And my first thought was: Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! I finally managed to watch the Christmas special of Doctor Who following several days of busy family gatherings and food. Doctor Who’s Christmas specials are typically dominated by sentimentality and sickly sweet morality and happiness and this years was by-in- large no different.  It was a reasonably predictability comedic romp through time complete with guest stars Matt Lucas and Greg Davies and bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘face-swap’. The central premise of the Doctor saving the chaotically adventurous and immoral River Song from her own greed in order to spend one final Christmas with her. It was a fun episode and it was nice to see the return of Alex Kingston and even nicer to see the River/Doctor relationship seem less creepy for once. Peter Capaldi was not at his best but the cheesiness of the script was not doing him any favours when he is at his best at his darkest. It was sentimental drivel, particularly the final message of ‘And they lived happily ever after’ but it’s Christmas and therefore it can be tolerated…at least this week.

And my first thought was…..Doctor Who: Hell Bent

‘What was the point?’ was my first reaction at the end of Doctor Who Series 9’s finale episode. It was beyond any shadow of a doubt extremely disappointing due to the simple fact that there was next to no plot. Steven Moffatt didn’t so much cop out as fall flat on his face. The series has been building to ‘the hybrid’ revelation and it died a slow painful death. The Doctor could have properly been the hybrid and it could have been a majestically terrifying episode if it had been allowed to be. The return of Gallifrey was under used and the Doctor wasn’t allowed to be truly terrifying I would have preferred it if Steven Moffat had stuck to the premise that Clara is dead and actually focused on the Doctor getting revenge on the timelords, particularly the lord president who could have been used so much more effectively.

The episode did have some good points, when he was allowed to be Peter Capaldi was magnificent and I greatly enjoyed the moment when the general regenerated into an equally awesomely badass female character. I would have preferred it if Clara had stayed dead and Me stayed the hell off my television set but I suppose that I can’t have everything….or anything if this episode was anything to go by.

It was mediocre and I honestly couldn’t tell you what happened because the answer simply is nothing did. Please Steven Moffat there is no need for you to attempt to be clever if the result is dreadful, stick to a simple narrative structure with a villain and the Doctor saving the day if you can’t manage to write anything else without ruining it.

And my first thought was….Doctor Who: Heaven Sent

This was a weird episode, even coming from the man who gave us The Weeping Angels and The Empty Child. It was very suitably for Steven Moffat equal parts brilliant and extremely frustrating. The overarching idea of the Doctor being trapped inside his own confession was ingenious but slightly haphazard in it’s presentation. The plot hole of punching the diamond wall over and over again over the course of a billion years was a little convoluted, particularly as there was no explanation as to why the rest of the ‘house’ reset to as it originally was but this one detail did not. Furthermore, I would have ended the episode a few seconds earlier, at the point that you realise that the Doctor is on Gallifrey rather than dragging it out into an anti-climax by having the small pointless child and the rather woodenly written ‘I am the hybrid’ moment.

Having said that However, the episode was in all other respects one of the strongest episodes of Doctor Who in quite some time. I thought that The Veil was a very good, very chilling antagonist and the morbid and horrific reality of what the Doctor has to repeatedly do in order to escape was the darkest that Doctor Who has been in an awfully long time. I did also like Clara’s presence in his internal monologue through the use of the chalkboard rather than a great deal of screen time for Jenna Coleman. CCTV was effectively used and I liked the motif of the falling skulls that occurred throughout the episode. Overall, credit is due to director Rachel Talalay.

The greatest credit is due to Peter Capaldi’s outstanding performance which was dynamic, nuanced and heart-rendering to watch. It was beyond any shadow of a doubt his best episode yet as the Doctor and  I can only hope that the return to normality next week in Hell Bent does not ruin the anticipation that Heaven Sent has produced.

