he looks in particular kinds of mirrors - always a tricky thing to do, in fairy tales - an old man looks back, or several, or one who loathes him than anyone else in the universe. He offers travel and adventure, but he also offers traps, ends in one himself - most certainly a madman in a box, but which box? - and in a way is both the ultimate escape and the ultimate trap.
This is also why I had no problem swallowing the Pandorica first being the ultimate prison, something nobody could open, and then simply accessible via a sonic screwdriver, or Amy's DNA (shades of Dalek and Doomsday, bw), with its atoms partially restoring a Dalek, or Amy only being "mostly dead" after Auton!Rory shoots her. Yes, it makes no scientific sense whatsoever, but it makes fairy tale and myth sense; Pandora's Box, after all, doesn't only contain all the evils of the world but also hope. It's bigger on the inside, just like the TARDIS, who causes the destruction of the universe by exploding and simultanously saves it by hanging on for two millennia, warming the earth, until the Doctor reunites with her again and blows them both out of and into existence.
Little Amelia praying for help and Amy in her wedding dress both conjure the Doctor and the TARDIS into appearing - they do believe in fairies, they do, they do - but there is a difference showing the road between. Amelia doesn't really know what she's asking for, and she becomes the girl who waits. Amy isn't asking but summoning - a bit like River, who summons the Doctor twice that season and has done so in the Library episodes as well -; the power of the spell is with her. There is a parallel there with Rory, who became the boy who waited, literally, but for whom the waiting is finally over not because of a return to the old but because he's part of the creation of something new. In something blue. They won't live happily ever after, but for now, everyone lives. (TM Steven Moffat.)
Now on to the nitpicky stuff. Much as the whole fairy tale construct holds the season together and much as I dig that, the cracks in time as a season-long menace presented a characterisation problem. To wit: the Doctor should have investigated them and their cause far, far sooner than he did, after Flesh and Stone at the latest, and the sole reason he didn't is Doylist and not Watsonian - it wasn't time for the finale yet. And thus we went from "this crack and your missing memories are something we really must deal with right now!" to "off to Venice!", and while Cold Blood was followed up emotionally in the Vincent episode in terms of Rory (and the Doctor consciously, Amy subconsciously remembering him), the menace of the crack - to the entire universe - was once again forgotten. This isn't a problem if your season red thread is a catchphrase like "Big Wolf" or "Torchwood" or "Mr. Saxon", because none of these are universe-threatening by themselves and so it's unterstandable that the Doctor and the companion of the day remembered them but didn't feel the urge to immediately investigate until the finale, but if you establish something as present everywhere (and Patient Zero in The Eleventh Hour already states the cracks are all over the place in the 'verse), as incredibly dangerous, consuming people and their presence in the time continuum (Flesh and Stone) and having already consumed an entire planet (Vampires of Venice), then not making investigating this particular mystery your top priority really makes no sense.
Then there are the clunkers, aka the "these really needed heavy rewriting!" episodes, Victory of the Daleks, Vampires of Venice and Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. Each of these had season-important stuff in addition to the standalone stories they told; Victory of the Daleks foreshadowed Auton!Rory (and The Power Of Love To Defy Programming), as well as showcasing bits of Amy's memories missing, Vampires of Venice was the first episode where we get a sense of Rory as a person beyond his quick introduction in the pilot, and there was, as mentioned, a crack-swallowed planet to report, and Chibnall's Silurian two parter didn't just contain that nifty twist on the usual Silurian tale but also the rewriting of timelines and the temporary death of Rory. But in each case, there was also so much that was missing from the execution and/or elements that were questionable to bad. This might be something of a deceased equine of mine, but the whole Churchill & Daleks premise could have been used ever so much more interestingly if instead of Churchill's jolly old Winston characterisation and the iDaleks and spitfires in space, we'd have had a DW episode with a genuine moral dilemma for both the Doctor and Amy - Churchill winning WWII several years ahead of time via Dalek tech but then proceeding to use that same tech to keep up the British Empire instead of conceding Indian independence (or anyone else's independence), convinced imperialist that he was. Something more along the line of the Big Finish Audio Jubilee (which was already the basis for Dalek the tv episode in parts), where the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn find a 20th century British Empire using Dalek tech which is a horrible dystopia. Leaving wasted opportunities aside, there is also the heavy-handedness of the big android-professor-maintaining human identity scene (just compare it to the Rory ones much later). And this was when I noticed that while Amy had a strong debut in The Eleventh Hour, she now felt very generic to me, which wasn't to change until Amy's Choice. I realize this is subjective, and wasn't the case for many other viewers. But I really felt you could have replaced Amy with any other companion without this making any difference, and I had still very little idea of what made Amy Amy instead of Companion No.#12445 at this point.
