Author: Vinnie Bartilucci

New Who Review – “Mummy on the Orient Express”

There’s one of two things you can be almost guaranteed of when you see a story that takes place on a train – romance, or a murder.

MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
By  Jamie Mathieson
Directed by Paul Wilmshurst

As a farewell fling, The Doctor takes Clara on a trip aboard the Orient Express in space, exactingly copied from the original, except for the bit about being spaceworthy.  It becomes quickly apparent that all is not well on the craft – a mysterious unseen beast is killing people exactly 66 seconds after the victim sees it – and no one else does.  It turns out this particular journey is a massive two-fold trap – the ship is filled with scientists versed in areas of research that pertain to the beast, and are pressed into service to capture it, by any means necessary.

The Doctor quickly joins the press gang, understanding that the only way to gain data is to have the next victim detail as much as they can before they are killed.  Clara does not take well to this process, but when she is asked to bring to him the person they predict to be the next victim, she does what all The Doctor’s friends do – what she’s told.

A tight thriller with a new look at a classic monster, with a massively emotional line running through the story, resulting in one of the most naked-baring dialogue at the end ever seen.  The new season of the series of amazingly dark, especially in the analysis of the relationship between The Doctor and his friends.  By story’s end, we realize Clara has been doing something all season, and is totally at peace with it – lying.

GUEST STAR REPORT – It’s an interesting week, with only one exception, the entire major guest cast has appeared on Doctor Who in one form or another in the past, including the audio plays.

Frank Skinner (Perkins) is a well-known stand-up comic, TV presenter, and regular on Britain’s massive number of panel shows like QI and Have I Got News For You. A long-time fan of Doctor Who, he’s been campaigning for a role on the show since its inception.  He had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot as a Dalek operator.  He’s also a major fan of British music hall legend George Formby, and hosted a documentary about the man in 2011.

Foxes (lounge singer) is a pop singer making quite a name for herself in the UK with her experimental style electronic pop.  She appeared on the song “Clarify” by Zedd, which won the 2014 Grammy for Best Dance Recording.  Her latest album, Glorious”, came out in February to positive reviews.

David Bamber (Captain Quell) appeared with David Walliams and Mark Williams in the adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse’s Blandings, and in the recent project by the two thirds of the League of Gentlemen who aren’t Mark Gatiss, Psychoville.

Christopher Villiers (Professor Moorhouse) is one of a pair of Who-lumni this episode, appearing in The King’s Demons from the original series. He played Sir Kay in First Knight, and a favorite in our house Nigel in Top Secret! (“How do we know he’s NOT Mel Torme?”)

Janet Henfrey (Mrs. Pitt) Last appeared in Doctor Who as Miss Hardaker in The Curse of Fenric. She had a part in the revamped version of Randall and Hopkirk (deceased), a show that featured the work of a large number of people who went on to work on Doctor Who.  She’ll next appear with matt Smith in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies).

John Sessions (Gus) was a regular panelist on the original British version of Whose Line is it Anyway, and is a recurring guest on QI.  He’s done quite a lot of voice work for Doctor Who, in the Big Finish audio plays and the webcast Death Comes to Time.  He’ll be playing Hunpty Dumpty in the upcoming Alice in Wonderland sequel.  He joins a growing number of well-known actors to lend their voice only to the series.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Foretold is a wonderful example of taking a classic monster and giving it a modern sci-fi twist.  The Doctor has seen his share of Mummies in the past.  The Osiran race took up residence on Mars (a very popular planet in the series’ history) and influenced the growth of Egyptian culture, an influence that attempted to make a jump to the present in Pyramids of Mars. We’ve seen other classic Universal monsters as well – werewolves in Victorian England (Tooth and Claw) alien races who were quite pleasant when they weren’t in their alternate form (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy) and various other wolf-like transformations like from Inferno and Planet of Evil. He even met Frankenstein’s Monsters, albeit only an android copy, in a disused fun fair during The Chase.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS –

FoxesKILL THE QUEEN! – The lounge singer performing what is by now a centuries old song (“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen) which is certainly supposed to represent the contemporary music of the period of the original Orient Express is a callback to Lady Cassandra playing a “traditional ballad” during The End of the World, namely Britney Spears’ “Toxic”.

BOW TIES ARE…WELL… – The Doctor is wearing a bow tie again, but it’s the style he wore back in the Hartnell years, keeping with the style of dress he’s been wearing all season.

WOULD YOU LIKE A… – Eschewing the traditional rumpled paper bag, The Doctor now carries his Jelly Babies in a dashing cigarette case.  That’s not the only Tom Baker reference in the episode – when The Doctor has the conversation with himself, his “other voice” takes on just a tinge of the booming tone of the fourth Doctor.

HOW LONG CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH? – The Doctor can go without oxygen for quite some time, thanks to the Gallifreyan respiratory bypass system, first referenced in the Tom Baker adventure The Ark in Space.

“It’s a sad smile, it’s two emotions at once” – The Doctor once admitted to be confused at “happy crying” in the company of the Ponds.  He’s had trouble understanding Human emotion in the past, he’s just made more of a career of it this season.

“The number of evil twice over” – While most modern people acquaint 666 with evil, 33 appears in a number of religious doctrines, and pops up in an interesting number of coincidental places in a plurality of schools of knowledge.  This website lists a great deal of them.

“It’s full of…bubble wrap” – Bubble wrap has a long association with the series, usually as a material for making monsters and sets.  Most famously it made up much of the skin of the growing Wirrn creatures in The Ark In Space.

“Even the smallest details might help us save the next one” – Once again, we’re seeing The Doctor having no remorse of sadness for someone’s passing, wishing only to use them as a tool to solve a larger problem.  It’s what Clara assumes he’ll do to Maisie later in the story.

“Are you my mummy?” – I honestly thought they might choose not to go with this line.  A reference to the Eccleston thriller The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, he made a similar joke while wearing a gas mask in The Poison Sky.

“That job could change a man” – Perkins was referring to how travelling like that could change passengers in the TARDIS, and The Doctor was referring to himself.  Both are correct.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – Danny is only heard from via the phone, but once again, his and Clara’s relationship are where the big moves in the narrative take place.  While there’s still a dangling mystery as to the identity of Gus, there’s no being sure that he’s working with Missy, Queen of Heaven.

“He even phoned the TARDIS” – The Doctor got a call at the end of The Big Bang about an incident on the Orient Express In Space.  The details were a bit off from what we’re seeing here, but the point it clear – Gus has been trying to get The Doctor’s attention to solve this problem for a very long time, and is fully aware of who he is.  We’ve had mention of the difficulty of getting the number to the TARDIS already, so this person has access to very secret information.