4.8/5.0

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And my first thought was…Doctor Who: Face the Raven

Apologies that this is a few days late but I am still in trouble for the last time I broke the ‘no watching Doctor Who without me’ rule. I did not enter into this episode with high expectations a) return of Riggsy b) Jenna Coleman’s less than stellar acting last week c) Maisie Williams. B) was proved entirely unfounded as Jenna Coleman’s departure from the series marked the best performance I have seen her give in a while. A) and C) were tragically entirely correct. It wasn’t that Riggsy was a bad character as such, I just didn’t care sufficiently enough about him to be to bothered if he lived or died the first episode he was in and sadly this weeks episode did not endear him to me any more. Whilst I am frequently informed that I am utterly biased and therefore have no legitimate opinion on the matter Maisie Williams was one of the weaker elements in the episode. Whilst she still plays Moody Me better than she did the innocent Ashildr the performance still felt wooden and underdeveloped in comparison to the more developed and nuanced performances of Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi (back on top form this week).

However, the central issue that I had with the episode does unfortunately lie in the script writing. I do regret needing to criticise it as I was rather excited to see that the episode was written by Sarah Dollard. Not because I am aware particularly of any of her previous work but because Doctor Who does not frequently have female writers (we’ve now had two this season). Sadly my anticipation was killed in the first ten minutes. The intriguing idea of the tattooed countdown on the back of the neck was ingenious but I felt that the human motivation behind the numbers was introduced too soon meaning that all dramatic tension fell completely flat. Personally, I would have saved introducing Maisie Williams for another few minutes, allow the viewer to see the numbers on the back of the first victim of the Raven’s neck and the Raven killing him before the human dimension of ‘Me’s plan was introduced. Furthermore, the Janus subplot and the contract with the quantum shade felt extremely convoluted, particularly as a method of engineering Clara’s death. The episode felt as though it was clawing for air and although the acting of Capaldi and Coleman did redeem the writing I felt as though perhaps the episode could have benefited from being jointly written perhaps with Catherine Tregenna who wrote ‘The Woman who lived’.

In contrary to the feeling of many of my closest fellow whovians I will miss Clara Oswald, particularly if Steven Moffatt does something that doesn’t involve killing off ‘Me’…..

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Original Poem: J’adore la monde

J’adore La Monde

If all the world were gay and free/
What monstrous horrors  could there be.
No sight nor sound of scarlet war/ 
No righteous quarrels murdered for. 

But perfect peace still hides her gaze/
And lets instead cruel Ares raze.
The bombs still sing their angry song/
From Sweet Paris to Lebanon. 

And man still seeks his vilest thrill/
And finding  new excuse to kill. 
The righteous words he doth profane/
In killing in his saviours name. 

In sweet Paris the world doth mourn/
Eyes fix upon their crimson morn.
Each cruel injustice sounds a bell/
Each  villain long consigned to hell. 

And has not Eris in her spite/
Made Oklahoma’s sky alight.
Though Kronos tries to make her dim/
Chaos transformed once at her whim. 

And did not Astraea’s child/
Cast fiery hell on infant mild
And in his zealousness and hate/
Force peace and love their time to wait.  

Venus still cradles fragile earth/
And urges calm a faster birth.
Whilst Ares sings his fiery song/
And urges Eris sing along.  

Yet though I hear the drums of war/
The guns still blast, the missiles soar.
Peace still wedded yet to strife/
Seeks fair Harmonia as his wife.

Man knows despair should not succeed/
In dividing man apart by creed.
No true belief seeks one and all/
To incite hatred at it’s call.
Man’s brotherhood burns on and on/
In knowing all are Adam’s son.

This is a poem I have attempted to write to summarise my feelings about the bombings in Paris, Lebanon, Syria, Bagdad and countless other places that are currently also devastated by violence and terror. This is my own opinion and if anyone reading it feels as though I am being insensitive or offensive, please let me know. I believe that we should not allow fear and violence to drive us further into a cycle of fear and violence but I recognise that there will be people who disagree with me.

 

 

 

And my first thought was… Doctor Who: Sleep No More

This weeks Doctor Who offering from Mark Gattis was an interesting concept, it was quite sad that it just fell flat.The premise that the sleep in the corner of your eye is evil and that exploitative consumer ideas can accelerate spores consuming your body is a disturbing but fascinating idea. I just never felt as though the actual episode merited the premise.

Firstly, I had issue with the direction of the episode. I found the jerky camera angles distracting and the use of multiple camera angles to be overly gimmicky. It left the episode feeling like a computer game rather than a TV series. I would also have preferred it if the computer game gimmick hadn’t further transmitted in the form of the crew profiles at the beginning of the episode.

