Doctor Who Review - Flesh and Stone

Warning - The following contains spoilers for Doctor Who S5 Ep5, "Flesh and Stone". It will air in America on May 15th. If you have not seen it, and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read the following.













THAT WAS AN AMAZING EPISODE! Seriously, I had the highest expectations possible for this two parter, and I was still blown away. Flesh and Stone was the perfect mix of fun, scary, and awesome that I've come to expect from Steven Moffat after "The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit", "Blink", and "Midnight". Those four episodes are probably the best episodes of the new series. Moffat certainly has a knack for knowing what's scary. It's the unseen.

People are terrified of what they don't understand. They're terrified of what they don't see. The unknown is frightening. In The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, the beast isn't what's scary. What's scary in that two parter is the fact that for the most part you don't understand it. Heck, I'm still not sure if The Beast was actually the devil, or just claiming to be.

Midnight is a scary episode because you never actually see the monster. The monster of Midnight is mysterious. You hear it banging on the bus. And once it possesses Sky, it's freaky because you don't understand it. Unlike a lot of the monsters on Doctor Who, it doesn't seem human at all, even though you only see it INSIDE a human.



Blink was scary because you had to see them. The second they became unseen, they become a threat. And that's scary, because once again, the unseen is terrifying.

I'd now add "The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone" to the same list of terrifyingly awesome episodes. Possibly the scariest yet. This time, the angels are even scarier, more powerful, and much stronger in numbers. I did find it odd that they seemed to write off the "Only psychopath to kill you kindly" aspect of them from Blink, but I'm willing to excuse it.

But the scariest thing in this episode is the fact that one character can't see the Angels (or anything for that matter) for a good portion of the episode. It feels chaotic, confusing, and scary. I was worried they were going to downplay the scariness of The Angels this time, but quite to the contrary, they were the scariest they've been. I want nothing more than to see The Angels become reoccuring monsters Ala the Daleks or Cybermen, only more awesome.

The thing is, the Daleks aren't really that cool anymore. That was one of the big problems with Victory of the Daleks. When the Daleks were created in 1963, they were relevant. The Daleks, for those who don't know, were created to be a direct analogy to the Nazis. And back then when WWII was still fresh in peoples minds (Relatively fresh, at least. It had been 17 years.) they were scary! But now... They're kind of campy. Fun fact, the first four seasons of the revived Doctor Who series have had more episodes feature The Daleks than Tom Bakers entire run as The Doctor.

My point is, the Daleks are not scary any more. I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the show any more, it wouldn't be Doctor Who without Daleks, but they're being used way too much. Every season has one or more episodes featuring the Daleks. Let them be! Take a season or two without them! The Weeping Angels! The Master! Even the Cybermen are more interesting than the Daleks at this point!

But this is about Flesh and Stone, not the Daleks. I will admit it seemed like an odd tangent they got off on for a good portion of the episode with the crack. I won't say exactly how it's used, but those cracks we've been seeing? Well, it plays a major part in this episode. I'm glad. Every season has had a reoccurring theme that's been mentioned repeatedly, and played into the season finale for those who don't know. In season one the words Bad Wolf were found in every episode. In season two, Torchwood was mentioned in almost every episode. In season three you saw a lot of mention of a Mr. Saxon. In season four you kept hearing about the bees disappearing. Those never came into play until the season finale. This time, the cracks seem to be coming into play in more than just the season finale. I'm interested to see where they take it.

Matt Smith seems to be settling into his role as The Doctor. He's similar to Tennant's Doctor, but there is most certainly a difference there. I really liked him in this episode. David Tennant will always be my Doctor, but Matt Smith seems to be doing the role justice. I did find myself thinking a couple times during the episode though, "This episode would be so much better with Tennant!". Ah well. I'll go back and watch him regenerate, and mourn him some more.

In short, this episode is by far the best of the new season, and one of the best two parters of the new SERIES. I don't know how they can top themselves with this one, but here's hoping Vampires in Venice is as good next week.

Just kidding, I don't expect Vampires in Venice to be anything more than a fun romp like Victory of the Daleks was. Let's just hope it's better than The Beast Below.

Doctor Who Review - The Time of Angels

Warning - The following contains spoilers for Doctor Who S5 Ep4, "The Time of Angels". It will air in America on May 8th. If you have not seen it, and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read the following.





