Doctor Who Series 5 Observations

I will keep a list, by episode, of possibly significant details in series 5 of Doctor Who.

The Eleventh Hour, 5.01

• Amelia Pond. In a way she is meant to be seen separate from Amy; is possibly the most important character in this series; the Doctor's and her timeline are intertwined, the Doctor has influenced every bit of her life, she is completely obsessed with him.
• The crack in Amelia's bedroom wall. Opens to the Atraxi prison from which Prisoner Zero has escaped, this means travel from one side to the other is possible? "The cracks in the skin of the universe, don't you know where they came from? You don't, do you?" - Prisoner Zero to the Doctor; the Doctor clearly plays some sort of part, but he is unaware of it
• "The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall." - Prisoner Zero; the crack is already notably important; the Pandorica opens in the aptly titled twelfth episode; "silence will fall" is the mystery, repeated in this episode
• The shadowy human-like figure in Amelia's house, unexplained in this episode.
• Series theme: fairy tales.

The Beast Below, 5.02

• Series theme: children. Amelia Pond; the Doctor and the star whale's affection for children; their innocence and openness
• "A horse and a man, above, below,
  One has a plan, but both must go,
  Mile after mile, above, beneath,
  One has a smile, and one has teeth.
  Though the man above might say 'Hello,'
  Expect no love from the Beast Below!
  
  In bed above we're deep asleep,
  While greater love lies further deep,
  This dream must end, this world must know:
  We all depend on the beast below." -- Could this rhyme be a metaphor for more than the episode? The series, perhaps?
• The crack is on Spaceship UK.

Victory of the Daleks, 5.03

• Amy doesn't remember Earth's Dalek invasion.
• The crack makes its appearance on the wall behind the TARDIS.

The Time of Angels, 5.04

• The ubiquitous, wonderful, River Song.

Flesh and Stone, 5.05

• The Doctor w/ jacket is INTENTIONAL. There's no way that should be attributed to lazy direction/editing/costuming. The Doctor leaves, but returns with a close-up shot of his hands covering Amy's, as if introducing a new character onto the scene, and then up to his face. His tone (and yeah, jacket) is completely different, more serious with a bit of anguish, which totally fits his mysterious message:

"Amy, you need to start trusting me. It's never been more important."

"But you don't always tell me the truth."

"If I always told you the truth I wouldn't need you to trust me."

"Doctor, the crack in my wall, how could it be here?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm working it out. Now, listen. Remember what I told you when you were seven?"

"What did you tell me?"

"No... no, that's not the point. You have to remember."

"Remember what? Doctor? Doctor?"

Amy's faulty memory is clearly creating some problems on a universal scale. But why her?

• The Doctor rambles about how Amy didn't remember the Daleks and questions why she knew the duck pond was a duck pond if there weren't any ducks, then asks, What if time could be rewritten? Then, he realizes (I hypothesize), that he can rewrite history.
• "The Pandorica... that's a fairy tale." "Aren't we all?"
• "What are you thinking?" "Time can be rewritten."

Vampires of Venice, 5.06

• The Doctor and Rory hear silence as they step into the TARDIS.

Amy's Choice, 5.07

• "We have to grow up eventually." "Says who?"
• Dreams/false realities.
• "You save everyone." "Not always." "Then what is the point of you?"
• The Dream Lord. The Doctor sees the Dream Lord as his reflection in the TARDIS console a few seconds before the episode ends; this is likely not anything with real repercussions (like the psychic pollen is still there), but a self-reflective-Doctor-thing
• Series theme: Amy's choice. Amy's choice, the angel in Amy's eyes/mind, Amy's memories; Amy is extremely important.

The Hungry Earth, 5.08

• Amy and Rory see themselves 10 years in the future

Cold Blood, 5.09

• The crack has gotten wider, the Doctor sticks his hand in and pulls out a piece of TARDIS shrapnel, Rory is engulfed in time energy light and is erased from time; an explosion is causing the crack, could it be the TARDIS exploding?
• "Rory still lives in your mind."
• Amy waves to another Amy on top of a hill

Vincent and the Doctor, 5.10

• "Time can be rewritten, I know it can." - Amy

The Lodger, 5.11

• The crack makes an appearance behind Craig's refrigerator. Amy also sees it when she opens her engagement ring box.