This became glaring in Vampires of Venice, because there we had the Rory characterisation to contrast and compare. Not only did he come across clearer in terms of personality and got the more interesting scenes with the Doctor, but the Amy and Rory relationship, which should have been a focus - what does she feel for him? why did she want to marry him instead of Jeff or Boy XYZ from Leadworth or, indeed, anyone at all? - came across as almost an afterthought. (This changed in the very next episode, which was a big relief to me.) Vampires of Venice' other problem was the unintentional subtext created by casting Isabella and her father with two black actors, combined with Isabella's unnecessary death. (The space fish/vampires were already established as ruthlessly taking human lives, so that point was made.)
Speaking of unintentional subtext: our old pal Chris Chibnall struck again, with his Silurian two parter featuring not only aggressive and irrational women and rational men (really, just switching genders between the Silurian leader and one of the two military Silurians would have avoided that) but the Australian outbacks and the Sahara casually declared people-free, which would be news to the people living there, who just happen to be non-white for the most part. (Oh, not so joyful memories of Uganda being briefly considered as an alternative to Palastine by the Brits in terms of establishing a Jewish state, without, of course, asking the Ugandans.)
Now: these episodes contained enjoyable stuff as well. (Except for Victory of the Daleks. I'm not budging on this one. Boo, hiss. Even the acting wasn't as good as in the other episodes. The anger scene with the Daleks was the only time in the entire season Matt Smith's acting didn't concince me and he came across as a young guy trying to hard.) Nasreen in the Silurian two parter has to count as one of the best guest characters of the season, the Silurian twist was great (though I have to say, in terms of "Old Who character/enemy introduced to New Who in ways that hopefully pleases both old watchers and makes new ones not feel they're not part of the club", The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood doesn't work nearly as well as Dalek in s1 for, welll, the Daleks, Utopia in s3 for the Master, and even good old Davros in Journey's End; it's on a level with the Cybermen (who aren't actually old school Cyberman) in Age of Steel). I really liked the Doctor-Elliot interaction, down to his quiet little apology to Elliot near the end. Along with the fairy tale coding, one of this season's distinctions was the way children were used; little Amelia, Andrea in "The Best Below", Elliot in the Silurian two parter, they're all distinct individuals and taken as seriously as the adults in their stories, and I think we have to go back to Seven and Ace in order to find the Doctor characterized as that noticable paternal in relation to them. (While at the same time being a fellow child; Eleven spitting out and throwing away food or his first scene with Elliot are cases in point.) It ties beautifully in the whole "imaginary friend" angle of the Doctor-Amy relationship (and is one of the reasons why Doctor/Amy as a romance would squick me, but that's another matter). And much as Amy's characterisation (or lack thereof) in Vampires of Venice irritates me, Rory's is good, plus Helen McCory as Rosanna is awesome. So it's not like I wish the episodes away in their entirety. I just wish someone had taken their basic ideas and what was good about them, thrown away the bad stuff and replaced it with more quality.
All the episodes I just critisized were not written by Steven Moffat, which is why it's a good thing that two of the season's best weren't written by him, either, otherwise I'd say the show has a serious problem. (Seeing as he doesn't intend to go JMS and write them all.) But Amy's Choice (Simon Nye) and Vincent and the Doctor (Richard Curtis), both by writers new to Doctor Who, as it happens, were truly excellent, they fit in the larger season context and offered some of the best character exploration. Additionally, the mature way they dealt with depression in the case of Vincent and the Doctor, and showcased, literally, the Doctor's darker side in Amy's Choice proved that the fairy tale arc does not exclude this kind of drama at all. Gareth Roberts' The Lodger I could take or leave in the sense of that I thought it was adorable fluff, but not one that made me want to rewatch it many times the way some of Roberts' past lighthearted comedies like The Unicorn and the Wasp did. But I really couldn't decide between Nye and Curtis for most outstanding contribution to the season, and I really hope one of them gets a nomination next year.