“But thanks for lying” – It’s the second line spoken by The Doctor in the episode – and it’s the main theme of the episode.  It’s spoken about, referred to, and joked about right through to the end of the story. Maisie accuses The Doctor of lying as soon as she hears the first thing out of his mouth, The Doctor Lies about why he asks Clara to eventually actually lie to Maisie. The Doctor claims he’s lying about getting everyone way safely, but he’s lying about that.  And at the end, Clara flat out lies to The Doctor about her turnaround about travelling with him, which means she will go right on lying to Danny about not doing it anymore.

“I am so sorry” – It’s key to note that now it’d The Doctor’s companion who is doing the apologizing, what Ten used to do so often it became a meme.

“So you were pretending to be heartless” – There such amazing levels going on in these final scenes.  The Doctor has clearly gotten more brunt in his attitude, using dying people as stepping stones to a solution.  But in the next moment we learn something important – for a guy who claims to be terrible with names, he remembers the name of each person he couldn’t same. He’s still keeping count, even through he’s hiding it better than ever.

“Is it like…an addiction?” – Let’s analyze Clara’s behavior throughout the season.  She’s keeps trying to convince herself that she can “handle it”. She attempts to restrict her access by only doing it occasionally.  She puts herself in danger to get what she wants. She lies to those she loves about what she’s doing, and after swearing this is the last time, she decides it’s not.  So…you tell me; how good is her analysis?

NEXT ON DOCTOR WHO!  Experimentation by an unknown alien source is leaving some people feeling a little…Oh, I just can’t DO it!.  Flatline, coming this Saturday.

New Who Review: “Kill the Moon”

It’s the classic time travel question – would you kill a dangerous killer in their crib, before they’ve actually done anything?  Well, what is you weren’t sure the baby was going to do anything?  What if you were asked to…

KILL THE MOON
By  Peter Harness
Directed by Paul Whilmshurst

Clara speaks to the entire Earth – they run the risk of the Earth being destroyed if they don’t kill an innocent being.  “The man who normally helps” is nowhere to be found, and a decision must be made.  Flashing backwards, we learn that Coal Hill student Courtney Woods has not reacted well to her brief run on the TARDIS.  The Doctor told her she “wasn’t special”, a comment she’s taken to heart.  Clara asks him to apologize; he instead offers her a chance to be the first woman on the Moon.

Alas, all is not well there.  In 2049, the moon has mysteriously gained 1.3 billion tons of extra mass, causing staggering tides on Earth.  It turns out the moon is something altogether new to The Doctor’s eyes, and rather than help…he walks away.

This was a very dark episode with a bright ending, only to reveal that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.  I expect we’ll see this story used in argument for certain social issue quite soon now.  Fabulous performances all round.

GUEST STAR REPORT – Hermione Norris (Lundvik) is well known to British audiences for many regular TV appearances in series like Spooks and Cold Feet.

Tony Osoba (Duke) – is one of a smallish group of actors who’s appeared in both the new and original run of the series.  He had roles in both Destiny of the Daleks and some years later in Dragonfire.

Paul Whilmshurst (director) will be back next week, and will be directing the Christmas episode.  He has a long resume of TV directing, both drama and reality/documentary.

Peter Harness (writer) has been writing for British television for nearly a decade now.  He wrote and appeared in a TV movie about British comedy legend Frankie Howerd, who was played by Who-lumnus David Walliams.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Moon has been the setting of many Who adventures over the decades. It first threatened the Earth millions of years ago, where the dominant life form of the Earth, who would come to be known as Silurians, feared a monstrous asteroid would crash into the planet.  They set themselves up in massive hibernation cities to sleep through the disaster, only for the heavenly body to be trapped by the Earth’s gravity and become the Moon.  That change to the delicate balance of the orbital mechanics of the solar system was enough to allow the planet Mondas to break free of its orbit, returning millennia later as The Tenth Planet.  There have been many bases on the Moon, built and manned by both human and alien forces.  The Cybermen tried to attack one in an appropriately titled episode.  It would be used as a penal colony, house River Song’s alma mater, and eventually, we’d haul in four more for additional real estate.  Needless to say, there’s never been any mention of it hatching a titanic alien and leaving another one in its place, but that’s the sort of thing that gets forgotten when you’re trying to fight off Draconians.

Doctor Who has had its share of spiders as well, even if in this case they’re just bacteria that resemble spiders, by some mad coincidence.  Brought with human explorers in the future, spiders would evolve to control the world of Metebelis III, eventually known as the Planet of the Spiders.  The Racnoss were a semi-arachnid race who planned an overthrow of the world, stopped by the able assistance of The Runaway Bride.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS –

SET PIECES – Rather than go for the old reliable stone quarry, the production team traveled to Lanzarote, part of the Canary Islands off Africa, to duplicate the surface of the Moon.  It was last used in the Davison adventure Planet of Fire.

I WEAR THE CLOTHES OF THE REGENERATED – Capaldi is wearing David Tennant’s spacesuit from The Satan Pit, a suit which is rapidly becoming the most recycled prop on the show, gaining on that rock used on almost every alien planet in the classic series.

“No being sick and no hanky-panky” – Considering the last time there was…you know, what-not… on the TARDIS, it resulted in River Song, a clear example of a result which caused both happiness and hardship.

“You’ll have to spend a lot of time, shooting me, because I will keep on regenerating” – The Doctor may be bluffing when says he might keep on regenerating forever – he made a similar comment on The Sarah Jane Adventures when he was asked how many times he could do it.  But the new energy infusion given him by the Time Lords is something new – it’s not known if it was enough for one, a whole new cycle of twelve, or a potentially infinite number.

“What is wrong with my yo-yo?” – The Doctor used a yo-yo to test gravity force during the Baker years, with the same color yo-yo, yet.  I’ve mentioned before that this Doctor is using more gadgets, large and small, to get things done, not just relying on the Sonic Screwdriver, a change I love campaigned for.

“That’s what you do with aliens, isn’t it? Blow them up?” It’s not The Doctor’s primary method, but it’s come up a couple times.  Prime Minister Harriet Jones, (Yes, we know who you are) contacted Torchwood to destroy the retreating Sycorax spaceship at the end of The Christmas Invasion.  And after Leela recommended it the whole time, The Doctor suddenly “came up with the idea” of blowing up The Invisible Enemy.

“High tide everywhere at once” – Well, no. It’d be tides far higher than normal for parts of the Earth both facing and pointed away from the moon, and calamitous low tides at the sides.

“When I say run…run” – So much fun to see bits of the old Doctors pop up again. That was one of the second Doctor’s catch phrases, like in this clip from Tomb of the Cybermen.

“There are some moments in time that I simply can’t see” This is a new take on the old reliable “Fixed Point”, where crucial points in history exist, chronal tipping points that cannot be changed.  But here, rather than just walking away, here he forces three humans to make a choice that will damn the world, either physically, or by making them party to genocide.