The Pandorica Opens, 5.12

• Is there a reason van Gogh has heightened psychic ability (i.e. he can see invisible monsters and paint the future)?
• "Vortex manipulator -- fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent." Jack?
• First words ever written: "Hello Sweetie." Just to give us even more perspective on exactly how incredibly necessary River Song is to the entire universe.
• The Doctor is wearing a red bowtie and his jacket has deep red buttons. Red-haired Amy has on her usual bright red scarf and red gloves. Her engagement ring box is red. Roman-Rory's cape is red. Red-robed queen is back. Red is both important and foreboding.
• The painting "might not be that literal," according to River.
• "A box, a cage, a prison... it was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe." "It's a fairytale, a legend. It can't be real."
• I think this is the earliest we have seen River -- the last two times (Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead) were further in her timeline.
• "The Pandorica." "More than just a fairy tale."
• "You know fairy tales... a good wizard tricked it." "I hate good wizards in fairy tales, they always turn out to be him."
• Pandora's Box is Amy's favorite book when she was a kid. "Never ignore coincidence."
• The large stones transmit the warning to everyone that the Pandorica is opening. But why doesn't the Doctor know?
• "Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back."
• "Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?" Her house has too many rooms
• "A whole 'nother life, just like I woke up from a dream." - Rory, on what physically happened to him between death and waking up as a Roman
• Strange markings on the grass in front of Amy's house
• Amy owns a book on Roman soldiers and one on Pandora's Box
• The Nestene Consciousness is using Amy's memories to construct the Roman soldiers -- but Roman Rory still remembers dying, as if his subconscious remained intact, as if he weren't a construct out of Amy's memory. Somehow the Autons obtained the real Rory's memories?
• "Someone else is flying it." "But why? How?"
• Amy finally remembers Rory.
• The Nestene Consciousness! Daleks! Cybermen, Sontarans, the Judoon, Silurians.
• "Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS." Not true. There's River, and didn't even Donna fly it once?
• Amy dies.
• "Silence will fall." And it does.

The Big Bang, 5.13

• The fairy tale identity crisis ends with a box (the TARDIS, or the hero part of Eleven) flying into another box (the Pandorica, possibly the "beast below" facet of Eleven's identity). Yin meets yang, and the universe explodes! More importantly, the two sides of Eleven's personality meet, which he's grappled with the entire series. Is he the beast or the angel? More than once, his past selves have shown up on screen (library card in Vampires of Venice, identifier gadget in Vincent and the Doctor, blue light in The Eleventh Hour, sparknotes of his life in The Lodger). Series 5 dealt with the two warring sides of the Doctor, and more specifically, who Eleven is. Is he rude and not ginger? Not this time -- the good wizard in fairy tales "always turn out to be him." He's a wizard, and a fairy tale, with a "beast below," which is reconciled in The Big Bang with the collision of the TARDIS and the Pandorica. PRAISE MOFFAT!

Doctor Who - The Beast Below, 5.02

Once upon a time...

Amelia Pond is a child with a big imagination and a fairy tale name. Amy Pond is a self-proclaimed grown-up. The Doctor instigated her belief in the impossible, and twelve long years contributed to her subsequent disillusionment. Rose Tyler was the big, bad, wolf, and Amy Pond is Alice down the rabbit hole. A strange man in your house at night who promises you the universe is a fairy tale. A crack in time and space that happens to be in your bedroom wall, of all places (and you, of all people!), is a fairy tale. Monsters, and hidden doors out of sight unless you turn your head just so, are the makings of a fairy tale. And the fairy tale of the Raggedy Doctor with a Box happens to Amy Pond, who is Amelia Pond, who is a Scottish girl in an English village yet never relinquished her accent (and the Doctor knows how that feels).

I started the fifth season of Doctor Who today. Steven Moffat took the reigns from Russell T Davies, and I have high expectations.* Moffat's episodes in the last four seasons of New Who have been my favorites -- he is an incredibly creative writer. I could write tons about what exactly I like about his stories, but I expect I'll be covering a lot of those points as I write about this new season. I will definitely note parallels and common themes introduced in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, that return here. I've already noticed a couple:

• What's not seen is scarier than an in-your-face monster. Blink's Weeping Angels, SitL/FotD's Vashta Nerada, a door in your house you can't see unless you look in the corner of your eye...
• Tons of creepiness. TEC/TDD's gas masks, TGitL's ticking baddies, The Beast Below's Smilers.
• Repeated phrases for maximum creep factor. "Are you my mummy?" "Don't blink." "Count the shadows." -- none yet in s5, but I'm confident!

