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There's a moment in Dark Water that is so perfect, so gloriously right, that words fail to do it justice. In an episode full of little moments that are interesting, compelling, funny, heartbreaking and also, sadly, frustrating... it stands out as the best. The Doctor is rushing in a panic through the streets of London trying to warn the disturbingly blase Londoners to run, as Cybermen come stomping along behind him. Missy, the strange, deranged Mary Poppins-lookalike who has been popping up throughout the season taunts him for being many steps behind her, and he demands yet again to know who she is. Missy, she explains, is short for Mistress, and then she leans in and gleefully proclaims,"Well I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master.... could I?" The two actors - Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez - sell the moment utterly perfectly, encapsulating both their respective characters in one astonishing moment. Missy STARES into the Doctor's face, greedily lapping up his reaction, equal parts yearning and sadistic pleasure. She wants to see the moment where realization dawns in his eyes, she wants her old "friend" to realize who she is.... and she wants to wallow in his horror and the knowledge that she completely outfoxed him. For his part, the Doctor has this beautiful mixture of dawning horror AND barely realized happiness, because for just the barest moment before the full impact of her revelation sinks in, he revels in the happy news that a fellow Time Lord still lives, hell maybe he's even happy that it is explicitly the Master. It's only there for the barest second before he backs away in horror, but coupled with Gomez's Master's deranged glee it just elevates the moment to something truly remarkable.  This gif doesn't do it justice because I cut out the moment where he almost smiles to save space/filesize, but even now just looking at it brings back to mind the thrill of seeing that scene for the first time all over again.  The episode itself is a mixed affair, it's a story with some great individual moments and it builds up well to it's revelation - but there is a degree of tonal whiplash as we cut from grief to comedy to a rather traumatic theme about the nature of death and the afterlife. In the end, the nature of the story means that much of what we see is essentially a giant con, signposted both by the "dream sequence" near the start of the episode as well as the Doctor's own grumpy dismissal of 3W as a giant scam/con-job. The episode begins with the Doctor turning Clara's attempt to get one over him around and proving he's many steps ahead of any attempt to outsmart him, only for the episode to end with the Doctor discovering he himself has been completely outplayed by "Missy", who has taken great joy in openly playing him for the fool through most of the episode, and done it right in front of his face. As the penultimate episode of the regular season (I'd argue the Christmas Special was an integral part of season 8's narrative), it makes some sense that it's mostly setup to a payoff in the second episode... though whether the payoff was satisfactory is a different matter for a different write-up. In the end, it's an episode I remember more for singular scenes and individual moments of brilliance, and less for a satisfying whole where everything built up to an earned climax/cliffhanger. The first ten minutes are spent on Clara and Danny, though Danny himself has only a very small part before being killed off-screen in a car accident shortly after Clara opens herself up to expressing her desire for a life-long commitment between the two of them. Clara's shock at the revelation of his death is served really well by a neat bit of editing that has her arrive at the scene of the accident only for time to seamlessly pass to show her standing there a few days later, as if she's still trying to wrap her head around that he is gone. Moving through life in a daze, her phone is constantly calling the Doctor as she stands blankly about, telling her Grandmother that Danny's death wasn't a tragedy, it was boring - essentially expressing her shock/disbelief that the man she loves could die in such a mundane and ordinary fashion given the mad poo poo she has been so frequently exposed to. She only sparks up when the Doctor finally answers, having told her Grandmother that she doesn't deserve anything, but she is OWED something. Throwing on a facade of normality she enters the TARDIS and attempts to execute a plan to force the Doctor to change history and save Danny's life, which leads to a very strong scene where the two characters' controlling personalities butt heads. As I said earlier, this episode is all about misdirection, it permeates the entire episode - including in the use of the trailers used at the end of the previous episode, and the trailer for the NEXT episode that comes at the end of this one. Things are given away, the audience is lead to expect one thing and gets something completely different etc. So it is for the characters in the episode itself, all of whom