NOW THAT IS HOW YOU DO A DOCTOR WHO EPISODE! After the disheartening mess the past two episodes have been, it's good to see such a good episode come out of the new episode. Or maybe I just love the Weeping Angels. I don't know, either way, this was freaking awesome.

I previously expressed the fact that I would love nothing more than for The Weeping Angels to become reoccurring creatures such as the Daleks or The Cybermen. The first time I saw Blink, I was edge of my seat. I was a little scared. It was a cool, great, scary episode. So the fact that The Weeping Angels are returning was good news to me. But I'll admit I was a little worried that, after the STAR WHALES episode (I neglected to review, but was awful), and the rushed Dalek episode, that Steven Moffat wouldn't do this episode right. And the news that River Song would be returning didn't help things either. I was a little worried it would be the exact same episode as "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead", but with The Weeping Angels instead of the... I dunno, little piranha things.

In a way it was. It did, in fact, feel similar to both "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" and "Blink". But it also felt as though it made itself different enough that it was still freaking awesome. It all starts when River Song sends a message to The Doctor and he saves her from some guys in suits on a ship. The Doctor is shown up on his piloting ability of The Doctor and she explains there is a Weeping Angel in the ship. The ship crashes due to sabotage and the Angel escapes into some catacombs called the maze of the dead. Lovely.

If you thought the Angels were scary in Blink, you haven't seen anything yet. They have quite a few new tricks that weren't shown off in Blink, and they are pretty darn cool, and scary.

The episode has the same scary feel that Blink had, the same short cuts, close shots, that just gives a nervous feeling to all of it, but this time, well... We're not dealing with some weak scavengers who crashed on Earth.

I really can't even think up any complaints for the episode. It was freaking awesome. I can't wait to see the conclusion next week.

Doctor Who Review - The Eleventh Hour

Warning - The following contains spoilers for Doctor Who S5 Ep1, "The Eleventh Hour". It will air in America on April 17th. If you have not seen it, and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read the following.







HOLYCRAPAMAZING

Ok, any skepticism I had about Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor is now gone. This episode was freaking AMAZING. Jaw dropping, heart stopping, Doctor Who AWESOME.

And yes, I know it hasn't aired in America yet, so for the sake of the argument, let's just say I flew to England to see it.

When we last left off, David Tennant had just left, and Matt Smith had just become The Doctor. Only to find that he was crashing to earth. This episode picks up right from there, with him crashing towards Earth. After an opening of him crashing, they cut to a scene of a little girl, Amy Pond, praying to Santa... Which was odd. But ignoring that, she's praying about a small crack in her wall, which she says she hears thing through.

Suddenly, the TARDIS crashes outside her window, and she runs down, to meet The Doctor. She asks if he's here to fix the crack, and he begins to have chest pains, and glow, a side effect of the regeneration. She is ok with this, because she's a pretty cool 8 year old. He takes a look at the wall, and hears the words "PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED". He explains it's not a crack in the wall, it's a crack in the fabric of reality, and opens the crack completely, where a giant eye stares at him, before he closes the crack completely.

He figures out that the prisoner zero has escaped onto earth through the crack, and that it's using a perception filter, which is awesome because I love the perception filter concept. Before he can do anything else, he hears the TARDIS, and runs to it, explaining that it'll explode if he doesn't take a trip to stabilize the engines. She asks how a box can have engines, and he explains that it's not a box, it's a time machine. She asks for a ride, and he says it's too dangerous, and that he'll come back in 5 minutes and give her a ride.

12 years later... He finally arrives.

Without spoiling too much of the rest of the episode, suffice it to say that it's The Doctor, still being The Doctor, and doing what he does best. Running. A race against time to save the earth.

The change in directors from Russel T. Davies, to Steven Moffat definatly shows, and the episode has a creepier feel than some of the old Russel T. Davies episodes, staying in line with Moffat's other episodes, such as Blink, and Midnight. But it's still Doctor Who, and feels like Doctor Who, just a little different.

All in all, it was amazing, and I can't wait for next week's episode. The overall story arc they've introduced seems pretty interesting.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, you've got me. Now keep it up.

The Reason I Haven't Posted in a Month, and why Flash Forward Is Kind of Terrible

So, I haven't posted in a month, and even before that posts were erratic at best. So what's the reason, you might ask? Well, theoretical reader who doesn't actually exist, the reason isn't what you might expect. No, it's not that I've been busy, or some such nonsense, it's not that I have a life, and it's certainly not because I've been neglecting this blog and playing games instead. The reason is simple: Time travel.