The “found footage” narrative would have been more effective had the script been sharper. The dialogue felt sloppy and even the references to Macbeth were lost in a maze of mediocrity. It’s a real shame as I have loved some of Gattis’s past episodes but it just didn’t flow effectively enough to allow the novelty of the ‘found footage’ to be sufficiently coherent. The secondary characters were banal and Rasmussen felt as though Gattis had lost a bet with pal Reece Sheersmith and needed to pigeonhole him in somewhere in the series. I honestly could not tell you what any other the secondary characters names were other than the fact that in the 38th century there is apparently bred slavery in the form of the ‘grunt’. A character whose presence in the episode felt like a 38th century Uncle Tom’s Cabin with death of 474 (Bethany Black) feeling rather like a Uncle Remus type figure laying down his life for the pretty white woman (in this case a clone slave and an aristocratic Indo-Japanese soldier). The dialogue for Clara and the Doctor felt wooden and the promise of the ‘sandmen’ was quickly diminished as the scariest thing about them was that they looked like 6″ blobs of earwax. The ending of the episode was hideously confusing as it left the future of the characters too unresolved, it was less of a cliffhanger and more a plummet off the cliff. I can only hope that there are subtle nuances that I have failed to acknowledge that explain the current pointlessness of the episode and that it is a case of Mark Gattis being too clever too soon rather than being too clever and missing the point. Only time will tell (hopefully, the promo for next week wasn’t promising).

Jenna Coleman’s performance was sadly below par this week and her performance felt emotionless. Even Peter Capaldi didn’t have much of a trace of his usual bravado and on screen magnetism. Again the secondary actors were reasonably unmemorable and I felt as though Rasmussen could have been a more menacing and Machiavellian presence played by someone other than the too softly spoken Reece Sheersmith who was fine when Rasmusson was the bumbling genius but failed to capture the essence of a man who is evilly exploiting peoples need for productivity. I would have perhaps suggested Mark Rylance or Rory Kinnear.

It was overall a below par episode, it wasn’t bad, just boring.

2.0/5.0

And my first thought was…..Nostaligia: “Muppet Treasure Island”

Muppet Treasure Island is a heart-warming and hilarious twist on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story filled with Pirates and Miss Piggy. The 1996 musical comedy is packed with memorable music and guest stars who succeed in holding their own alongside the scene-stealing puppets.

I adore Muppet Treasure Island. It stars two of my favourite performers of all time, Tim Curry and Miss Piggy and my dubious boasting rights in conversation with my many musical theatre friends is that by a dodgy technicality I attended the same school as Tim Curry. Whilst the film is in no way perfect it evokes sentimentality rather than annoyance to see and hear the imperfections in the performances. The Muppets are as always the stars of the show, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy steal the show, their characterisations and bold screen presence dominates the understated performance of Kermit the Frog. I would potentially comment that Rizzo and Gonzo are not utilised as well in this film as they are in Muppets Christmas Film but they still allow some fantastic breaking of the fourth wall, particularly the wonderful line “He died? And this is supposed to be a kids movie!”. Dr Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker and Sam the Eagle are nicely utilised as Dr Liversy, Mr Beaker and Mr Arrow, in a nice decision to feature Muppets that have not seen as much screen time in the 21st century revivals which have a tendency to purely focus on Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo and Fozzie.

The human guest stars are also generally well utilised, Kevin Bishop plays Jim Hawkins with a nice naivety that occasionally feels slightly forced but is as a general rule a more naturalistic performance than is occasionally present with child stars. His singing voice is unpolished but suits the character although I do doubt that Bishop would have been cast if the film were made today. Jennifer Saunders and Billy Connelly both make memorable cameo appearances as Mrs Bluveridge and Billy Bones, Connelly in particular is wonderful as the mad alcoholic who dies several times over whilst giving Jim worthwhile life knowledge like how to find buried treasure and not to run with scissors. Tim Curry is beyond any shadow of a doubt the best (human) performer in the film, his Long John Silver is a lovable rogue with an irresistible charisma and a magnetic screen presence and despite his manipulations and mutiny you do want the old scoundrel to win.