apart from Missy are being somehow misled to believe things that simply aren't true. Clara attempts to force the Doctor to do her bidding, only to learn he has been in control the entire time. The 3W Organization is a scam, both towards their clientele as well as towards the Doctor, Clara and even poor dead Danny. Missy offers up Dr. Chang and allows the Doctor and Clara to believe he is her boss, even after she has explicitly told them already that SHE is in charge. The dead bodies on display hide their identity as Cybermen, a reveal that is painfully obvious even without their reveal in the trailer (itself a misdirection for the audience), though that itself serves to demonstrate that the Doctor is behind the 8-Ball as he complains himself that he is missing the obvious (followed by a wonderful bit of framing to reveal Cybermen "eyes" in the 3W logo). Danny misdirects Clara to protect her, refusing to offer her actual proof that he is real because he loves her enough to want to continue to live her real life and not join him in this horrible cold (soon to be burning) life he now "lives". Seb misdirects Danny expertly by forcing his emotions to the forefront, wanting to drive him to the point of breakdown to get him to willingly surrender his personality/emotions and become converted. It's all about lies - the lies the show makes us believe, the lies the characters tell each other and themselves, some from malice and some from love - and in the case of the Master, some mixed up in both.   As the first part of the two-part finale of the regular season, this is an episode where we START to get the answers to many of the questions raised throughout the season. The most important is Missy, but the recurring references to "the Promised Land" are also finally explored. While it's true that much of what we learn in this episode is basically revealed to be a fraud perpetuated by the Master, it's still some pretty chilling and rather traumatic stuff to introduce to the show. The basic premise is that when you die... you don't. Your mind/soul/whatever takes on a new form in a new place (the Nethersphere) and life continues on, with the caveat being that you are still linked to your old body from your prior existence. So if you're popped into a freezer at a morgue, you'll be cold; if you're cremated, you'll feel the terrifying pain of the fire burning through your flesh; if you leave your body to medical science, you'll feel every cut of the scalpel, every removal of parts for examination and exploration; if you're buried you'll feel your body rotting away and being eaten by the worms etc. It's... horrifying, even if it is complete bollocks invented by the Master to convince a bunch of rich people to pay an enormous amount of money for the privilege of being unknowingly drafted into the spearhead of a Cybermen invasion. Perhaps the biggest flaw of this episode is that it never really bothers to elaborate on this latter part though, or that all the claims made prior to this reveal were essentially co-opting faith rather than, essentially, creating it. There is the unchallenged assumption that the Master has created the notion of an afterlife in order to soften up the minds of everybody throughout history, all of whom are going to end up in her Nethersphere (a Matrix "slice", in reference to the quasi-virtual reality existence of "The Matrix" first seen waaaay back in The Deadly Assassin in 1976) where they'll be convinced to give up their minds/souls/personalities and be turned into Cybermen. What seems more likely to be the case is that the Master handpicked a few specific instances in time and space of beings revolving around the Doctor's adventures, and enjoyed the irony of letting a few hundred rich people in "modern times" pay up to become unwitting participants in her plot, and she did this by co-opting the pre-existing notion of the afterlife to her own advantage. This never gets brought up in either episode though, and so it does run the risk of people potentially interpreting that ALL humanity since the dawn of time are stored in that Nethersphere - she doesn't need that though, she just needs a spearhead, the rest will, as she rather poetically tells the Doctor, come from graves all over the planet - "All the graves of planet Earth are about to give birth." I'm actually surprised that this episode didn't end up kicking up a lot of offense or protest - both for the gruesome mental imagery as well as the implication of the afterlife being the construct of a mad alien. Oh yeah, and just as an aside, I love that in The Bells of Saint John, Clara calls the Doctor because she got his number from somebody we now know to have been the Master. Consider that this adventure features human minds being stored inside a giant server, and empty-headed "drones" hiding in plain sight amongst the people of contemporary London - I love the idea that the Great Intelligence was unknowingly pulling off a lesser version of the Master's own plan, and that this was foiled in part thanks to the presence of a person who was thrust into the situation thanks to the Master bringing Clara and