“My Gran used to put things on tumblr” There actually is a girl named Courtney Woods with an account on tumblr, and I expect she’s getting an amazing increase in traffic right now.  The Doctor Who tumblr community is amazingly vast and creative, featuring animation, art and filk music.  It’s neat we’re finally getting a shout out.

“The last time you said that, she turned up on the wrong side of the planet!” – Clara is referring to the events of Cold War, where the TARDIS popped off to the south pole because The Doctor turned on the HADS, or Hostile Action Displacement System.

“There’s some DVDs in the blue bookshelf – just stinck on in the TARDIS console, it’ll bring you to me” There are exactly seventeen DVD titles containing the program that will automatically return the TARDIS to The Doctor’s location.  They are the seventeen DVDs owned by Sally Sparrow, as revealed in the classic Blink.

“We didn’t nip out after pudding and kill Hitler” River Song, or rather Mels certainly tried that one time.

“Turn your lights off” – Real world physics get in the way here. Luckily, when they see the moon from Earth at the end of the episode, it’s full, which means it’d be behind the Earth. That’s backed up by the fact that the Moon is fully lit throughout the episode. This means when they were looking at the Earth, they’d be looking at the side in night   If they were on the other side, they’d never be able to see the lights. But unless my math is wrong, 45 minutes is not close to enough time for the light-up votes of the entire Earth to be seen – only an additional sliver of the Earth’s circumference would com around.

“Mind your language, please – there are children present” I count one child. Whoever could The Doctor be referring to in the plural? Patronizing, indeed.

“You made your decision…humanity made its choice” Assuming the vote is the same on the bright side, the Earth chose to kill a beautiful and innocent creature to save themselves.  That’s more than a bit similar to the choice the denizens of Britain made when they built the Starship UK in The Beast Below. Considering they made themselves all forget they did it then, maybe that’s a viable explanation why it’s so rarely mentioned in future history.

“Not bad for a girl from Coal Hill School” I for one am perfectly ready for Courtney Woods to come on full time as a companion.  We’re seeing her make a massive change in just these two episodes.  She’s not well educated, she’s an average kid.  And as such is a more perfect avatar for the viewer than any of the adult companions we’ve seen in the entire new series.  Companions are often younger in the comics for that reason. It’s likely the extra issues of a minor working on a TV show, especially one as intensive as Doctor Who that precludes such a casting choice, but for a girl for this this is her first professional acting job, Ellis George is more than up for it.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – Clara’s arc is once again the only one furthered this week.  The blowout argument with The Doctor, combined with the heart-to-heart with Danny, certainly points towards a change of affiliation in the future.

“It’s time to take the stabilizers off your bike” there may be two levels of action happening here.  The Doctor is forcing Clara to make a staggering decision.  He is also causing a rift in their relationship.  What are the odds that this is another attempt to push Clara to safety?  It’s plainly obvious that Clara will do everything in her power to help The Doctor – she hung onto the outside of the TARDIS for an eyes-open trip through the time vortex in The Time of the Doctor. She’s already spent an unknown amount of time racing through his timeline, fixing what The Great Intelligence set wrong.  Perhaps he knows she deserves a rest, and knows the only way she’d leave is if he all but pushes her away.  As here, The Doctor is forcing Clara to make a massive choice.

“You wanna have babies?” Courtney’s teasing mention of Danny is spot on.  Assuming he’s not something Clever and surprising from Moffat’s dark evil heart, the budding relationship between Danny and Clara is almost a certainty.  There’s not much that could stop it – death, perhaps, or as mentioned, an inability to leave The Doctor.

“I’ve got Grey areas” “Yeah, I noticed” It sure sounds like a hair joke, but on further rumination, it’s pretty clear Clara is talking about the grey areas in The Doctor’s personality.  This is an extension of that first question – “Am I a good man?”

Clara Doctor copperfield
That’s the quote from David Copperfield on Clara’s board. Once again, the choices of quotes Clara selects are amazingly prescient.

“I had a really bad day” – Yes, there’s absolutely a very big story to be told here, and there’s still a chance it may not be a good one for Clara and their relationship.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – The Doctor tests the little grey cells.  Mummy on the Orient Express, coming this Saturday.

New Gerry Anderson TV project “FireStorm” launches via Kickstarter

  • News
  • September 30, 2014

Anderson Productions has launched a Kickstarter campaign today to fund production of a pilot for Gerry Anderson’s FireStorm, a new adventure series in the tradition of the original Anderson series like Thunderbirds and Stingray. Only hours after its start, the campaign has already been 25% funded of its initial goal.

Once funded, the pilot will be filmed in “Ultramationation”, described as a new hybrid process “using a combination of puppetry, practical effects, physical props and sets, and model miniatures”. Fans of iconic Gerry Anderson shows like Space: 1999, Stingray, Captain Scarlet, UFO and Thunderbirds will be able to back the project to help fund the pilot episode in return for special limited edition rewards from props and collector edition DVDs, to set visits and film credits.

FireStormOriginally developed by Gerry and his business partner John Needham, the project  originally became a Japanese animated series produced in 2003. The new series starts from scratch, re-developed from Gerry Anderson’s original notes, synopses and designs.  (more…)

Sega’s Sonic Boom fan meet kicks off Super Week in NYC

Sega’s annual fan celebration of Sonic the Hedgehog will kick off Super Week, New York Comic Con’s seven day celebration leading up to the convention.  Sonic Boom will take place on Saturday, October 4th at the Manhattan Center Ballroom in New York City.

SonicBoomEvents include appearances by the voice cast of the new Sonic Boom TV series,  premiering this fall on Cartoon Network.  Roger Craig Smith (Sonic), Colleen Villard (Tails), Travis Willingham (Knuckles), Cindy Robinson (Amy), Nika Futterman (Sticks), and Mike Pollock (Dr. Eggman) will all be on stage for a special live TV show script reading, as well being available for meet & greets and autographs.

Other guests including Tracy Yardley!, long-time artist for the comic series, Sonic musicians Jun Senoue, Tomoya Ohtani, Ted Poley, and Tony Harnell, and Japanese game producer and lead Sonic designer, Takashi Iizuka.

Playable demos of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (WiiU) and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (Nintendo 3DS) will be available to play, in addition to “tons of giveaways and other great surprises”.

Tickets for the event are available now via Ticketmaster.