The Eleventh Hour is directed and acted sharper, crisper than RTD's Who; the better direction is perhaps a testament more to the times than the showrunner (any Old Who serial elicits a giggle -- the times, they are a-changin'), but the acting, I think, is a conscious decision by Moffat to distinguish his characters from Ten's incredibly emotive face and hyperactive personality (not to mention the Rose Tyler's big eyes and Martha Jones's pining after the Doctor and Donna Noble's loud voice and at times abrasive demeanor). Smith and Gillan are Moffat's toys. While RTD made his Doctor shed tears or fall in love, Moffat's Doctor might quip a non-sequitur with a steady expression (so I theorize, from what I've seen so far!).** RTD would up the ante by adding more Daleks; Moffat excels at creating villains out of shadows and silence.*** And to be honest, I don't know which tone I prefer. I like theatrics and big emotion, but I'm also completely enamored of the simple creepiness and organic intrigue that gets under your skin as you watch a Moffat story unfold.

Observations specifically about The Beast Below:

• The Queen is royally dressed in a velvet-like material, but most interestingly, it's a deep red hood and cape. (Rebel/defiant Queen itself an archetype of sorts). She is deceptively old, and has told herself the greatest lie every ten years; she has deceived herself.
• Two choices: Protest vs. Forget -- very red pill/blue pill, very fork-in-the-road, very fairy tale.
• Spaceship UK has the interior of a medieval castle, complete with a dungeon that houses a beast
• I cannot express how much I LOVED Amy's revelation about the parallel between the star whale and the Doctor -- both lonely, the last of their kind, hundreds of years old, can't stand to see children cry, their misery and solitude and age have made them kind
• Astounding episode, already one of my favorites!
• Plus, nursery rhymes! How haunting, and fitting for an episode (and likely, series) set around the innocence of children.

* I am going to analyze the SHIT out of this series. It's Moffat. Nothing is coincidence. It has to be done.

** Smith's Doctor gets angry, but it's focused inward, and released in bursts.

*** Exceptions abound. RTD's Midnight was terrifying without a visible monster. Moffat's clockwork monsters from The Girl in the Fireplace. Etc.

Misfits - Episode Five, 1.05

I'm writing this in the afterglow of the episode. I'm still grinning from the 48-odd minutes of capital-A Amazing I just watched.

From episode three, Misfits took the Skins route and began focusing primarily on individual characters for each episode. Episodes one and two followed the crew as they killed, buried, dug up, and buried again their probation officer; the following episodes still dealt with the aftermath, but mostly as a B-plot to the A story of a protagonist as he/she deals with his or her new power.

This episode, which focused on Simon, is my favorite so far. It had a strange subplot about Nathan getting hypnotized by a baby, which served only to add substance to his and Kelly's relationship, I'm guessing, but that was largely overshadowed by the Simon/Sally story. Simon has always been the odd one out (the actor who portrays him has mastered the art of sitting and acting uncomfortable -- I'm serious, he's really good), the brunt of Nathan's jokes, or else ignored entirely. So when you see him warm up to Sally here (his gradual smile in the bar!), it's tragic, because she is cruelly using him to incriminate the group of her boyfriend's murder.

Not sure why she didn't just confiscate phones like they did in the first episode, but I'm glad she didn't, because the resulting tragedy that unfolded was well worth the price of admission.

We see Simon fall for Sally, and there are two beautiful, parallel scenes:

1. He asks her to get a drink, she says no and walks away, turns around, says, "Simon," and suddenly they're at the bar. (Their date's soundtrack consisting, perfectly as usual, of the XX and Damien Rice.)

2. He kisses her, she says, "This is my fault," walks away, turns around, and a beat later he's sitting in her kitchen, grinning. Half a scene later, you realize he has used his power to become invisible and she didn't really invite him in.

This episode played at first like a quirky love story (older woman/shy younger man; guy dates his probation worker) that transformed at its climax into a fantastically terrifying horror-movie plot as he smashes her head against the door -- silence at first, and then you realize she's dead over the same Damien Rice that played during their date. I'm a complete sucker for this kind of unpredictable plot/ironic parallel or song choice, but I thought this was absolutely perfect.

I won't even mention the beautiful-as-usual cinematography and direction, brilliant acting, etc. (Well, only one mention, then.)

Heroes Retrospective

Heroes had a promising premise, strong pilot, and talented (albeit huge) cast. Where did it go wrong? Having not seen the later seasons, I only have the first to hypothesize by. My theory assumes the second through fourth seasons build on tone/direction of the first.

I think, simply, that Heroes isn't as grand or intelligent as it thinks it is.

Despite clever marketing ("Save the cheerleader, Save the world" plastered on flyers and merch everywhere was effective; tie-in comics and extensive online content contributed to a richer experience) and good acting (Masi Oka!) and stylish art direction and whatever else made it a success at first failed in the end, when the audience realized in their own time that the writing was thin. In a year that boasted Lost, among others, Heroes never quite made the grade. Mohinder babbled on and on through monologues, the writing a weak attempt to seem smart, but its core was never anything of substance.