You see, it's actually only been 5 minutes since I last posted, but because of my highly technical time traveling device, it's been a month for you guys. Simple, see?


IN OTHER NEWS:

I really want to like the show Flash Forward. I really do. It's a good premise... But the show is just disappointing. And do you know why? They're trying to be Lost. The problem with that is, quite simply, Lost does Lost a lot better than Flash Forward does lost.

Lost has great characters, and a great overall mystery.
Flash Forward had terrible characters, and a decent overall mystery.

The Lost characters are all very well developed. Take for example, Sawyer:
James Ford (AKA Sawyer) has shown many sides during Lost. When we first meet him, he seems very one-dimensional. He's the bully of the group, who steals, calls names, and is just an overall jerk.

Later on, you find out he's a Con Man. That fits, right? Well, you also find out that when he was younger, a man named Sawyer conned his father, who then went crazy, and killed his mother, and then himself. Thus, Sawyers beginnings.

Now, I never really liked Sawyer much until last season. That showed us a new side of Sawyer, when he settled down in Dharmatown with Juliet. This new side of him was very interesting, and showed that deep down there was more to him than that one-dimensional con man we saw in season one. And now, with Juliet dead, his character just gets more and more interesting.

In contrast, the more we see the character of Jack, the token "Good guy" character, the more we see him for what he is. He has a messiah complex. He wants to save everyone, no, needs to save everyone, not for their sake, but because he wants everyone to view him as a savior. That's why he wanted to go back to save the survivors. Not for their sake, but because he wants people to praise him as a savior.

Thus, since the first season, in my opinion at least, the way Jack and Sawyer are perceived has reversed, Sawyer wants to save people for their sake, and doesn't care what people think of him, while Jack just wants the praise for being a savior. That makes the whole thing a lot more interesting, not being sure how you're supposed to view them in the first place any more.

Meanwhile, Flash Forward has such memorable characters as:
Mark Benford, who is an FBI Agent with a history of drinking, and a fear he may return to it.
Olivia Benford, Mark's wife, who's afraid she may betray him.
Lloyd Simco, who's trying to be a good father, and is struggling with guilt from his belief that he caused the blackout.

I'd like to say that there was more to each character than that... But there really isn't.

There's more too.

Gay cop, FBI boss, guy who doesn't think he's going to live, I can describe most the Flash Forward characters in a sentence or less.

The worst example though, is the character of Charlie Pa- I'm sorry, Simon Campos, who's defining trait in my mind is, in case you couldn't tell, that his actor played Charlie on, you guessed it, Lost. Even worse than that though, his character feels to me like a poor attempt of what Lost did, of making deep characters, with the most recent episode being the defining example of this.
"He's a bad guy.. But he's doing it because he loves his family! He loves his family so much that he's killing his family! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
I'm sorry, but it's a big problem when I've been watching your show for months now, and I still call one of your characters the name of the character their actor played on another show.

So what's the fix? Simple: Stop trying to be Lost. Be yourself! You have a good idea for a mystery with the Flash Forwards! Just stop trying to make people care about your characters so much, and just focus on the Flash Forwards. Also, kill off Mark. Seriously, he's just annoying.

I said, months before the show started, that the show could go either way, on the one hand, if they made it just another cop show, it would be bad. On the other, if they made it a show that focused on the idea that EVERYONE had a Flash Forward, and what it would mean, and how it would change life to have to account for the future, not just the past, then it would be good. Now, Flash Forward keeps saying that they're doing that, ("Everyone makes choice based on what WILL happen now!") but they don't ACTUALLY do it.

You know what a show I'd rather be watching is? One that's not about Mark. Lloyd and Simon, while neither are interesting characters, make the show itself more interesting while they are onscreen, just because they focus less on the characters, and more on the mystery.

You know who my favorite character on Lost is? Hurley. He's fun, and he has a good, fleshed out character. At first he seemed like just comic relief, and it's true, for the most part he is still just comic relief. But there's MORE TO HIM than just that.

You know who my favorite character on Flash Forward is? I don't have one. I'm so indifferent about all of them, that I cannot pick one out as my favorite.

That's a problem, and it's on they really need to fix. Oh well, at least I still have V.