New Who Review – “The Caretaker”

  • News
  • September 28, 2014

You think it’s hard to balance a life as a mother and a businesswoman, or that of a governor and a single dad, how about alternating trying to cultivate a new relationship while you’re off saving the universe?  Clara Oswald has got this very problem.  Luckily she down’t have to deal with it alone, she’s got…

THE CARETAKER
By Gareth Roberts and Steven Moffat
Directed by Paul Murphy

After an exhausting montage of travels across the universe that need to end in tome for making dates with Danny Pink, The Doctor is pleased to let Clara know that she’ll be getting some time to herself.  He’s got a job he needs to handle on his own, and is somewhat vague when pressed for details.  She happily reports to Danny that while she has been distracted of late, she’ll be more centered on him for a bit. That bit ends quickly when it’s revealed that The Doctor has taken the role of caretaker at Coal Hill School.  He’s on the search for a Scovox Blitzer, a warrior robot who has taken up residence nearby the school.  His plan is to trap the robot in the empty school before it gets too curious about its surroundings.  The first attempt goes wrong when Danny Pink gets involved, thinking The Doctor is up to something nefarious, and suffice to say he and The Doctor do not get along,  When the Blitzer returns from his temporary prison, can the new triangle of The Doctor, Clara and Danny save the world without driving each other crazy?

A wonderful episode that really lets Capaldi and company have some fun. There’s been much more humor in this season so far – this episode could easily have sat in the position of directly preceding the season finale, where there’s usually both a funny and a cheap episode, the double-banked production that features less Doctor to make time for filming the Christmas story.  This episode is much more character-driven, as many of Gareth Roberts’ stories are.

GUEST STAR REPORT – Chris Addison (Seb) has arrived MUCH earlier than expected.  Chris is an established comedian and actor in Britain, but he’s best known for playing Oliver Reeder on The Thick of It, which starred a certain…Peter Capaldi.  He got his start on Lab Rats, a series for which he also wrote. He’s directed several episodes of Veep, the series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and created by Armando Ianucci, creator of The Thick of It.

Jimmy Vee (Scovox Blitzer) has played diminutive aliens throughout the new series.  He played the Moxx of Balhoon in The End of the World, various Graskes in both Who and Sarah Jane, and Banakaffalatta in Voyage of the Damned.

Gareth Roberts (writer) has made a name for himself on the show for writing the more light-hearted episodes.  He brought us Craig Owens, star of The Lodger and Closing Time, as well as The Shakespeare Code and The Unicorn and the Wasp.  He wrote several episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures.  He delivers some solid and hilarious dialogue this time around, playing off a theme similar to that of The Lodger, of The Doctor having to spend time among normal folk.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Scovox Blitzer is the latest in a series of warrior robots we’ve seen The Doctor meet up with over the years.  from threats like the Mechanoids and the War Machines in the Hartnell era, the Raston Warrior Robot in The five Doctors, to the robot knights in Robot of Sherwood, they’re an easy foe – single-minded, hard to beat, and powerful.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS –

WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HEROES – Neil Gaiman had the idea of starting an adventure with the tail end of another.  We’ve been seeing a bunch of mini-adventures since, tossed into the narrative like  cut-away jokes on Family Guy.

“I’m the caretaker” – The Doctor has played caretaker before, more notable in the Christmas episode, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.  He’s also gone undercover at a school in School Reunion.  Jon Pertwee was pretty good at going undercover, wigs and makeup and all. Capaldi got the idea right perfectly when he observed that everyone was simply ignoring him, which was exactly his plan.

“Human beings are not otters!” – Go look up “Benedict Cumberbatch otter” and you’ll see arguments to the contrary.

“Courtney, you are big enough to look after yourself.” – Courtney Woods has been making background Vatican cameos in the season ever since Deep Breath. She was the student who challenged Clara to carry out her threat to expel the whole class, which gave Clara the idea to stand up to the head of the clockwork droids.  It’s neat that she and The Doctor got on so quickly, and equally fun that her tough exterior peeled away when exposed to the vacuum of space.

“I’ll tell the Headmaster” – I’ll lay odds he’ll be told it’s not a problem.  The Chairman of the Governors of Coal Hill School is listed as “I. Chesterton” as far back as the anniversary episode.  Ian Chesterton, with Barbara Wright, were The Doctor’s first on-screen human companions in the first episode of the series.  And as revealed on The Sarah Jane Adventures, when she did some research on The Doctor’s other companions, Ian and Barbara Chesterton (another happy change)…don’t age.

The current headmaster, W. Coburn, shares the name of Anthony Coburn, who wrote An Unearthly Child. Wendy Coburn was a student in Coal Hill in 1963, as revealed in the prose adventure Time and Relative. The Headmaster has not been seen on screen yet – it’d be fun it is were Wendy.

“Very qualified” – once again, the sound mixers are doing a bang up job in background comedy.  Hear that car alarm go off after The Doctor makes all the electrics spark?

“I’m a maths teacher” – After he retired from UNIT, The Brigadier taught mathematics, as The Doctor learned in Mawdryn Undead.

“What were they like?  The others, before me; did they let you get away with this sort of thing?” It’s rather amazing how little they spoke about past Companions in the original series.  Nowadays, it’s almost all they do, and not in a positive way. The Doctor is endlessly bemoaning the idea that all his old friends came to sad ends, and it’s simply not the case.  The modern series companions have all been much more active partcipants of the adventures, not just “someone to nod” as he put it in Listen.

“Atron emissions – you’ve had enough of them in this area over the years” – Considering Artron energy is generated by time travel, then yes, it’s safe to say the vicinity of Coal Hill School has seen its share.  The Doctor has returned to Coal Hill and its environs a number of times since that first adventure. The Imperial Daleks were attempting to find the Hand of Omega in the area in Remembrance of the Daleks. And indeed, the entire junk yard where The Doctor first set down was once the setting of a traveling time fair, run by fellow a Time Lord renegade named…I. M. Foreman, in the prose adventure Interference. (As I’ve said elsewhere, science fiction and comics does sometimes attempt to make everything a bit TOO connected.)

 “Possibly reminded me of a certain dashing young time-traveller” A classic Three’s Companyesque misunderstanding, The Doctor dow not recognize Danny Pink as the ancestor of Orson Pink, but notes that fellow teacher Adrian vaguely resembles his previous incarnation, notes that he and Clara talked to each other, and came to the perfectly pompous and self-aggrandizing conclusion that Clara was in love with someone who looked like he used to.

“Do you want to see the Thames frozen over? Ooh, those Frost Fairs…” – The Doctor has had a number of adventures at the Frost Fair.  He took River Song to one during one of her break-outs of Stormcage.  In the audio adventure Frostfire he fought the eponymous threat at what was called one of the last great Frost Fairs, an adventure where he was joined by…Jane Austen, albeit a few years after she wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – So apparently Heaven is not just for people who have died in actions directly connected to The Doctor.  Seb serves as a functionary it what he prefers to call “The Nethersphere” (first time we’ve heard that term on the show, though Missy has been referred to as “Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere” in the various PR releases after her casting.) He is seen processing the poor policeman, only on-camera victim of the Blitzer, though Seb says they’ve gotten a number of them lately, suggesting he wasn’t the only victim.  This is the first we’ve seen of anyone else in the running of this mysterious Promised Land, which certainly makes it look to be a bigger project.