the Doctor together. Though we don't learn the purpose behind the Master's plan until the next episode, something I love about the reveal that Missy is the Master is that it retroactively makes every appearance she made in the previous episodes better. Perhaps this is actually an indictment on the writing, but the various appearances she makes throughout the season including in this episode are kind of nonsensical and stupid when she is Missy.... and make perfect goddamn sense when she's the Master. A terrible, awful, no-good character called the Rani once got it perfectly right when she said the Master would get dizzy if he walked in a straight line, and that applies here too. Leaping through time and space hauling in robots, setting up a living mausoleum for the rich and influential, tracking down an appropriate companion for her greatest enemy and shoving their paths together, taking control of an army of Cybermen, pretending to be a robot purely to gently caress with the Doctor's head, even the tired old chestnut of killing her assistant Dr. Chang.... it's all kind of stupid for some woman named Missy to be doing, but just fits in perfectly with the characterization of the Master. It's helped immensely by Michelle Gomez's performance, she is absolutely stunning in inhabiting the role of this long-standing MALE character and being completely believable. The way she joyously lives in her own mad little world where all the other people are merely props for her amusement, and the only person that matters is the Doctor as a rival/contemporary/figure of obsession and, yes, even friend... well the moment she reveals she is the Master I just knew it was right, and the way she manages to be both chaotic and also completely in control just serves to show what might have been with the equally talented John Simm, whose time in the role suffered somewhat from things getting taken just a bit too far at times. Gomez is a revelation, it was so important that she nail the moment where she reveals herself at last to the Doctor (I love the red herrings suggesting she might be Susan or Romana), that she is able to sell the idea of being that same mad character we know even in a different body (and gender!) and make the material work without veering into self-parody. She more than holds up her end of the bargain, it's an astonishing performance that enhances the writing, and the immediately chemistry she has with Capaldi promises great (potential) things to come.   Dark Water is the first part of a 2-parter, with all that usually entails. It serves mostly as set-up for episode 2, and a lot of the storytime is devoted to red herrings that basically aren't going to go anywhere, abandoned because they simply existed to get the Doctor into the position the Master wanted him to be in. It uses the Cybermen as a distraction/side attraction to the main storyline, which I guess could be considered squandering them, and the opening 10 minutes are devoted quite heavily to to the Clara/Danny vs Clara/Doctor dynamic which forces everything else to feel rather compressed. It is difficult to judge it in isolation, especially as more is yet to be revealed in the second episode about the exact purpose of the Master's season(s) long planning, and as noted there are plenty of problems with it. But the strength of the reveal of the horrible truth of 3W's purpose does a lot to assuage these issues as well as tie in Danny's role in the story. Everything pales in comparison to the reveal of Missy's identity though - that is a truly remarkable moment, as I said it's basically perfect in its execution, and like Utopia before it, the relative weakness of much of what comes before is forgotten or washed over by the sheer  reaction to seeing the Master revealed and face to face with the Doctor yet again. As an entree to the main course of the final episode, it more than did its job of getting me excited to see what was to come, and whenever I watch the episode again I remain in a high state of anticipation for when "the moment" finally arrives again.Incredible. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 05:42
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I could stare at that gif for hours. So many emotions crammed into that one moment by both actors. Not a single person I know said "oh, God, a FEMALE Master," they exclaimed "oh, God, THE MASTER!"
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Jan 31, 2015 05:46
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Yeah, in my head she instantly went from "Missy" to "The Master" and there was zero problem with that, it just felt natural and right. Writing that review, I basically had to force myself to write Missy where I felt it was appropriate, because that doesn't feel like it is her "real" name.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:49
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I have to say, the use of false trailers is a brilliant meta element, expanding from a theme from Eleven's run of "the Doctor lies"; now, by presenting misleading marketing information, what they're telling us is "Doctor Who lies".