Muppet films are made on the basis of their songs, whilst ‘Cabin Fever’ and ‘Sailing for Adventure’ are both fantastically catchy songs, the best song is by far ‘Professional Pirate’. It is by far the most memorable moment of the film with it’s fantastic lyrics like ‘I could have been a lawyer but I just had too much heart’ and the wonderfully knowing line ‘Take Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish all despise him but to the British he’s a hero and they idealise him’. The rest of the songs are far less memorable and it would be nice if Miss Piggy had been given a more memorable song than ‘Love led us here’ which is by far the most dull moment of the film.

The script is fantastically subtlety filthy, it allows the film to play at a duel level and I think one of the reasons I love it so much is that it is still just as good a film when you are 20 as when you are 10, you simply appreciate certain jokes more. Gonzo and Rizzo’s wonderful lines “And my pants are filled with starfish” “You and your hobbies”  and Miss Piggy’s “Hello Long John…” “Him too?” particularly spring to mind.

I love this film and thoroughly enjoyed the excuse to spend an evening in the company of Miss Piggy, Kermit and Fozzie, I only wish that the 2015 TV series could remember to follow the formula of previous incarnations- filthy humour and adult material is fine BUT it is supposed to be done with a sense of childhood wonderment that is simply missing from the most recent incarnation.

4.5/5.0

And my first thought was….Hector and the search for happiness

Film rather than television today, as I take a quick look at Hector and the Search for Happiness. This 2014 ‘comedy’ left a distinctly mixed impression with it’s interesting depictions of mental health treatment and disjointed narrative mixed with someone interesting motifs, humorous moments and heart-warming (if occasionally nausea inducing) message.

The film is in essence another star vehicle for Simon Pegg, who outside of the niche world of British surrealist comedy and the films of Edgar Wright has predominantly found himself playing second fiddle to american action stars as british geeks (seems like typecasting to me). Pegg makes for a reasonably convincing leading man as Hector, a psychiatrist who realises that his life of routine has little meaning when he loses it with a patient, and decides to go on a world trip to discover what happiness is. There were places that I felt that Pegg was unable to properly convey the emotional intensity that the role required, particularly in the kidnap scenes and Hectors emotional epiphany in LA but generally it was a decent performance. Rosamond Pike’s performance conflicted me, on the one hand I know that Pike is a fantastic actress (see Gone Girl) but the role of Clara comparatively allowed very little of that talent to shine through, the performance felt jerky, particularly towards the end and the emotional leap Clara takes in the space of five minutes felt unrealistic particularly as I spent 75% of the film under the impression that she was cheating on him to get ahead at work.

Peter Chelsom’s use of motif was interesting if tragically underused. The yellow biplane and the younger Hector with his dog were interesting motifs scattered throughout the film but the under utilisation of them for any real purpose made them incongruous to the rest of the narrative . I feel as though the film could have been improved my Chelsom making a firmer decision over his conceptualisation of the film .

The script was by-in-large the emotional anaesthetic that the title suggests that it will be. However, there were some troubling moments in the film that left me questioning the screenwriters motives and understanding. Most prominently, the kidnap/torture scenes which felt as though there should have been more done with them, I felt as though the static narrative didn’t allow for the film explore the full impact that something that traumatic would have (even discounting for the possibility that he wouldn’t develop full blown PTSD).I wanted the script to have allowed for a slightly more dramatic interpretation of the events, even if it was just five minutes of Hector sitting down with his friend Michael and actually talking about what he went through, the conclusion Hector makes could be exactly the same, Benedict Cumberbatch who went through a similar experience in South Africa’s public comment on the incident has been reflect that the incident taught him to seize life as it comes. As it was the film almost brushed over the trauma of the kidnapping in favour of Hector hitting on women half his age (again). I feel like they should have done more with one of their most emotionally charged scenes.