“You’ve explained me to him – you haven’t explained him to me” – The real meat of this episode is The Doctor’s meeting and getting to know Danny Pink.  The Doctor’s dislike for soldiers is long standing, but the dislike has take a more extreme turn with this new regeneration.  He’s called many soldiers friends, mostly from the members of UNIT like The Brig and Mike Yates. At least one of his companions was a soldier, Steven Taylor, who served on a battleship before being downed over Mechanus and kept as a prisoner for two years.

It’s possible some of the dialogue from Listen may come back to fill that dislike in.  Clara overhears the conversation of the people caring for the child that will become The Doctor, people who may or many not be his parents – there’s mention of “the other boys”, not “your brothers”, suggesting it might have been a school of some type. The male voice makes the observation, “There’ll be no crying in the army”, and the woman makes it clear he’ll not be joining the army, implying the reason is well-known.  So his dislike for the military is long-standing.

“I was gonna say, I might have a thing…” – Moffat’s writing style (note that this is the first series so far where he’s written or co-writtern every episode so far) has us looking behind every corner for secrets, so everything Danny says is read into.  He may be honestly allowing Clara to skip their date by giving her an out, he may simply want the time to keep an eye on the new caretaker, or that “thing” might be a nefarious thing indeed.

“He’s an officer…That’s who he is” – And Danny’s dislike for The Doctor, or at least what he thinks The Doctor is, is most clear as well.  He sees The Doctor as a member of the upper class, revealed by his title of Time Lord.  He mocks The Doctor by acting all military and proper, much in the same way The Doctor will often mock members of the military.  But he realizes that his mocking description of an officer is more correct than he realized.  Like good officers, they make men stronger and braver, just as he sees Clara.  It all ties back to Dalek Caan’s accusation that he turns his friends “into weapons”, and Rory’s observation that people do amazing and brave things in The Doctor’s presence in an attempt to impress of please him.

“I just have to be good enough for you” – He gets Danny’s name wrong in the same dismissive way he’d get Mickey’s name wrong, the same way Endora would get Darren’s name wrong on Bewitched, and for exactly the same reason.  The Doctor is not jealous, he’s simply protective of his friends.

“If he ever pushes you too far, I want you to tell me” – Considering the swirling rumors that Jenna Coleman will be leaving the series at the Christmas episode, this relationship between Clara and Danny seems setting up precisely to giver her a reason to part company.  Many companion have left The Doctor for a true love, including Leela and Dodo, who more fell in love with a time period than a person.  The most thematically similar event is the first one, when Susan left.  Indeed, she’d fallen in love with a boy after The Dalek Invasion of Earth, but felt she had to stay with The Doctor to protect him.  He was the one who made the decision – he locked the door to the TARDIS, and told her that he’d be fine.  Considering the relationship here, I suspect a similar scenario may present itself come the Holidays.

“My God…”  “I’m afraid she’s a bit busy” – So apparently Missy goes by more than a few names.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – A difficult choice, a recurring spacesuit, and isn’t it interesting how much goes on a lifeless satellite? Kill the Moon, this Saturday

New Who Review – “Time Heist”

“Are you in or out?”

The Doctor and Clara wake in the company of two strangers and are quickly told they are to rob a bank.  Everything is planned so well, almost as if the planner knows what’s going to happen, that The Doctor quickly realizes that this isn’t a mere bank heist, but a…

TIME HEIST
By Steve Thompson and Steven Moffat
Directed by Douglas MacKinnon

The Bank of Karabraxos is the single most secure bank in human history.  A loyal staff, redundant security systems, and a guard dog that literally smells guilt in the customers.  When The Doctor picks up the phone of the TARDIS and suddenly recovers from a blackout in a strange room with two criminals, it’s too tantalizing not to move ahead with.  Being chased by the bank’s security at all times, the quartet must breach unbreachable security, all the while not actually know what they’re supposed to steal.

A solid thriller with questions and puzzles all the way through.  Once again, the idea of breaking into the perfect bank is not new, but with the right character work and a delightful twist at the end, it works wonderfully.

GUEST STAR REPORT – Keeley Hawes (Ms. Delphox, Mme. Karabraxos ) is best known to genre fans as the voice of Lara Croft in seven games to date over nearly ten years.  She’s played Lady Agnes Holland on the new version of Upstairs Downstairs, and DI Alex Drake on Ashes to Ashes, the sequel to Life on Mars.

Jonathan Bailey (Pai) appeared with David Tennant in the murder procedural Broadchurch and had the titles role in Leonardo.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Teller is a magnificent beast, both in design and ability.  Unlike a number of creatures in the new series, it was made with practical effects, which meant it was on set with the actors and they didn’t have to imagine what it looked like.  Like the Crooked Man from Hide, the being was driven by the loss of its mate, and once they were reunited, its rage and malice abated.  There have been plenty of telepathic species in the show, though few with such a weaponized form.  The Sensorites could affect the minds of other beings, and their planetary neighbors the Ood could communicate at amazing distances from each other.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS –

THE FACES OF THOSE HE’S WRONGED FLOAT UP AT HIM – In that fast flip of hardened criminals, more than a few recognizable faces can be seen.  There was a Sensorite from the Hartnell adventure, a Tereliptil from the Davison years, an Ice Warrior, a group of Slitheen, and a Weevil and John Hart from Torchwood. But most interesting is a character from the Doctor Who comics – Absalom Daak, Dalek Killer. Created by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon, Daak enjoyed a long run in the Doctor Who Weekly.

BECAUSE IT ORBITS URANUS AND LOOKS FOR KLINGONS – One of the treasures in Madame Karabraxos’ vault is quite valuable to episode director Douglas MacKinnon.  It’s a rocket ship made from a toilet paper tube, made for him by her daughter for Christmas.

ONE CAN DO THE WORK OF TWO – They only made one Teller suit.  Even the last scene as they walk away was a double-exposure, the suit actor playing both the male and female.

“It’s a memory worm” – First seen in The Snowmen, the memory worm is a creature whose slimy coating has the defensive ability to erase the past hour of memory from any being who touches it.  In the aforementioned adventure, Sontaran Strax keeps touching it, as he is a boob.  Here, they’re used to erase the memories of The Doctor’s gang (he has a gang now) before beginning their little expedition.  The effects of the worms seem to have changed a bit, or at least clarified – here it’s shown that the memories are not erased as much as blocked. Not exactly a big change, and effectively no difference when attempting to get away from a predator.