Where the show excelled, I think, was in its creativity and special effects. I could never tire of seeing Claire snap her ribs back into place, or watching Hiro stop time (how do they do that? It's awesome!). I loved the episode that gave us a peek five years into the future, a dystopia of sorts, that would occur if Hiro didn't kill Sylar. I loved the episode titles that mimicked comic book typesetting. Give me a couple of explosions or interesting uses of a power, and I'm satisfied -- I'd obviously take a coherent, clever plot over any of it, but special effects are sure an effective distraction. Unfortunately, the season finale, "How to Stop an Exploding Man" didn't offer us any of that. We expected an epic showdown that would showcase powers and expel false theories (is it Peter, Ted, or Sylar that explodes?) and overall, surprise us. What we got was an uncharacteristically weak Sylar and a bit of flying. The definition of an anticlimax.

To recap, I'm going to make a couple of lists:

Things I Like About Heroes

• Art direction -- comic book theme
• Actors/acting -- I even like the large cast. I like that most of the characters are expendable, so deaths can happen
• Special effects -- Ted blowing up the Bennett house, Claire healing herself, Sylar doing anything, Hiro stopping time
• Hiro and Ando's relationship
• Large-scaleness of it -- India, New York, Las Vegas, LA...
• Claude

Things I Don't Like About Heroes

• Pacing -- first half of season 1 was slow, second half moved a bit better
• Lame writing most of the time
• Ali Larter's character and her power
• Peter Whiny Petrelli
• Uninteresting/useless characters like Simone or Parkman's FBI partner
• Sometimes there is not enough Claude

Breaking Bad - Full Measure, 3.13

Breaking Bad is absolutely MASTERFUL. I try to avoid live-blogging it because then I use altogether too many exclamation points and capital letters, but I'm halfway through the episode right now and way too excited to do this any other way:

• How amazing is Vince Gilligan? Seriously. Tonight's season three finale written and directed by him.
• First -- talk about gorgeous -- the four men dressed all in black, Walt with his Heisenberg hat, against a golden field and orange sky and glaring late sunlight. Incredibly striking image.
• Small quaint scene with Mike and his granddaughter. Helium balloons. Spectacular scene following it, with the Chinese businessman edging his raised arms higher to direct Mike's silenced gun higher against the wall, until it's aimed right at the man's head. "She'll need her shoe," and he returns, whining, to retrieve his secretary's footwear. Incredibly funny.
• Gale watering his plants and singing (is he going to die? Are we going to see him be domestic and then get shot?), opens the door to find Gus on the other side. Great, funny conversation, that confirms what we thought about Gus' deviousness all along.
• Right now I'm on edge, not wanting anyone to die. Don't kill Saul please! "I'm going to leave the room and make myself a Nescafe." - Saul Goodman, stay safe please.
• Any scene with Saul is incredible. Loving the lasers backlighting this visually dark scene.
• "I saved your life, Jesse. Are you going to save mine?" - Walter. I cannot stress enough how fantastic these two actors are. Their scenes together are always stunning.
• Shit getting real. I don't like where this is going. But I can't stop watching.
• At first we're apalled that Walt betrays Jesse. Then we cheer when he tells Jesse to kill Gale? The audience becomes the mindset of a/the villain.
• AND THEN, Jesse turns the gun on Gale, and the camera turns so the viewer is Gale, and then the gun goes off, Jesse shoots us, the audience.
• I've held off on caps this whole time, so I'm indulging myself here: FUCKING INSANE BEST SHOW ON TV CRAZY SHIT PERFECT!!!!!!! Sometimes I don't even know how TV could be this good.

Torchwood - A Day in the Death, 2.08

Torchwood is so good. "A Day in the Death" is my favorite so far.

"What do you think, doctor, does it really get any better?" - Maggie

Owen meets a suicidal woman on a rooftop at night, and gives her only his profession: doctor. She refers to him as such, inviting comparisons to the Doctor (One has no heartbeat. The other has two). Intentional or not (knowing RTD it is), I thought it was extremely interesting.

On said comparisons:

• As Owen moves to administer CPR, he realizes he has no breath to give. His "immortality" in death as a detriment, versus a Time Lord's near-immortality, which can similarly hurt the people he is closest to.
• "I'm sorry," Owen tells Toshiko. She responds: "I love you." The Doctor is always apologizing; Ten in particular always repeats: "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
• Owen saves Maggie from committing suicide. The Doctor also heals.
• The alien object sings to him as he stands on the rooftop; the Ood sings to the Doctor before he dies. Appreciation of the beauty of life for one last moment.
• Not a Doctor comparison, but the "My name is Owen Harper, and this is my life," voiceover vs. Rose Tyler's "This is the story of how I died" narration in Doomsday is worth mentioning.
• Watching television, Owen thinks about life in death. I love the scene so much, as he cleans out his refrigerator and medicine cabinet, because he no longer needs those things. ...Also not a Doctor comparison.