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Jan 31, 2015 05:59
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I've had the opinion that education and teaching is a big theme in series 8, what with Clara literally being a teacher and Twelve carrying himself off like a jackass tenured professor most of the time. With that in mind, it makes sense that the episode's climax would deal in the great, unsolvable mystery of civilization - death, and what comes after - and the final antagonist would be someone who exploits people's fear and ignorance of that mystery for their own dastardly ends. Of course, this makes the fake, cheap endings of Kill the Moon and Forest of the Night even worse, but you give a little and get a little.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:08
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Which reminds me, I was actually rather impressed that they didn't go the traditional "maternal" route at any point that I can really recall with Clara and the kids. Season 7 already established that Clara has a thing about wanting to look after kids, but it's always been quite careful about them being other people's kids - as a nanny in Victorian London, looking after her dead friend's kids in modern day London, then becoming a teacher after they and their dad presumably moved on with their lives. Since so much of the season was about her struggling to commit fully to a relationship with Danny (who similarly seems devoted to caring for other people's children, understandable given the reveal of his complicity in a child's death), it would have been pretty easy if a little predictable to have her conflict be about a yearning for children of her own while fearing being tied down by them. It might sound silly, but her wanting to commit to THEM as a couple as opposed to a desire to start a family with him felt rather refreshing to me. So often in media we see the latter as the be-all/end-all of any relationship, rather than something that may or may not develop in the future.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:21
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That review finally justifies the key throwing dream sequence for me. I was annoyed by that initially because it went on for so long but doesn't ever get mentioned again; Moffat being Moffat I was expecting the whole dream patch thing to be setup for something later on but it was just something that happened. It works better in retrospect as a sort of microcosm of the episode- Missy in control the whole time but pretending not to be, winding the Doctor up and seeing what happens. I read an interview with Moffat where he said he was really proud of the line "do you think I care so little for you that betraying me would make any difference?" because it's the perfect way to say "I love you" that Clara and Danny never found. I don't know if I'd call it perfect but I do think it's a very sweet line, especially coming from Capaldi's gruff rear end in a top hat Doctor. It is kind of weird that the whole first episode of the two-parter is spent exploring what turns out to be a bunch of rubbish made up by the villain. But then again, you could say the same thing about The Pandorica Opens and I loved that episode, so I can't really criticise Dark Water for it.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:23
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Oh yeah, I loved that betrayal line. Consider season 7 when the Doctor was always looking for some ulterior motive from Clara, or some GOTCHA moment where he'd figure out the solution to her "puzzle". Here, she gets onboard the TARDIS and attempts to knock him out, and his reaction isn't anger or even hurt feelings, it's immediately thinking,"Well if she's willing to go this far something must be up, let's find out what", and once he knows he wants to help her because she's his friend. It goes to show just how deep the bond between the two of them has gotten, especially after all the tension of them getting to know each other again after his regeneration.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:30
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Jerusalem posted:It uses the Cybermen as a distraction/side attraction to the main storyline, which I guess could be considered squandering them, As the apparent resident Cyberman fan (Cyberfan), I'm still conflicted about this. Dark Water brings us, put simply, the perfect Cyberman revamp. As I understand it, the Cybermen have always been a commentary on humanity's relationship with technology, and to a lesser extent death. They're perhaps the earliest cyborgs to still be commonly known and used in fiction, and while it's certainly laudable that they've lasted so long, we've advanced so far in the decades since their inception that they can't quite resonate like they used to. They're a commentary on humanity and technology that's never managed to advance beyond the 1960s, and I think a huge part of why their stories fail so consistently is because, at their core, they're hideously outdated. Our views on technology have advanced as far as the technology itself, and it's a vastly different conversation than the one that birthed the Cybermen all those years ago, especially when relating to death. What Dark Water successfully did was update them. Technological advancements are something we welcome now, it's commercialized, commodified, and we surround ourselves with it without even questioning it. It even lasts beyond death, too, our Facebook and Twitter pages remaining alive after we're gone. Beyond, even; Joan Rivers endorsed the new iPhone from beyond the grave, and while that's certainly an outlier, there's no denying that technology has become irrevocably intertwined with our own mortality, in ways we never could have dreamed until it happened. And we just let it happen, too, we accepted these terms willingly, without even questioning. 3W is a stellar commentary on that, they have literally commodified the afterlife, and in their hands it's no longer just our Twitter conversations that last beyond the grave. Those who bought in have no word otherwise, either, 3W can do whatever it drat well pleases with the deceased, use them for their own ends, and it's already too late to start telling them otherwise. It's not even 'we must survive'. It's 'we will survive', there's no question to it. ...But then Missy turns up, and suddenly this is all out the loving window because she's got an even bigger, more ridiculous plan. And I would be REALLY MAD about that if Michelle Gomez wasn't utterly amazing every single second she's on screen. I can't even say I wish she wasn't part of it, because she was so good, so I just have to accept the squandering of such a great thing as a price to pay. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 08:37
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Cleretic posted:Dark Water brings us, put simply, the perfect Cyberman revamp. Well not perfect, as it wasn't a full-length adaptation of Spare Parts. 