“Why are we not using the TARDIS?” – It’s always fun to get to answer the questions the viewer are already thinking of.  Let’s them know you’re a step ahead.  Solar Storms affected the navigation of the TARDIS in The Rebel Flash, so there’s precedent for keeping away from the interference.  Of course, as we’ll find out later, there’s a more ulterior motive for not using it – to make things more fun.

“He’s gone already, it’s over” – Once again, while the Tennant or Smith incarnations would sweat and suffer over not being able to save someone they’ve not even met, this Doctor is a pragmatist.  Even when it looks like their own compatriots are killed, he moves forward, eyes on the prize. Of course, one could note that Clara seems to have rather quickly gotten over the loss of Psi and Saibra once that big tantalizing vault opens.

“Basically, it’s the eyebrows” – Not to mention the air of knowledge and authority The Doctor gives off.  He uses a trick yr. obt. svt. uses whenever he can – act like you’re supposed to be there.  Nine times out of ten, people take your unspoken word for it, and follow your lead.

“You can delete your memories?” – Psi’s story is somewhat of a mirror to Captain Jack Harkness’ original backstory, which has since been somewhat forgotten.  While a Time Agent, he had a large part of his memories deleted, and was trying to find who did it, and if possible recover them.

“Don’t think” – Once again, a simple act is made scary. From trying not to Blink, to Clara having to hold her breath at the beginning of the season to trying not to think of anything here, they’re all things that the viewer can’t help but trying not to do along with her as they watch. We can only hope that nobody thought of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

“It’s a neophyte circuit – I’ve only ever seen one once before” – And I’ll lay odds this is the same one. The Doctor set this entire adventure up – the request from Madame Karabraxos could have been done any number of ways, but he chose to set it up in a way that would not only be the most interesting for himself and Clara, but to help cure/repair two people who he’d clearly never met before he did his research and found them.

“I hate the Architect!” – The theme of the episode is the idea of not being able to trust, or even stand, someone who looked exactly like you.  It’s why Saibra couldn’t touch anyone (“Could you trust someone who looked like you, out of your own eyes?”), it’s why Madame Karabraxos’ relationship with her cloned employees was to tense, and why The Doctor thought The Architect was such a bossy prat.  At that point he didn’t know he’d planned all this, he only suspected, based on an analysis of the mysterious man’s personality.  It’s not the first time he’s displayed such a low opinion of himself – once he realizes who the Dream Lord was in Amy’s Choice,  he said there was only one person in the universe who could hate him that much.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – Not much mention of the plot in this episode, save for a brief appearance by Danny Pink, who is certainly (OK, hopefully) not the Big Bad, but is certainly setting up to be important to Clara.

“I’m giving you my telephone number” – At the beginning of the episode, The Doctor once again mentions that there’s only a handful of people who has the phone number to the TARDIS, including a mysterious lady in a shop who gave it to Clara back in The Bells of St. John.  Madame Karakraxos is now a member of that group, which also includes most of of The Doctor’s recent companions (like Martha Jones who used it to call him to stop The Sontaran Stratagem), Winston Churchill (from well before Victory of the Daleks) and, apparently, Marilyn Monroe, whose marriage to The Doctor did not count.  And apparently, he’s STILL been too busy to re-route the line to the control panel, as he asked Handles to remind him to do.

“Beat that for a date” – And right there, all the questions about “Why would The Doctor go through all that rigmarole” are answered.  He set the whole thing up as a game to give himself and Clara something to do that day.  In DC Comics, wealthy socialite Sue Dearborn Dibny would get the ultimate Birthday present for her husband, Ralph Dibny, AKA The Elongated Man.  She would set up an elaborate mystery game for him, usually with the assistance of other members of the Justice League, to give him an adventure he’d not soon forget. It’s entirely likely that’s the motivation for The Doctor here.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Clara tries to give Danny more of her time, but The Doctor finds a problem that needs solving by any means necessary.  The Caretaker starts his new job this Saturday

Nick Frost Tops Doctor Who Christmas Special Guest List

  • News
  • September 19, 2014

Confirming recently circulating rumors, the BBC announced today that Nick Frost will guest-star in this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special.

Nick comments: “I’m so thrilled to have been asked to guest in the Doctor Who Christmas special, I’m such a fan of the show. The read-through was very difficult for me; I wanted to keep stuffing my fingers into my ears and scream “No spoilers!” Every day on set I’ve had to silence my internal fan boy squeals!”

Nick’s frequent partner in crime Simon Pegg appeared in the Eccleston adventure The Long Game as the Editor of Satellite Five, and servant of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Editor-in-Chief, the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (And yes, I used cut and paste, there’s none of us perfect). Other members of the Pegg / Frost / Edgar Wright repertory company who have appeared on the series include Michael Smiley in Into the Dalek and Jessica Hynes as Verity Newman in Human Nature, and again as Verity’s descendant Joan Redfern in The End of Time.

Michael Troughton, son of Patrick (a.k.a. Doctor Two)  will appear in the special as well,  making a return to a long acting career after a break from 2002 to care for his wife, who suffered from MS. During the break he also earned a degree in science.  Michael may be best know in the US for his role in The New Statesman against former Young One Rik Mayall.  This marks his first on-camera appearance on Doctor Who – he drove a Dalek in one of father’s adventures. Michael ‘s brother David has made a number of appearances on the show, most recently as Professor Hobbes in Midnight.

They will be joined by Natalie Gumede (Coronation Street, Ideal, Strictly Come Dancing), Faye Marsay (Pride, The White Queen, Fresh Meat) and Nathan McMullen (Misfits, Casualty).

Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer, says: “Frost at Christmas – it just makes sense! I worked with Nick on the Tintin movie many years ago and it’s a real pleasure to lure him back to television for a ride on the TARDIS.”

The Doctor Who Christmas special will air on BBC America. Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst (Strike Back, Combat Kids), it will be shot in Cardiff at BBC Wales Roath Lock Studios.

New Who Review – “Listen”

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”

The idea is so close to implausible, it only makes it more plausible.  What if there really is someone in the shadows?  What if that isn’t just a passing breeze across the back of your neck?  What if there is something under the bed?

The Doctor is unreasonably convinced of something, Clara is a non-stop chatterbox on dates, and Danny Pink’s real name is Rupert.  And if you want to learn more, you have to not be worried about spoilers, and just…

LISTEN
By Steven Moffat
Directed by Douglas MacKinnon

The Doctor is roaming about the TARDIS alone (we assume) slowly convincing himself of a patently ridiculous concept – the idea that there are invisible creatures who follow people around, and it’s they were are talking to when we are alone, and talking to ourselves.  He’s doing quite a good job of it.  Meanwhile, Clara has met new teacher and former soldier Danny Pink for drinks and dinner, and she’s done a proper mess of it.  So when The Doctor picks her up to investigate his theory, her slight distraction causes The Doctor’s experiment to go awry – specifically in the sense of the subject.  They travel back, not to her childhood, but Danny Pink’s, who is having a bad dream…possibly…in his room at an orphanage.  The adventure proceeds to other members of Danny’s family, the end of time, and a barn that we didn’t know we’d seen before.