Secondly, I felt as though the Agnes/Hector scenes could have been handled better, the sense of the void between them was underplayed and I felt as though the emotional breakthrough Hector has could have been made more profound by making his conversation with Agnes more emotionally charged and allowing her more time to explain her perspective, allowing the scenes in LA to feel more bittersweet and less ‘man-child in strop’. Overall, I feel as though making the narrative less static would have allowed for a smoother emotional transition, the film is supposed to be an emotional journey but it felt like several short emotional trips.  I also personally felt as though the objectification of women was rather cheap, I would have liked more scenes in which the women around him were not just much-younger objects of desire, this could have been achieved by making his de-objectification of the young lady in Africa more obvious and as previously stated, maturing the Agnes/Hector conversation.

I also personally felt as though the solution to the majority of Hector’s problems would have been for him to perhaps think about treating patients with more acute mental illnesses rather than the rather comedic but banal cases that he was actually treating, but that my just be me…

Hector and the Search for Happiness is never going to be a cinematic masterpiece but it made for reasonably good visual anaesthesia and whilst I don’t believe that I will watch it again in the immediate future, I’m not going to demand two of hours of my life back either. I feel as though perhaps there was more that could have been done to emotionally charge the film more but it is not an unsatisfying film.

2.5/5.0

Hector and the Search for Happiness can now be found on Netflix.

And my first thought was… The Zygon Invasion/Inversion

Oh Moffat just when it was going so well, I actually reasonably enjoyed The Zygon Invasion, sadly all good things must pass, particularly when your gimmick characters become hideously overused and irritating. I am referring of course to Osgood. The central premise of The Zygon Invasion/Inversion was a good idea, it allowed for an interesting development of Clara’s character in the form of Bonnie and and certain points allowed Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) to shine. Peter Capaldi may even have had his “moment” (I am reserving judgement on this) all of this was ruined by the attempt to transform the one dimensional character of Osgood, who made for a lovely gimmick in the fiftieth anniversary special, into a multi-dimensional supporting character (and no Moffat this is not something you accomplish by having two Osgoods on screen). Ingrid Oliver was a lovely addition when there wasn’t much of her, now however the asthmatic fangirl has outlived her potential and should have been killed off for ruining an otherwise excellent episode. I would have liked more Kate and less Osgood.

Rating 8.0/10.0

And my first thought was: Doctor Who- ‘The Woman who lived’

After last weeks vitriolic hatred of the episode, this weeks review will be mellower in tone, and in places even complimentary. I enjoyed the script I felt that it was well written and allowed Peter Capaldi to flex his acting muscles more than last week. The humour was reasonably well balanced with the drama and although in places I questioned the appropriateness of the casting (Rufus Hound is thirty six and Maisie Williams eighteen, I did not want an implied romantic relationship at all) it was over all an excellent episode written by Catherine Tregenna (I know a female writer…shock horror. First time there has been a female writer under Steven Moffat). There were problems of course, I felt that Leandro was not utilised as a villain and personally I would have focused more on the potential for the sinister eyes emitting from the bushes rather than regulating Leandro to essentially a cameo part in favour of endless flashbacks (none of which were historically accurate) and deep and reasonably wooden reflections on the meaning of eternal life. Maisie William’s performance was admittedly better than last week, I feel that Catherine Tregenna’s writing deserves credit for that as the central rule of drama is that a good script can rescue a bad performance where as a good performance cannot rescue a useless script.  I still feel as though we are expected to care rather too much for Ashildr on the basis of the (fading) merits of Williams’ Arya Stark but I shall at least refrain from enacting vengeance against  her for a much better performance than last week.

The episode raises some interesting questions, not about mortality but on the role of women within Sci-Fi and fantasy. Arya Stark is lauded as a shining example of a strong female character and Ashildr is evidently set up to follow this trend, ignoring the fact that Moffat’s track record for empowering women on Doctor Who is less than exemplary, Amy Pond spend virtually every episode requiring rescue and poor Clara has been relegated recently in favour of the inferior Missy and Me (Ashildr). Whilst Rose Tyler was not exactly woman of the year material Martha and Donna were both far more interesting characters than any that Moffat has yet devised, as tonights episode as proved, I strongly feel that the only way to accomplish this is to have more female writers, directors and producers ensuring that female characters are more than one dimension and there empowerment can be based on their merits as a character and not the fact that the actresses is best known for playing similar (but better written character)