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Jan 31, 2015 08:39
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Fucknag posted:I have to say, the use of false trailers is a brilliant meta element, expanding from a theme from Eleven's run of "the Doctor lies"; now, by presenting misleading marketing information, what they're telling us is "Doctor Who lies". I think my absolute favorite iteration of this is the subtle alteration of the opening credits in Death In Heaven.
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Jan 31, 2015 16:33
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docbeard posted:I think my absolute favorite iteration of this is the subtle alteration of the opening credits in Death In Heaven. That was an absolutely sublime gag.
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Jan 31, 2015 19:56
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From toxx threadLager posted:The worst part about Rory's death is that it feels completely pointless. The way they do it means that we don't even get any strong emotional moments as a result because Amy doesn't even remember he existed, so she can't possibly have an emotional reaction to his death. He doesn't even get to be fodder for another character's story, it's such a huge waste of a really good character. It really is even worse than what happened to Donna. I thought we weren't having this kind of poo poo, at the very least we see Amy crying over Rory in the next episode, unknowingly, but still.
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Jan 31, 2015 22:25
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There's a few "Now he's dead forever" posts and it annoys me because it was clear even at the time that resolving the cracks thing would end up with Rory being brought back somehow. Speaking of, I hadn't watched that bit since it was first on so I was pleasantly surprised by the Doctor saying stuff like "he's still alive in your mind" he was literally trying get her to will him back into existence!
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Jan 31, 2015 22:55
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2house2fly posted:There's a few "Now he's dead forever" posts and it annoys me because it was clear even at the time that resolving the cracks thing would end up with Rory being brought back somehow. It really wasn't.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:05
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Yeah, he died first and then got erased. There was no indication anything would save him
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Jan 31, 2015 23:12
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M_Gargantua posted:Heard of who? Remember we can't name people who haven't shown up yet.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:33
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 Engines of War does the nearly-impossible. It takes readers directly into the heart of the Time War. On television, the Time War has been spoken about in hushed tones and angry outbursts; the conflict that drove Eight to despair, gave Nine a mammoth case of survivor's guilt, and denied throughout Ten and Eleven's existence. The Daleks and Time Lords waged war over all of time and space, ambushing and ambushing ambushes, meddling in timelines and alternate realities, changing history, doing anything and everything to gain the smallest advantage over the other. The entire universe was caught in the crossfire. Whole species were wiped out without notice, entire galaxies thrown off their axis, and planets where the entire population became casualties were considered nothing more than skirmishes by the combatants. By the War's end, when abominations such as the Horde of Travesties and the Could-Have-Been-King were commonplace, very few people could tell the difference between Time Lord and Dalek. Such a proclamation is what drove the Eighth Doctor to renounce his very name, becoming “Doctor no more” as he picked up a bandolier and joined the Time War. This War Doctor is an incarnation that the other Doctors choose not to remember, as he did the unspeakable in their eyes, using his intellect and skills to fight in a war instead of saving lives.  Engines of War is a story told of the War Doctor near the end of his life, after countless years of fighting against the Daleks. High above the Dalek-occupied planet of Moldox, located in the heart of the Tantalus Spiral star cluster , the Doctor leads a series of Battle TARDIS's into an ambush against the Daleks. On the planet below, Cinder waits to ambush a passing Dalek patrol. For fifteen years, ever since the Daleks crashed through her living room wall and exterminated the rest of her family, Cinder has been fighting, hiding, and running from the Daleks. When the Doctor's TARDIS crashes onto Moldox's surface, Cinder shares a dark truth with the Doctor – that the Daleks are no longer exterminating humans on sight, but rather taking them captive... The Doctor soon discovers the truth. The Daleks have assembled a massive fleet in the Tantalus Spiral and are using human prisoners as test subjects for a variety of ghastly experiments, including the building and implementation of a temporal weapon whose sole purpose is to wipe Gallifrey's very existence from history! Bringing this news to the Time Lords and their President, Rassilon, the Doctor is horrified as Rassilon's response; to use the Tear of Isha to collapse a temporal tear inside the Tantalus Spiral and wipe the Dalek fleet from the universe. The fact that twelve planets and their inhabitants will be destroyed means nothing to Rassilon or the High Council. The Doctor soon realizes that in order to save the citizens of the Tantalus Spiral, he will have to someone stop the