New Who 12.1 Spyfall, part 1
I voluntarily missed this on New Year's Day, as I wanted to concentrate properly on Dracula first, so left it until today to catch up on it. I didn't seek out reviews for obvious reasons, but inevitably I saw a bit of passing chat on Facebook and Twitter, so knew the true identity of Sacha Dhawan's character before I began. A pity, as it must have been nice to experience that as a proper twist.
I enjoyed the episode anyway, though. Doctor Who does James Bond should be a pretty solid formula, because they both trade on the same balance of heroics, silliness and occasional solemnity, and this story fully embraced the possibilities. Seeing the 'fam' getting presented with cases full of hi-tech spy gadgetry, playing at the casino games and doing a car-motorbike chase across the fields was great fun, and casting Stephen Fry as Control was genius. (I meant, that C has to be a reference to his A Bit of Fry & Laurie character, doesn't it? His utter oblivion about the fates of UNIT and Torchwood would suggest so.) Fab to have Lenny Henry on board too - both people who feel like they should have appeared in Doctor Who long ago.
I think it's a good thing for the series that we have a steady TARDIS team in place now. Because there are four of them, I felt it took quite a while to really get to know them all last season, but now I feel like I have a good handle on them all and can enjoy all their little character-moments. I was also glad I'd taken the opportunity to visit Swansea's Brangwyn Hall last summer when I was there on my final external examiner visit to their School of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, since it was very recognisably the location used for MI6 HQ. I was about to link to the post where I'd put all the pictures... but then I realised I never actually put them here, just on Facebook. Here's a couple uploaded now instead:
The mysterious beings from another reality look kinda Cyberman-shaped to me, perhaps not readable by the sonic screwdriver or using any intelligible language known to the TARDIS because at the moment they are projections made out of pure data? But of course we'll find out tomorrow evening!
Dreamwidth version |
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I enjoyed the episode anyway, though. Doctor Who does James Bond should be a pretty solid formula, because they both trade on the same balance of heroics, silliness and occasional solemnity, and this story fully embraced the possibilities. Seeing the 'fam' getting presented with cases full of hi-tech spy gadgetry, playing at the casino games and doing a car-motorbike chase across the fields was great fun, and casting Stephen Fry as Control was genius. (I meant, that C has to be a reference to his A Bit of Fry & Laurie character, doesn't it? His utter oblivion about the fates of UNIT and Torchwood would suggest so.) Fab to have Lenny Henry on board too - both people who feel like they should have appeared in Doctor Who long ago.
I think it's a good thing for the series that we have a steady TARDIS team in place now. Because there are four of them, I felt it took quite a while to really get to know them all last season, but now I feel like I have a good handle on them all and can enjoy all their little character-moments. I was also glad I'd taken the opportunity to visit Swansea's Brangwyn Hall last summer when I was there on my final external examiner visit to their School of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology, since it was very recognisably the location used for MI6 HQ. I was about to link to the post where I'd put all the pictures... but then I realised I never actually put them here, just on Facebook. Here's a couple uploaded now instead:
The mysterious beings from another reality look kinda Cyberman-shaped to me, perhaps not readable by the sonic screwdriver or using any intelligible language known to the TARDIS because at the moment they are projections made out of pure data? But of course we'll find out tomorrow evening!
Dreamwidth version |
comments | Leave a comment