For all the things people like to say about Moffat (mostly bad), when he gets it right, it’s almost unholy how good it is.  By going back to the ideas he loves to hit – making something commonplace patently terrifying – he’s made another classic.  He’s like the boorish boyfriend who eats all your spinach dip and leaves the seat up, and you wander why you’re going out with him, but then he shows up with flowers, puts exactly the right song on the stereo, and you remember.

THE MONSTER FILES – There’s quite a bit of argument if there was any monster in the episode at all, but the concepts touched on are very much a recurring theme for Steven Moffat.  The idea of there really being something under the bed was first touched on in The Girl in the Fireplace, where The Doctor first tries to protect young Reinette.  Things in the dark became the Vashta Nerada in Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead.  The Silence and Prisoner Zero are both examples of beings you only see out of the corner of your eye.  And they ALL started in a prose story of the same name Steven wrote in 2006.  “Corner of the Eye” was a story for The Doctor Who Storybook 2007, and introduced us to the Floofs, a race who, exactly as The Doctor has theorized, evolved to be perfect hiders, so much so there’s no record of their existence.

The out of focus figure we see in Young Rupert’s room seems to match the description in the story, that of a short bald humanoid.  But again, the story is left tantalizingly nebulous enough that yeah, it could have been one of the other kids.  Note that every other seeming example of “evidence” is (potentially) explained – the chalk just rolled off the book, The Doctor took the coffee, etc.

Oh, yes, the TV…I forgot about that one…

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

The quote that starts this article is the first (and last) line of the story “Knock”, written by Fredric Brown.  It’s based on a nugget of an idea found in the notes of novelist Thomas Bailey Aldrich,  One could draw comparisons between it any any number of classic sci-fi and horror stories involving Armageddon and such things. the first adaptation of Matheson’s I Am Legend was literally called The Last Man on Earth. 

“TARDIS telepathic interface” – This is one of the sections of the control panel that was redesigned for the new series and Doctor.  Aside from the new bits on the walls, the control panel was made much sturdier, built to last.

“…to the moment of your death” – This is a dark version of the conversation Clara had with Strax in Deep Breath – he saw all the “young men doing sport” in her subconscious, and was about to announce her age at death, were like here, she stopped him abruptly.  Two scene where Clara doesn’t want to know about her death.  That leaves one more before we can declare it enemy action.

“Isn’t it bad if I meet myself?” – It caused the church where Rose’s parents were attending a wedding to be sealed off from reality when she held herself as a baby in Father’s Day. There’s been a number of moments where The Doctor and/or one of his companions met and even spoke to each other for a few moments, but most of them were within, or in the proximity of the TARDIS, which likely prevented any timey-explodey results.

“Your door must be faulty” – This is the first appearance of the psychic paper in this series.  That, combined with the relative absence of the Sonic Screwdriver is another sign of the rules of the show changing.  People were getting quite upset with the two items being used like magic wands at every opportunity.  Save for the over the top uses last week, we’ve seen the Screwdriver used much more sparingly, and more back to its initial (for the new series anyway) job of opening doors and assembling/dissembling wiring and the like.

“Wally…he’s nowhere in this book” – In England, the character we know as Waldo is called Wally.  And the idea that there’s an unseen character in every book is a hilarious microcosm of the plot of this episode.

“Turn your back on him” – This is The Doctor’s first conversation with a child in this incarnation, something that as a rule he’s well known for.  He’s kind and helpful, but hidden behind the pep talk is just a desire to get your Rupert to be brave enough to turn around.  Once again, true motives disguised by flowery prose.  Perhaps not changed too much.

FEAR WOULD BE THE MAIN PROPULSION – The Doctor’s speech about fear is perfectly correct – the fight-or-flight mechanism has gotten humanity out of a lot of jams.

“Once upon a time…The End” – aaaand piano. This is the response The Doctor was expecting when Vastra asked him to project an image of perfect calm into her mind Deep Breath.

“Mind you…Rupert Pink” – Could you hear the glass dropping in the background? Perfect sound design.

“Last Man Standing in the universe – I always thought that’d be me” – As with the Who’d Die Last contest last week, we’re seeing a lot more of The Doctor’s competitive nature coming out.

“DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!” – That’s what The Doctor’s friends do, as pointed out by River Song.

“It’s not a plan, it’s a thing” – The Doctor has a Thing in Vincent and the Doctor, which he described as “Like a plan, but with more greatness”

“This is just a dream” – The Doctor spent a long time talking to the young Amy Pond in her sleep at the end of The Big Bang, telling her about his life and how grand it’ll be.  Clara spends her whole life saving The Doctor over and over – now we know it started quite early.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – The advance of the season’s narrative was much more in the further introduction of Mr. Danny Pink.  He’s clearly a very sensitive man, as in he’s sensitive about his past, and reads too much into things said to him.  Also, he seems to be all thumbs and elbows when talking to Clara, and she to him, usually a sure sign that a pair are going to become a couple.  The

“Family stuff” – But we learned in this episode…Danny’s an orphan.

“Make a promise…you’re never going to look” – These events as a kid can color your experiences in your future. Both psychiatrists and readers of Dianetics believe that.  Remembering it or not, Dan the Soldier Man got quite a kick in a particular direction this evening.

A soldier so brave he doesn’t need a gun.. He  can keep the whole world safe” – Clara, in her Victorian iteration, once told a fairy tale about a man who rides around on a cloud in the sky keeping everyone safe.  Clara is very good at making people feel protected.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – To break into the best bank, you need to assemble the best crew.  By any means necessary. Time Heist, coming up this Saturday.

Tumblr’s Hilarious Net Neutrality Statement!

  • News
  • September 10, 2014

If you log onto your tumblr dashboard today, you might notice what looks like a bit of a problem.  All the graphics on the page are replaced by those “please wait” spinny things, giving the impression you’re stuck with a slow connection.   But it’s just the latest in a series of events, pranks and publicity stunts designed to make people aware of the looming threat to what’s known as Net Neutrality.

Right now, all Internet data are transmitted at the same speed. You get articles and graphics for this site at the same speed you’d get them for Time.com, Amazon, or ElbowsDeepInAsianGirls.tv (Calm down, Michael Davis, I made that one up… I hope)  But if Net Neutrality is shot down, ISPs will gain the ability to offer data “fast lanes” on the information superhighway to companies, on which their data will sail at great speed to the user, while sites who do not pay such premium will see their sites lag at slower “normal” speeds.