Daleks from utilizing their temporal weapon as well as betray his own species and prevent them from committing genocide... George Mann has several science fictions novels and numerous short stories, including the Eleventh Doctor novel Paradox Lost. Mann's style is descriptive, but not pondorous. I read Engines of War, a 300 page novel, in about 90 minutes. Mann does a superb job with Engines of War, creating a solid, riveting story. Russell T Davies has stated that the ideal depiction of the Time War would be “impossible to put on screen.” Mann gets around this by utilizing the written word and not getting bogged down in the details of the Time War. The war is front and center, as seen by the destruction and ongoing subjugation of Moldox, the numerous soldiers and weapons the Daleks bring to play, and even the efforts of the Time Lords to tuck the war away in the farthest corners of the Citadel, with the War Room far away from the high galleries. But the only direct description of any Time War concept from the television show comes from the opening to the story, as Cinder hides from a patrol of Daleks with several Skaro Degradations in tow. The Skaro Degradations, as described by Mann, are experiments by the Daleks on their own kind to “retro-evolve” their own genomes. A mix of radiation and temporal tampering give rises to abominations such as Gliders, limbless torsos in a glass case with twin Dalek cannons on either side. It's a simple description, and Mann doesn't spend much time on the explanation beyond the initial description, but the thought of Daleks, who value “purity,” going to far as to screw with their own “pure genome” to gain an edge over the Time Lords shows just how dedicated to victory and exterminations they are. On the other side of the coin, the Time Lords are desperate and Mann shows it by how much the Time Lords don't show it. They follow Rassilon's orders without hestitation, with little debate and total acquiescence. If Rassilon says that destroying twelve planets is a small price to pay to save Gallifrey, then the Time Lords will support it. Even in their desperation, the Doctor proclaims, the Time Lords get their hands dirty by pretending to be above it all, even if Rassilon has performed some temporal genetic engineering to create things such as the “possibility engine” and Interstatials. Mann also avoids one of the major pitfalls of trying to write the Doctor, and that's by NOT trying to get inside his head. The Doctor has always been clever, but it's a non-ecludian type of clever. A doesn't lead to B, which doesn't lead to C. Instead, A leads to Q which leads to Delta which leads to fnord which leads to the solution, skids right past it, and does a bootlegger turn to finally solve the problem. Nearly the entirety of the Doctor's actions and thoughts are told through his companion for the novel Cinder. Readers will recognize the Doctor and some of his mannerisms, such as his wide eyed grin when diving into danger and his mix of disdain and affection for those he takes under his wing, as well as the eternal optimism and hope hidden under an exterior beaten down by his decisions during the Time War, and the anger that comes through when confronting the War Council about there being another way. But instead of the hot bursts of anger that Ten and Eleven would show, the War Doctor gives a weary anger, as if all this has happened before and will happen again. At the same time, seeing the Doctor eagerly lead a Time Lord ambush to destroy a fleet of Daleks, or storming across a table to choke a fellow Time Lord, is shocking. Mann doesn't go down the rabbit hole of describing all the horrible things the War Doctor has done, but instead gives the readers of Engines of War a Doctor who is familiar, but still different enough to raise a few eyebrows. Mann also gets around the concept of “Doctor no more” by telling Cinder he used to be called the Doctor, hence the constant use of his name by his companion.  And what of Cinder? Hints of Ace easily shine through with Mann's creation; a tough young woman who's the product of her circumstances. She's known nothing but a war against the Daleks for the past fifteen years, but as soon as the Doctor hints at the opportunity of doing more than taking a potshot at a passing patrol, she leaps at the chance. It's through Cinder's eyes that the story of Engines of War unfolds as she sees the brutality of the Daleks and the callousness of the Time Lords, all as she reaches and grasps for something bigger beyond her home planet. Cinder doesn't just serve as the mouthpiece, however. Mann gives her vital roles throughout the story, both to kick the Doctor into high gear when he feels there's no more he can do as well as simply kicking butt when need be. Her final fate should come as no surprise to anyone, but for the purposes of this story, Cinder is a vital, vibrant, and unique part that readers will remember after they put the novel down. The supporting cast does what it needs to. We have the Time Lord with a conscious in the Castellan, the Time Lord lackey of Rassilon in Karlax, and the Timothy Dalton-esque Rassilon himself, who chews so much scenery that I swear some spittle flew off the page. The plot itself has all the trappings of a Doctor Who story. There's lots of running around, lots of action, lots of moments of tension, a scene where the Doctor and his companion are thrown in jail, a couple of “this shouldn't work/that can't work/there's no way that worked” moments, a fitting death for one of the villains (Karlax's death is incredibly satisfying), and moments of drama that lead to a big decision on the Doctor's part. Overall, Mann puts the pieces together into a very well done story that does something very, very difficult; telling a Time War story without