Sidenote: I really want Martha and Mickey to join the next season! How perfect would that be? They are in need of a doctor and a computer genius.

Doctor Who - The Five Doctors

"I'm definitely not the man I was. And thank goodness." - the Fifth Doctor

The concept of regeneration has kept the Doctor Who legacy alive. New actors in the role of the Doctor breathe life into the series so it never becomes tired (in theory; I haven't watched enough Old Who to definitively say). Despite changing his face, stature (Troughton's "little fellow" to Tennant's 6-ish-foot frame), wardrobe (question mark motifs come and go; celery was a one-off), hair (regrettably not a ginger, yet), and even personality, the Doctor is still the Doctor: he is quirky and alien, brave and righteous, a little bit cocky, and always the smartest person in the room.

Having only watched RTD's New Who, "The Five Doctors" 1983 serial was a new experience, and it was tons of fun to watch.

I knew Sarah Jane from "School Reunion" and Tennant's swan song episodes; I knew Peter Davison's Doctor (Five) from "Time Crash" and the first twenty or so minutes of "The Caves of Androzani" serial that I never finished; I knew Doctors One (Hartnell replaced by Richard Hurndall in this special), Two, Three, and Four from the few snippets I'd seen in RTD-Season-One's Doctor Who Confidential episodes (also super fun, and all on YouTube!). It was interesting to identify idiosyncrasies and compare performances among the Doctors. I was disappointed Tom Baker (Four) was hardly in it -- explained by being "trapped in the time vortex" for all but a few minutes in the beginning -- because I'm a fan of the wacky, strange Doctor (I think, as opposed to a romantic like Eight?). And I like the scarf.

But the other four Doctors were absolutely wonderful. I particularly liked Two and Three. And I think Five is better looking than Ten; that's not blasphemous, is it? I didn't really enjoy the companions, though, and it may have been because the writing didn't give them much to do other than follow their Doctors around and fall down a lot. Sarah Jane was cute, and I kind of liked Turlough. I found Tegan annoying, but Wikipedia tells me she didn't want to be there in the first place, so I understand that.

Thoughts:

• I laughed the hardest at the "perfect killing machine" Three and Sarah encountered. I'll probably rewatch that part when I'm having a bad day.
• When Sarah Jane and Tegan introduced themselves, they said: "Tegan." "Sarah." Coincidence! One of my favorite bands.
• I don't like John Simm's Master, and I don't like Anthony Ainley's Master, either. Maybe I just don't like the character, and it doesn't have anything to do with the portrayal.
• Having both Cybermen and Daleks in one serial was unusual, wasn't it? RTD kind of made it feel like it happened all the time, but I don't think it actually did.
• I wonder what happened with the Doctor-as-President after this.

"You mean you're deliberately choosing to go on the run from your own people, in a raggedy old TARDIS?" - Tegan

"Why not? After all, that's how it all started." - the Fifth Doctor

Misfits - Episode 3, 1.03

Brief thoughts about the show Misfits:

• I can honestly say I don't think there is a more gorgeously shot TV show. And to make a show about a ragtag bunch of losers, community service, and crime beautiful is an achievement. Everything from the makeshift living area on the community service center's rooftop (some boxes and mismatched chairs) to the empty locker room is shot as if it is a statement, a work of art on its own. Shows like Breaking Bad, which are shot in naturally beautiful locations, utilize languorous sunsets over sculpted mountains, etc, while Misfits focuses on trash in alleyways when it's overcast out.
• Its small budget (compared, at least, to over-saturated American TV shows) hardly shows. Because they produce six episodes a year compared to an excessive 24, the quality and care that goes into each episode goes up, I think. Comparable to cable TV shows in that they both have smaller budgets, more freedom i.e. less censorship, fewer episodes to produce per year, and as a result, quality is higher.
• Like Skins, impeccable music supervision.
• Substantial editing work. Great cuts, and I do like the color correction.
• Have I mentioned how wonderfully the episodes are directed? I want to frame each shot and put them on my wall. The placement of props and actors is so aesthetically pleasing.
• Excellent teenage actors, though not as strong as the Skins cast, in my opinion. Robert Sheehan doesn't convey a very believable irreverent jackass --> concerned teammate. No one can really match up to Nick Hoult, as far as I'm concerned.