A bitchy, late-night review of The Wedding of River Song (Spoilers, obviously)
My first impression of TWORS is that it's either complete b....s or it'll stand a rewatch. Like all SM's finales it moves too quickly and tries to pack in too much. It's also becoming somewhat too obvious that most of the episodes are starved of cash so he can indulge himself in the finales. He always was a bit like that - remember his hissy fit when they told him Ten couldn't ride through that mirror in GITF?
Once Churchill showed up as a Roman Emperor (a much better performance than the last time around, incidentally) I decided just to go with the flow. And mostly succeeded. Although I do wonder if SM did some hack work for God writing Genesis - it's always the woman's fault with him, isn't it?
River's characterisation seems to oscillate wildly between two diametrically opposed poles, both deeply appealing to mysogenist fantasists. First, of course, she's the femme fatale, vaguely noir-ish, shrouded in mystery and totally undemanding in terms of long-term commitment. All that's missing is the cigarette, and the aren't allowed to show that on a kids' show these days.
But then there's the Ultimate Romantic, who is utterly defined by the huge sacrifices she makes for the Lurve of her life. Isn't it interesting, how she somehow gets away with it? Back in LKH, she was prepared to sacrifice all her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor - at least that was her choice, but now she's acquired the right to place the entire universe in peril JUST COZ SHE LUVZ HIM SO MUCH.
And people called Rose Tyler selfish and silly. But then she was working class.
There was more than a hint of 1940s Hollywood about this outing. I'm down with that - Matt Smith looks wonderful in a period setting and somehow he managed to substitute a stetson for a fedora and still have the desired effect. I think he's well on the way to officially taking over from Harrison Ford as Indy. With the tweeds and the bowtie, he was halfway there anyway and now we have the Cavern of the Skulls and the obligatory hollowed-out pyramid - both of which I adored, incidentally. We even got a variant of how when you're with your beloved, time stands still - if that isn't referencing vintage Hollywood romance, I'm not sure what is.
Plot...Rassilon, it's a bit late at night to get into all that now. I'll leave stuff like mirroring to the meta geeks. But I have serious issues. FIrst, I'm not advocating mercy for Madam Kovarian. She really wasn't a nice person. But I can't help wondering about the emo fit Ten would have thrown at the very idea of him making Amy into the kind of person who could coldly kill her like that. In the Confidential, they made a deep and meaningful statement that Amy could never have become a person capable of doing that if it wasn't for the Doctor, neatly avoiding the issue that if she hadn't met the Doctor in the first place presumably nobody would have needed to be killed out of revenge for kidnapping her baby.
Still, given the character depth of Amy Pond generally, it's nice to see evidence of a bit of maternal instinct at last. And as Alex K pointed out, they did get to miss out changing the diapers. (Not to mention the tantrums and the agony about whether to fake religious belief to get your child into a good school. I bet there are parents out there right now who'd love to have Madam K's phone number).
But my Big Question (and after this silence will fall, because I need to go to bed) is this. Who makes the Laws of Time? And can you really fool them by faking a fixed point? Now I'm sure someone will write some amazing meta on how this is a profound commentary on the nature of religious belief and how we make it up as we go along these days. But it really did seem that when Ten was angsting about whether to blow up Pompeii or let the Martian colonists die, he was aware that there was something bigger than him that would put pterodactyls in the sky above Hyde Park if he screwed up. Are we really meant to think that, whatever that Something is, it can be fooled by what is basically a clever fake? That seems to be getting very close to saying "The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!" Or, at least, I'm surprised that Ten didn't say to the denizens of Pompeii (or for that matter, Adelaide Brooke), "Look, you guys don't need to actually die, I'll just drop you off at a faraway planet somewhere and we'll keep quiet about the whole thing, okay?"
OTOH, then we wouldn't have David Tennant doing all that lovely angst stuff, would we?
What the heck. Matt Smith looks good in a hat. I'm down with that. And if the kids at that primary school in Confidential want to write the next series, that's fine by me.
Once Churchill showed up as a Roman Emperor (a much better performance than the last time around, incidentally) I decided just to go with the flow. And mostly succeeded. Although I do wonder if SM did some hack work for God writing Genesis - it's always the woman's fault with him, isn't it?
River's characterisation seems to oscillate wildly between two diametrically opposed poles, both deeply appealing to mysogenist fantasists. First, of course, she's the femme fatale, vaguely noir-ish, shrouded in mystery and totally undemanding in terms of long-term commitment. All that's missing is the cigarette, and the aren't allowed to show that on a kids' show these days.
But then there's the Ultimate Romantic, who is utterly defined by the huge sacrifices she makes for the Lurve of her life. Isn't it interesting, how she somehow gets away with it? Back in LKH, she was prepared to sacrifice all her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor - at least that was her choice, but now she's acquired the right to place the entire universe in peril JUST COZ SHE LUVZ HIM SO MUCH.
And people called Rose Tyler selfish and silly. But then she was working class.
There was more than a hint of 1940s Hollywood about this outing. I'm down with that - Matt Smith looks wonderful in a period setting and somehow he managed to substitute a stetson for a fedora and still have the desired effect. I think he's well on the way to officially taking over from Harrison Ford as Indy. With the tweeds and the bowtie, he was halfway there anyway and now we have the Cavern of the Skulls and the obligatory hollowed-out pyramid - both of which I adored, incidentally. We even got a variant of how when you're with your beloved, time stands still - if that isn't referencing vintage Hollywood romance, I'm not sure what is.
Plot...Rassilon, it's a bit late at night to get into all that now. I'll leave stuff like mirroring to the meta geeks. But I have serious issues. FIrst, I'm not advocating mercy for Madam Kovarian. She really wasn't a nice person. But I can't help wondering about the emo fit Ten would have thrown at the very idea of him making Amy into the kind of person who could coldly kill her like that. In the Confidential, they made a deep and meaningful statement that Amy could never have become a person capable of doing that if it wasn't for the Doctor, neatly avoiding the issue that if she hadn't met the Doctor in the first place presumably nobody would have needed to be killed out of revenge for kidnapping her baby.
Still, given the character depth of Amy Pond generally, it's nice to see evidence of a bit of maternal instinct at last. And as Alex K pointed out, they did get to miss out changing the diapers. (Not to mention the tantrums and the agony about whether to fake religious belief to get your child into a good school. I bet there are parents out there right now who'd love to have Madam K's phone number).
But my Big Question (and after this silence will fall, because I need to go to bed) is this. Who makes the Laws of Time? And can you really fool them by faking a fixed point? Now I'm sure someone will write some amazing meta on how this is a profound commentary on the nature of religious belief and how we make it up as we go along these days. But it really did seem that when Ten was angsting about whether to blow up Pompeii or let the Martian colonists die, he was aware that there was something bigger than him that would put pterodactyls in the sky above Hyde Park if he screwed up. Are we really meant to think that, whatever that Something is, it can be fooled by what is basically a clever fake? That seems to be getting very close to saying "The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!" Or, at least, I'm surprised that Ten didn't say to the denizens of Pompeii (or for that matter, Adelaide Brooke), "Look, you guys don't need to actually die, I'll just drop you off at a faraway planet somewhere and we'll keep quiet about the whole thing, okay?"
OTOH, then we wouldn't have David Tennant doing all that lovely angst stuff, would we?
What the heck. Matt Smith looks good in a hat. I'm down with that. And if the kids at that primary school in Confidential want to write the next series, that's fine by me.