going over the top and bogging down with description and exposition. If I had one complaint about this tale, it's that way too often, “The Doctor smiled,” or “The Doctor laughed.” The War Doctor is still the Doctor, but he's a little too happy at times for my tastes. Engines of War doesn't directly lead into the Doctor seeking out the Moment in an effort to end the Time War, but you can definitely see the farmhouse from the closing paragraph. Gregory Mann tells the story of a pivotal moment in the existence of the War Doctor, where he begins to realizes just how far things are gone and that, maybe, he will have to be the one to stop not just the Time War, but his own people. It's definitely a recommended read for fans of Doctor Who. Note – there's an audio book of Engines of War as well, voiced by, who else, Nicholas Briggs, who apparently does an excellent John Hurt.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:49
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thrawn527 posted:This, from the other thread, was the only post that struck as trying to be too cute. But I may be reading too much into it. You're reading too much into it.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:49
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Oxxidation posted:It really wasn't. Did you also think the series would end with the Tardis exploding and destroying the universe?
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Feb 1, 2015 00:01
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2house2fly posted:Did you also think the series would end with the Tardis exploding and destroying the universe? That has nothing to do with the last thing you said. I won't keep talking about it if you won't.
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Feb 1, 2015 00:07
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For all I hate 'cute' posts in that thread, this was pretty good:2house2fly posted:sic transit rory ex mundi
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Feb 1, 2015 00:52
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I've been catching up with this show and just saw The Angels Take Manhattan, and wanted to say that this episode made me unreasonably mad. I get that they had to write those two out of the show somehow, but it was still a boring episode that got rid of two cool characters. Like, even the witty banter between the crew was worse off than usual, and that's usually the part that I can count on to be good. Whatever, the start of the next episode has that one actress from the dalek planet episode and she was pretty good at least.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:15
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I'm still upset that they didn't end Rory and Amy's time with the Doctor with season 6 (or even the epilogue of the otherwise awful Christmas Special that followed), because that seemed like the perfect ending and only a slight variation on what they ended up doing anyway. Rory and Amy "outgrew" the Doctor, but they still loved and valued him, and he knew that they were safe and happy and living a good life, all the better for the adventures they had together. Seeing them and River dancing around in happiness at the knowledge the Doctor faked his death, or the two of them welcoming him in for Christmas dinner and letting him know there was always a place for him in their lives was just a lovely way to say goodbye to them. It was still nice seeing them in the first half of season 7, but it all felt so unnecessary, and ended up impacting on Jenna Coleman's time with the Doctor, as her story was far too compressed for my liking and she only really started to recover from The Day of the Doctor onwards.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:22
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CobiWann posted:I could stare at that gif for hours. So many emotions crammed into that one moment by both actors. Not a single person I know said "oh, God, a FEMALE Master," they exclaimed "oh, God, THE MASTER!" Looking at it after the BF interview gives it a whole new meaning for me. Two lifelong fans, getting to play the parts they wanted since they were kids! (Okay, Michelle Gomez said she wanted to eventually play the Doctor, but still...) It really does seem like yesterday that it was a given the show would never, ever come back. But here it is, and I can't help but grin at how fantastic they must feel.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:25
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In light of Occ's latest writeup, I have to say, that thread was such a good idea.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:31
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He is going to love every loving second of Centurion Rory.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:34
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Poor guy.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:45
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Oxx I'm so glad you keep him sheltered enough that we get these beautiful little vignettes
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Feb 1, 2015 04:04
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GonSmithe posted:He is going to love every loving second of Centurion Rory. And blown away by what happens between Rory and Amy at the end of The Pandorica Opens too. Goddamn is that episode sooooo loving good
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Feb 1, 2015 04:09
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You guys are doing great in the review thread lately, thanks a bunch! But if anyone even hints over there about Rory's future even in a cutesy wink wink nudge nudge way, I'm gonna be mean and give you a week. 
