'in the bleak midwinter'
I'm guessing that Moffat finally gave DW fans, in series 9, what they want: a "dark" Doctor, a downer of a series, and a Christmas episode redolent of the Rusty era, right down to the death of hundreds of people. In fact, a lot of "The Husbands of River Song" seems a reworking of the odious "Voyage of the Damned" (a title which always struck me as more a description of the audience, rather than the episode).
The plot of "Husbands" was idiotic--very much in the style of a Rusty episode, and not really very Moffat-esque. River was psychotic, for most of the episode; the Doctor, inexplicably, seemed pretty okay with her homicidal plans. It kind of all fit, I guess, since they both rather randomly and happily gave up trying to save the ship, and so we got mass-scale deaths for Christmas....It's a long way since Eleven and "A Christmas Carol," that's for sure.
I never expect accurate science from any TV show, and DW bends reality like a pretzel--albeit Moffat has been fairly good at giving a nod, at least, to actual physics and stuff. Until the Twelve era, which hit a nadir with the Moon being an egg and all that crap. "Husbands" revisited the idea of the ship that caters to the obnoxiously wealthy: "warp 12" allowing them, somehow, to visit "galaxies".....Okay--whatever: strains credulity, give it a handwave. Compound it with the giant robot and decapitated King Whoever, the rerun of the villain in "Voyage"......the whatever is getting pretty large and heading toward a sense of tedium because of the stupid concept. Multiple decapitations, echoing the blood-thirsty angels in "Voyage." Merry Christmas, indeed.
Lots of shouting for the first half of the episode. King Whoever really got tiresome with this. Unlike Moffat's usual intellectual, clever work, this villain had zero development; the overall point of the episode seems to be that some people deserve to die: in this case, the Shouting King plus all of the passengers on the ship--none of them worth trying to save and certainly no need to try anything as complex as rehabilitation and/or redemption. I was immediately put in mind of "A Town Called Mercy" and "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship": both episodes seriously considered the issue of a villain who "deserved" to die and the Doctor's struggle with that feeling. Both villains were offered the chance of remorse, repentance, and redemption, and the episodes dealt with the consequences. Not so the "fun romp" of "Husbands," which shrugged off the high body count with callous disregard. I really, really think this was a leftover script from Rusty's tenure.
The peculiar part is that I actually started to like Twelve in this episode: I liked Capaldi's performance of the Doctor's reacting to River's failure to recognize him--from the various husbands (interesting touch to have the Doctor begin the episode wearing "horns") to her blind density. And the performance got better as we left the jackass plot behind and Capaldi and Kingston could interact as characters, instead of caricatures.
The plot of "Husbands" was idiotic--very much in the style of a Rusty episode, and not really very Moffat-esque. River was psychotic, for most of the episode; the Doctor, inexplicably, seemed pretty okay with her homicidal plans. It kind of all fit, I guess, since they both rather randomly and happily gave up trying to save the ship, and so we got mass-scale deaths for Christmas....It's a long way since Eleven and "A Christmas Carol," that's for sure.
I never expect accurate science from any TV show, and DW bends reality like a pretzel--albeit Moffat has been fairly good at giving a nod, at least, to actual physics and stuff. Until the Twelve era, which hit a nadir with the Moon being an egg and all that crap. "Husbands" revisited the idea of the ship that caters to the obnoxiously wealthy: "warp 12" allowing them, somehow, to visit "galaxies".....Okay--whatever: strains credulity, give it a handwave. Compound it with the giant robot and decapitated King Whoever, the rerun of the villain in "Voyage"......the whatever is getting pretty large and heading toward a sense of tedium because of the stupid concept. Multiple decapitations, echoing the blood-thirsty angels in "Voyage." Merry Christmas, indeed.
Lots of shouting for the first half of the episode. King Whoever really got tiresome with this. Unlike Moffat's usual intellectual, clever work, this villain had zero development; the overall point of the episode seems to be that some people deserve to die: in this case, the Shouting King plus all of the passengers on the ship--none of them worth trying to save and certainly no need to try anything as complex as rehabilitation and/or redemption. I was immediately put in mind of "A Town Called Mercy" and "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship": both episodes seriously considered the issue of a villain who "deserved" to die and the Doctor's struggle with that feeling. Both villains were offered the chance of remorse, repentance, and redemption, and the episodes dealt with the consequences. Not so the "fun romp" of "Husbands," which shrugged off the high body count with callous disregard. I really, really think this was a leftover script from Rusty's tenure.
The peculiar part is that I actually started to like Twelve in this episode: I liked Capaldi's performance of the Doctor's reacting to River's failure to recognize him--from the various husbands (interesting touch to have the Doctor begin the episode wearing "horns") to her blind density. And the performance got better as we left the jackass plot behind and Capaldi and Kingston could interact as characters, instead of caricatures.