|
Post by clocketpatch on Sept 16, 2011 5:28:33 GMT
A friendly warning: be careful of spoilers, because if the one I just heard is true then it's most definitely something I would rather un-hear.
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Sept 16, 2011 20:03:44 GMT
That...fills me with foreboding... You don't mean it's not a Nimon, do you? Whatever it is is actually worse than that?!
|
|
|
Post by clocketpatch on Sept 16, 2011 22:38:06 GMT
If it's not a Nimon I shall be crushed. ;D
No, it's not that. And it's something that wasn't marked with a spoiler, but it's right out in the open in the summaries if you're paying a close eye. So don't.
And I know that's a "don't think of pink elephants" kind of comment to make, but the episode is tomorrow and if there's any truth to this thing I heard I really would have preferred it coming as a surprise.
|
|
|
Post by aquabluejay on Sept 17, 2011 17:57:13 GMT
I have to go to marching competition, and I don't think Jeremy's parents would appreciate us watching Who at his house at thee am... although we pretty much did after prom...
So I think this'll have to wait til Sunday night...
|
|
|
Post by clocketpatch on Sept 18, 2011 2:14:54 GMT
Well...
The beast was a "cousin" species to the Nimon so I'll accept it.
Rory had some very good lines in this. The one about how he'd forgotten that not all great struggles are based on saving the universe. The funny bit where he snuck up behind Amy.
I was really hoping that Rita would end up as a companion, especially after the spoiler I heard...
The spoiler which turned out to be true.
It was a joke at the time, but Rory was right about notifying next of kin.
I'm not sure if this episode was consciously giving homage to the Curse of Fenric, but the belief scene re-enforces the Seven-Eleven link in my mind at least. I'm also not entirely sure Eleven wasn't doing some Jedi mind tricks at the same time (also, it must be said, the Rory dummy getting slammed in the door made me tilt my head to the side a bit).
I wonder what was behind Amy's door (was it her waiting?). I wonder what was behind the Doctor's - though I guess it may have been a mirror. I wonder at Rory not having a door.
The Ponds are slated to return next series, so we haven't seen the end of them, though, I don't think they'll be full time companions again. I find it interesting that Ten stopped taking companions because they broke his heart(s) while Eleven has left his companions for fear of breaking theirs.
|
|
kirkg
Auton Daisy
"Hello, Sweetie!"
Posts: 442
|
Post by kirkg on Sept 18, 2011 22:19:21 GMT
I have to go to marching competition, and I don't think Jeremy's parents would appreciate us watching Who at his house at thee am... although we pretty much did after prom... So I think this'll have to wait til Sunday night... I don't think ANYONE's parents would appreciate you watching Dr. Who at 3 a.m. Aqua... but if you can find a copy, we'll stay up tonight and watch both last week's episode and last night's show too. PS: Good work on the band competition. You looked sharp!
|
|
|
Post by clocketpatch on Sept 18, 2011 23:00:53 GMT
3AM is an awesome time to watch Who. Especially Blink. ;D
(I do not take responsibility for any nightmares following this advice may or may not cause)
|
|
|
Post by aquabluejay on Sept 19, 2011 3:14:22 GMT
It actually wasn't until about three days after I watched 'Silence in the Library' that I started jumping at shadows, literally. It was sort of a combination of the two... That and every other shower curtain related horror story. My bathroom really freaks me out sometimes.
|
|
|
Post by aquabluejay on Sept 19, 2011 3:21:29 GMT
OK, finally watched it!
OK, so there was some serious introspection of the Doctor going on in this one, pretty much everything we've ever said or noticed or that's ever been mentioned about the darker side of traveling with him actually got spelled out, which was interesting.
Oddly, the only lines that are really sticking with me from this one are Eleven's line about offering a child candy, and his joke to Amy about 'Bad Penny' being his middle name, which I'm mostly fixating on because he mentioned having a name. It's hard to have a middle name if you only have one. XD (It also strikes me now that that's a bit close to "Bad Wolf", but it's probably nothing right?
I felt like Amy and Rory leaving the show was a bit abrupt, and certainly unexpected. I mean really, it wasn't even the season ender... I will miss Rory dearly.
On the plus side: CRAIG in the next ep! From the trailer, Craig calling the Doctor on really being there to investigate reminded me oddly of 'Smith and Jones' when Ten explains to Martha how he came to be in the hospital to begin with.
|
|
|
Post by jjpor on Sept 19, 2011 19:47:52 GMT
*What interests me, actually, is that the Doctor has a pretty impressive record of companions not dying, if you consider all the dangerous scrapes he and they have been through over the years. Sarah Kingdom always gets brought up, but why is she even considered a companion any more than, say, Henry Gordon Jago or the "Welsh" girl out of Delta and the Bannermen, to pluck two examples at random? And you know, who really missed Adric anyway? ;D
Sorry for my flippancy. My talk of the "canonical list of companions who ended up KIA" isn't entirely irrelevant, though. I guess Katarina did in a very real sense die because of ther faith in the Doctor (and an airlock). And, more recently, what happened to Donna could indeed be considered a form of "death", or at any rate a rather cruel fate indeed, winning the lottery notwithstanding.
Which is another point. The idea of the Doctor deciding, out of the blue, to drop his companions off without their say-so in the matter is one thing, and we can discuss the rights and wrongs of it at length if we want (I hope). Presumably buying them a house and a classic car as a consolation prize is, well, very NuWho, and I don't mean that as a compliment (although I did like the TARDIS-coloured front door). I mean, they had what looked like their own house in Impossible Astronaut, and Rory has that nice old Mini. And, you know, it just smacked of Ten and the lottery ticket, really.