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Feb 1, 2015 04:14
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Jerusalem posted:And blown away by what happens between Rory and Amy at the end of The Pandorica Opens too. Goddamn is that episode sooooo loving good The museum voice talking about the Lone Centurion in The Big Bang...  Although I can see him getting annoyed at how little it impacts Rory's character, the same way he's annoyed that society didn't change after the reveal of aliens. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 04:21
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Annakie posted:But if anyone even hints over there about Rory's future even in a cutesy wink wink nudge nudge way, I'm gonna be mean and give you a week. I think we might be safe, it's way more fun to pretend he's gone forever and never existed.
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Feb 1, 2015 04:42
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GonSmithe posted:He is going to love every loving second of Centurion Rory. I'm so looking forward to watching Smith's when he realizes he's talking to Rory in Pandorica Opens
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Feb 1, 2015 04:51
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I seriously can't wait for his reaction.
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Feb 1, 2015 04:52
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howe_sam posted:I'm so looking forward to watching Smith's I really think that instead of the big reveal where Amy sees Rory and the music swells, it would've been better if we'd followed the Doctor in just treating Rory like normal and brushing him aside to get to Amy, before realising and coming back to the what the gently caress moment. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 04:54
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howe_sam posted:I'm so looking forward to watching Smith's Haha, doesn't he say something like,"Not now Rory, I'm trying to figure out what obvious thing I'm missing!"?
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Feb 1, 2015 04:57
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Jerusalem posted:I'm still upset that they didn't end Rory and Amy's time with the Doctor with season 6 (or even the epilogue of the otherwise awful Christmas Special that followed), because that seemed like the perfect ending and only a slight variation on what they ended up doing anyway. Rory and Amy "outgrew" the Doctor, but they still loved and valued him, and he knew that they were safe and happy and living a good life, all the better for the adventures they had together. Seeing them and River dancing around in happiness at the knowledge the Doctor faked his death, or the two of them welcoming him in for Christmas dinner and letting him know there was always a place for him in their lives was just a lovely way to say goodbye to them. I recently watched The God Complex again (which is probably my favorite episode of the Matt Smith era that isn't The Rings of Ahkaten), and I couldn't agree more. That was such a perfect conclusion to Amy's story and relationship with the Doctor in particular. Amy putting aside her childlike faith in the Doctor, because he doesn't deserve that and they both know it, and instead embracing him as something like an equal is such a powerful idea that it's a shame that it got trampled over. As well, having variations of Clara show up in the first few episodes (rather than just in Asylum and The Snowmen), each a distinct person (and ideally not always dying at the end, because that's a downer, but having something to do that makes it clear that she's only intersecting with the Doctor's life for a short time each time, when she's needed most) was such an obvious way to milk the mystery of her that I'm astonished that Moffat didn't jump at the chance.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:22
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Honestly, I think that Angels In Manhattan could've functioned fine as an ending if after they'd woken up in the graveyard they'd just gone 'Okay, we just had to jump off a roof and commit suicide with each other, we're... done. Please feel free to drop by for dinner, but no more adventures.'
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Feb 1, 2015 05:25
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 15:38 |
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MikeJF posted:Honestly, I think that Angels In Manhattan could've functioned fine as an ending if after they'd woken up in the graveyard they'd just gone 'Okay, we just had to jump off a roof and commit suicide with each other, we're... done. Please feel free to drop by for dinner, but no more adventures.' Yeah, that was my feeling too. As it stands it smacks a little too much of Rose post-Doomsday, only Moffat has had the good sense not to go back to them.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:34
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