Returning to Moffat's own writing, not as showrunner but in terms of individual episodes, I thought The Eleventh Hour was a great season opener, The Beast Below was good (yay Liz Ten!) if a bit heavy handed at times (the space whale is a metaphor for the Doctor, DID YOU NOTICE? DID YOU? LET AMY SPELL IT OUT AGAIN!), and had a slight case of red herrings not holding up logically upon rewatching (to wit, the smilers and winders frightening children and a general police state aura at the start). The Angel two parter changed the rules for the Angels on us which much as I loved it otherwise still bothers me; you can explain the fact they don't send anyone in the past and now kill people via broken necks away by lack of power and the general emergency situation, and the change in the Doctor's description of them from "loneliest" to "most malevolent" life form by the differences between Ten and Eleven, but not the gratitious supervillain gloating via Angel Bob - the Angels in Blink by contrast weren't malicious, they were simply very alien, which I much prefered. This aside, however, I did love Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone a lot, both in terms of new guest characters (Father Octavian was immensely likeable and got one hell of an affecting and dignified death scene), old guest characters (this was when I fell in love with River Song, who had intrigued me in the Library two parter, but no more than that), Moffat bringing on the scary (the whole sequence with the Angel materializing out of the view screen was awesome, and also showcased Amy's cleverness, starting with her keeping one eye open and one eye closed and switching and ending with her using the blurr in the footage to get rid of the Angel), visuals (speak of about fairy tales - Amy in red in the woods, with the angels surrounding her) and relationship development (the Doctor going from still trying to avoid River, presumabl because he has seen her die and thus knows how their relationship will end, to engaging with her and being willing to risk that unknown-except-for-the-end future). The Pandorica Opens brought more River (love her methods of contacting the Doctor, I must say), and the immensely affecting reunion(s) between (Auton!)Rory, Amy and the Doctor plus the big twist of the Pandorica as a trap, but as an episode of its own, even in regards to being the first half of a two parter, I don't think it's as strong as Time of the Angels. (And no, not just because a few seconds of Corny!Churchill are in it. I'm not letting that go any time soon.) To much set-up, but as a lead-in to the season finale, this is pretty much unavoidable. As for the season finale itself, it is, to quote Jackson Lake from RTD's The Next Doctor with what is still one of my fave descriptions of the show by the show, "marvelous nonsense", and I loved it unreservedly. (Well, okay, except for the Dalek. Like I said in my original review, that scene with River would have lost nothing and even gained more if it had been any other DW monster/enemy but an iDalek. But other than that.) If I'm hesitant with the "best finale ever" accolades, it's because these are really difficult to hand out with 40 years of canon in mind. Plus "best" does not always have to equal "favourite". But I think it's pretty smashing, and it really makes me look forward to the next season.
(Sidenote: I feel for people irritated by it being declared ever so much more logical than previous outrageous ways to save the 'verse at the end of seasons, though. Which it's not. IMO one of the reasons why many a viewer is feeling more generously towards logical inconsistencies here is that this is the first New Who finale without either a companion departure or a Doctor regeneration, and thus leaves a general feel-good quality behind instead of OMG-must-fix angst.)
Not least because the next season will feature an OT3 in the TARDIS. My nagging about Vampire of Venice and the Silurian tale not withstanding, the episodes from Vampires to Cold Blood felt like a breath of fresh /(and yet old-fashioned) air, and when this ended I thought sadly, ah well, should have known, because post-Five Who is sort of married to the only-one-companion-at-a-time concept, three ep interludes not withstanding. My glee about this not being the case hasn't abated since Sunday morning, which was the last time I posted about it. What season overview would be complete without a wish list for the next season, though? So, here we go:
- no killing off Rory (three times was enough, really); keep the TARDIS threesome, with repeated visits by River, of course
- speaking of: more River, which I think is guaranteed
- a guest appearance by Jenny would be nice; come on, Moff, you were the one who persuaded RTD to let her live
- no more episodes written by Chris Chibnall. I was amused by Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and think Adrift is a strong Gwen character episode in TW's second season, oh, and the Ianto flashback in Fragments is okay, too, but other than that, I'm really not a fan of his writing in the Whoeverse, and Cyberwoman remains one of the worst things ever inflicted on the viewing public
- Mark Gattis is on probation as well. He can come back as an actor if he wants to, though
- NO MORE iDaleks AND JOLLY OLD CHURCHILL
- if the voice at the end of The Pandorica Opens is the person responsible for the TARDIS exploding to begin with, and if this person is an Old Who villain (the Valeyard, Omega, Davros once more - definitely not the Master, who'd never pull of this kind of stunt without being around to gloat and have the Doctor admire his cleverness, and anyway, it's way too early for him to be back), then please, oh mighty Moff, handle the reintroduction a bit more smoothly than the Silurians and the Cybermen were handled; I want Utopia and Dalek like quality
- if the voice is a new villain, I won't have to worry, because Moffat is great with his new villains
- I haven't got a problem with Amy's "you may most definitely kiss the bride" because in that moment, who wouldn't, but I don't want Amy/Doctor UST, and that goes independently from Rory. He could dissolve into thin air and I still wouldn't want it, because the season and especially the finale really sold me on the Doctor relating to Amy in a (grand)fatherly/mentor-like fashion, and if that were to change, it would seriously squick me.
- otoh, River flirting with Amy in addition to flirting with the Doctor would be okay. Even if she's Amy's fairy godmother.
- a first name for Amy's mother would be nice, because I love that her father is called "Augustus" and hope for something that sounds similarly nifty in combination with "Pond"
- some follow-up on Rory having two thousand years of memories in his mind now (or clarification that he doesn't), and follow-up on Amy remembering at least two, if not three childhoods and adolescences
- more alien planets. Actually, I feel simultanously smug and sad here, because back when Moffat was first announced as the post-RTD show runner, I predicted that fandom's expectations regarding the Moff abanding the Earth-centric format would not come true. If anything, this season has been more, not less-Earth centric than the RTD seasons. More changes of location would really be good, even if the BBC cuts down the budget again.