The idea of the Doctor parting ways with companions "for their own good", while possibly problematic, is not without precedent, mind you. There was Susan in Dalek Invasion of Earth, of course, although I suppose that was more a question of allowing her to have a life and home of her own and in a very real sense letting her "grow up" rather than protecting her from danger. And of course, there was Sarah in Hand of Fear, but that was of course more nuanced than, say, Toby Whithouse would have you believe, although my personal fanon is that the Doctor was so frightened that the Time Lords would do to her what they did to Jamie and Zoe in The War Games that he really didn't want to take her to Gallifrey for her own protection. So while what the Doctor did here seemed abrupt and done without all that much more provocation than might be provided by any moderately-dangerous adventure in time and space, it wasn't wholly out of character.
And I suppose the thing about this adventure was that the Doctor had made a pretty fundamental mistake in his understanding and handling of the situation in the "hotel", one that had led directly to the deaths of two supporting characters (the gambler Joe was pretty much dead meat already by the time Team TARDIS arrived), one of whom at least had "next companion" deliberately written all over her (and I though Rita was a great character, very well played - I could have watched her travelling with the Doctor for a season or so). And then when the Nimon as I will insist on calling it (nice shout-out, I thought) seemed poised to get to Amy through her faith in him, I suppose Eleven might well see that as some sort of wake up call and also an appropriate moment to address some of the more unhealthy aspects of their mutual relationship. Not really wild about the "Amy Williams" thing, though...
But yes, I'm with Clocket - I liked the fact that Eleven here is motivated by concern for his companions rather than his own personal angst. And I liked the understated, almost jovial parting between him and Amy. You know, like friends and equals, underlining the point of the story I guess.
And, to get to the point, I liked this story quite a bit. It feels like S6 is finding its feet again after stumbling a bit in the middle of its run. Good production values and design, I thought. Good monster (and it's a Nimon, I tell you - just one that hit on a different modus operandi to the others. Distant cousin distant schmousin... Very good guest cast, I thought, and even what I choose to believe was either a deliberate call-back to Curse of Fenric or a shameless rip-off of it. Either way, I'm happy. ;D
Now, if next week's can just be the proverbial good post-Earthshock Cyberman story (and I'm not really a huge fan of Earthshock, tbh), all will continue to look up...*
|
|
|
Post by IMForeman on Sept 20, 2011 15:59:16 GMT
I haven't reviewed an episode in a long time....so trying again.
*I loved this episode. Definitely one of the best of Series 6, in my opinion. I thought the premise was interesting - at first, the idea of a monster feeding off fear seemed quite repetitive and unoriginal, but once they revealed that it had to do with faith, I started paying more attention. Too bad about Rita though, she was cool. Rory believes in nothing at all? Not even Amy? Too bad. I would have liked to see his room.
The thing I really liked about this episode was the Doctor and Amy stuff. I haven't been all that happy about her character this series. Nothing to do with Amy herself, just the show sidelining her and making her seem oddly distant. Even last week's episode, which was supposed to be all Amy-centric, felt less like it was about her and more like it was about Rory's reaction to her - although I know a lot of people liked it, so I'm probably in the minority on this one. But the end of this episode felt like a harkening back to Series 5, where their relationship was front and center, and it was about her growing up, and in the end, this was a million times more satisfying to me than The Girl Who Waited (then again, this was more like The Girl Who Stopped Waiting).
That said, "Amy Williams" bugged me too. I get what they were trying to say with that, about Amy having to grow up and settle down, and stop being a girl with a fairy tale name, but...really? Still, I'm willing to treat it as a minor quibble as long as it remains minor and the show doesn't bring it up again in the future.
I don't really blame the Doctor for dropping off his companions at the end of this episode. Even ignoring the events of this episode, the Ponds have been through the ringer this series, and I think he must feel a huge amount of guilt over everything that's happened with them and with River. Plus clearly whatever he saw in his room affected him deeply. Interesting, though, that this episode was written by the guy who wrote School Reunion, aka the other "Doctor abandons companions because he's afraid of their eventual death" episode, albeit done with a little more thought here. I'm sure this isn't the last we're seeing of Amy and Rory, but it does feel like the beginning of the end, and that makes me a little sad.
I find it odd how rarely Amy and Rory seem to bring up their daughter. If anything, I would have thought an episode involving their worst fears would have involved some parenting-related anxiety, but I guess not. Ah well.
And to wrap this up, hurrah for the Nimon reference! I was undignifiedly excited at that. And definitely thought of Curse of Fenric as well - not just at the Doctor making Amy lose her faith in him, but I also felt like the Doctor's faith, which we never got to find out the source of, was in his companions. Although then again, other parts of this episode made me think he doesn't have a whole lot of faith in them...*
|
|
|
Post by aquabluejay on Sept 20, 2011 22:42:41 GMT
My question about the ep remains this:
Whose room was that final scene in the Hotel in? Was it Amy's or the Doctor's, or Rory's or something? No one seemed particularly disturbed by being in there, and nothing tried to terrify anyone. As far as we could see the only thing in there was little Amelia Pond, who just sat and watched like a good little girl.
The Doctor looked into a room and saw something that made him smile and back away. Could have been his room, could have been someone else's we don't know...
|
|
kirkg
Auton Daisy
"Hello, Sweetie!"
Posts: 442
|
Post by kirkg on Sept 22, 2011 21:45:41 GMT
3AM is an awesome time to watch Who. Especially Blink. ;D (I do not take responsibility for any nightmares following this advice may or may not cause) I'll get you for that, clocket... (imagine, undermining a parent trying to control their companion-aged daughter.... ) Next thing we know, you'll be encouraging her to run away into the garden to search for a tardis and a raggedy man doctor to go adventuring with... ;D
|
|