The problem is, we won’t actually see the “fast lane” be any faster, it’ll be more a case of the “normal” lane being throttled. just as, oh, let’s say “certain companies” doing that to sites like Netflix.

The FCC is currently mulling over the idea of making this premium bandwidth an official thing, and tech-savvy Internet users have been doing everything they can to show the average users why this would be a calamity.  John Oliver’s recent monologue on the issue created such a response it actually brought the FCC’s website down.

The tumblr site offers a link to BattleForTheNet.com, which offers users the option to either have an email sent in their name to their congressperson, or will automatically connect you via phone to your representative’s office.  The response on this issue has been strong, but millions people shouting is not always as loud as the sound of wallets opening.

The verbiage on this issue has gotten quite dramatic, and yr. obt. svt. tries to refrain from hyperbole unless I’m sure I can a laugh out of it.  But it is very fair to say that if ISPs gain the right to charge companies for the right to get their data delivered, it will absolutely make it harder to get a new website into the eyes of new viewers, and make creating a new site so much more expensive.  Part of the wonder of the Web is it makes everybody equally capable of building a site that can reach the world, at the same speed as any other.  The loss of Net Neutrality will take that away.

This is quite important.

New Who Review – “Robot of Sherwood”

Robot Hood, Robot Hood, riding through the glen,
Robot Hood, Robot Hood, and his band of men…

Clara wants to meet someone legendary, The Doctor tells her they’re all made up, so when he actually shows up, The Doctor is convinced he’s a…

ROBOT OF SHERWOOD
By Mark Gatiss
Directed by Paul Murphy

Clara admits she’s always wanted to meet Robin Hood, who The Doctor waves off as merely a legend.  But as we’ve learned, one does not simply tell Clara Oswald she can’t have something, so off they go to Sherwood.  The Doctor is shocked to discover Robin Hood show up and attempt to appropriate his conveyance.  The Doctor is naturally convinced this is all a trick or plot of some type.  He is at once right, and wrong.  There is a plot, but it’s on the part of the (also real) Sheriff of Nottingham, who has allied himself with a race of robotic spacefarers whose ship is secreted within his castle.  The district-wide canvassing for gold is to built circuitry for the alien craft, to allow it to generate enough power to take off, from which the Sheriff will (dare I say it) rule the world.

The episode is simply too charming and funny to call it anything from a delight.  The dialogue, especially the pissing contests between The Doctor and Robin are hilarious, and for of his claims that he hates banter, The Doctor is very good at it.

At its core, however, it’s far too similar to the series opener – a spaceship, lost in time, crashing to earth and needing help from the locals to take off again, albeit the stuff it needs to repair itself is a bit different.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Robot Knights are more of a minion than a monster, but they’re far from the first.  From The Robots of Death to the Heavenly Host in Voyage of the Damned, they’re powerful and useful.

GUEST STAR REPORT 

Tom Riley (Robin Hood) is known for playing another historical figure; Leonardo Da Vinci on the show Da Vinci’s Demons,.and Oh My God he was in the second St Trinian’s movie as well, a film whose venn diagram with Doctor Who is rapidly approaching a single circle.

Ben Miller (Sheriff of Nottingham) looked way too much like The Master for it to have been anything but a massive in-joke by the crew.  He was going to be a physicist before he met Alexander Armstrong, with whom he went off to start a very successful career in comedy.  He played Johnny English’s assistant Bough in the first film, and appeared

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

A PICTURE IS WORTH… – That one photograph in the middle of the montage of interpretations of Robin in the alien computer?

10301_gall_002

Yeah, that was Patrick Troughton.  before he was the second Doctor, he was the first person to play Robin Hood on television.

 WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO CUT THIS ONE SHORT – This episode originally featured a scene of a beheading, specifically, that of the Sheriff of Nottingham, who is as a result revealed as a cyborg (and presumably puts the head right back on).  Due to recent events featuring actual beheadings of two journalists by terrorists in the Middle East, it was decided such a scene might be traumatic to some, and the scene was edited.  However, the episode also featured a robot’s head being severed and falling to the floor, not to mention The Doctor joking about the idea of Robin Hood’s head still laughing after it was removed from his neck, so clearly the desire to avoid triggering was somewhat limited.

“Old fashioned heroes only exist in old fashioned storybooks” – And that right there is the theme of the episode.  What happens to Robert of Loxley – to sink into myth and legend – is exactly what The Doctor tried to do to himself in the previous season.  He attempted to erase himself from history and all the databases in the universe.  He naturally had a harder time of it as while Robin Hood only operated for a few years, tops, in one area of England, The Doctor has been poking it in and shaking it all about all over the universe throughout time.

“What about Mars?  The Ice warrior Hives!” – Clara met the Ice Warriors last season in Cold War, and The Doctor of course met them a few times before.

“…or we might be inside a Miniscope!” – The Miniscope is a device designed to allow appreciative audiences to observe the activities of captive (tho unaware of same) beings in a miniaturized and sealed natural environment. The Doctor and Jo Grant were briefly trapped in one in the adventure Carnival of Monsters.

“And this is my spoon” – The Seventh Doctor played the spoons, though he didn’t use them in the more defensive manner he did here.  This scene is much more a Robin Hood reference than anything else – it’s a tip of the hat to the iconic quarterstaff(*) battle between Robin Hood and Little John, as portrayed in too many iterations of the tale to count.

“I’ve had some experience –Richard the Lionheart” – Indeed he has – back in the first Doctor’s adventure The Crusade.  The story was preceded by The Web Planet, the last episode of which had been recovered from a Middle Eastern broadcaster. As a result, it was edited to not include the “next episode” card for The Crusade, as for obvious reasons, that episode was not sold to the Middle East.

“Hai!” – Another callback to the Pertwee era, The Doctor strikes Robin with a Venusian Akido blow.

“Who will rid me of this turbulent Doctor?” – Henry II, King of England once famously asked “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” in reference to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – Further increasing the similarities to this episode and Deep Breath, this alien ship is also heading for “The Promised Land”, just as the main Clockwork Droid said he was aiming to reach in the earlier episode.  While we don’t see Missy back, The Doctor did notice the similarity.  What’s interesting is that The Doctor assumed the Droid was speaking metaphorically, based on the humanity he’d picked up over the years, but this ship had a course set for it, as if it were a physical location.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – …and gentle be present…to all you’ve ever close kept in your loving heart.  Listen, coming up this Saturday.

* – “Actually, it’s a buck-and-a-quarter quarterstaff, but I’m not teillin’ HIM that…”

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks