Nightmare In Silver - DWreview

Well, I wouldn't have believed it if anybody had told me beforehand.  Even though Neil Gaiman wrote it, I was still down about being out of a relationship and thought very little chance of being entertained by this past Dr. Who, but damn if it wasn't awesome.

So awesome I'm going to skip talking about the rest of season 7.2 except to mention that the thing that is making this half of the season terrible is Clara.  The companion.  The companion is integral to The Doctor.  Sometimes they stand up to him, question his decisions and choices.  Sometimes they save his life.  Sometimes they run.  But always, always you like them in the end.  Even that screeching harpy Donna turned enjoyable towards her tragic end.  Every one of them likable, except Clara.

I can't give you a reason why.  Maybe it's because she feels like a mystery shoe-horned into the Doctor's life just to be a different type of companion.  Or, maybe she just sucks.  Or maybe what she's been given to do sucks.  But I haven't warmed up to her yet.

I've made predictions about the show before, none of which came true (but that I think were very clever).  So I'm hesitant to do this, but I think we'll find in the next 'sode that whatever is causing Clara's "condition" is either directly because of the Doctor, or because he chooses to do something that puts him in danger and Clara steps in to save the day by sacrificing herself.

If you think about it, that's kind of Moffat's whole schtick:  the Weeping Angels are practically unstoppable, as long as you're not looking at them, but if they look at each other, they can be immobilized for eternity.  You can't remember the Silence, but they can plant post-hypnotic suggestions in your head that you will (unknowingly) obey... even if it's about killing the Silence themselves.  Take the enemy's strength and make it their weakness as well.

A fine and time-honoured trope that appears again and again in the genre, so I don't mind it.  Still, like the TARDIS, I don't like Clara that much, yet.

GIRL, werq!

Still, this episode did to amazing things.  It let me not dislike Clara, and it also made the Cybermen actually seem kind of threatening.  It also managed to not feel like a typical Neil Gaiman story (unlike The Doctor's Wife, which absolutely did).  I should note that, while I am a huge Gaiman fan, I have not placed him on an unreachable pedestal.  He can write boring but award winning stories about teens realizing the chicks they're hitting on at a party are aliens or something, and then he can write things like "When the Saucers Came" which makes me hate him for being an actual talent and able to give a twist to a story that makes M. Night Shyamalan blush with jealousy.

I'm sure you can find the whole thing online somewhere.

Anyway.  Two incredible performances in this 'sode.  One from Matt Smith himself, playing the Doctor and the Cyber-infected Doctor at the same time.  I kind of love these schizophrenic kind of performances, but I really wish more people would follow Peter Jackson's idea of filming the two disparate characters separately and jump-cutting between their perspectives.  I just think that's cooler.

THIS IS TOTALLY NOT LIKE THE BORG!

The other incredible performance was from Warwick Davis.  Man, he would have been awesome in Game of Thrones.  As emperor of the galaxy, he was pretty fucking good.

Emperor Davis

So next up is Trenzalore and the question which must never be asked, and the explanation of Clara.  I hope it makes me trip balls.  Like this!

The Doctor Sucks

"You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and you actually talk to them and five minutes later they are solid as a brick. Then there are other people then you meet them and think, not so bad for ok. Then you get to know them and their face just sort of becomes them, like their personality is written all over it... and it just... turns to something so beautiful"

At first, I was absolutely sure I knew what was wrong:  I wasn't enjoying it because my partner wasn't here with me, and I kind of knew he wouldn't be coming back.  I had always enjoyed the show before we got back together, but now I had to re-learn how to enjoy Dr. Who alone, again.  It wasn't coming along.

I thought, maybe, like the Doctor, I needed a companion, to enjoy the show.  Since my brother had built his dream house after moving back home, I elected him to be my surrogate Dr. Who companion.  I go home most weekends, and we try to watch it together, although he usually falls asleep on the couch.

But that wasn't the problem.  This season, particularly the second half, has just plain sucked.

Asylum of the Daleks

This 'sode was not a knock out of the park, but it was pretty good, especially for setting up the Doctor's new status quo as an unknown variable, as opposed to the most feared being in the universe.  Also, the perfect couple being on the rocks?  And then seeing them grow together again?  That was pretty good.  If you've ever given somebody up because you know you'll never be able to give them what they truly want, Amy's speech about children was probably pretty touching and effective.
 

I'm not a big fan of westerns, aside from Tombstone (of course), but this sci-fi take on the genre was good.  But again, it was a western... I'd watch it again, but not go out of my way, necessarily, to do so.
 

A fun romp.  This kind of sounds like somebody came up with the title before having any idea about a plot, but it was fun.  Rory's dad was a good addition.
 

Apparently the power of three is to bore the audience to tears.  Ugh, how boring this was.  That's when the cracks started appearing in the Doctor's facade for me.  But we still had the big,  bad Weeping Angels appearance to get through....
 

...and "getting through" it was exactly what you had to do with this one.  At best, a mediocore 'sode that should have been an excellent one, seeing as how it was a supposedly farewell ep for Rory and Amy.  It was one of the few times that I would agree with friends who point out the illogical in certain tropes.  "Well, why couldn't they just arrive in Jersey and take a cab if the fabric of space-time was preventing them?"  Normally I'd dismiss this with, "Yeah it's so illogical that this time-traveling immortal couldn't figure that out, it's so unrealistic..."  but they took way too many liberties with time travel, paradoxes, Angels (honestly the Statue should have been a huge shocker but it was yawn-apalooza)... Just not really all that great.

to be continued soon with reviews of the second half of season seven

A New Universe

In a few weeks the title for this post might have another, hidden meaning... but for now, it's just referring to Marvel's third revival of their New Universe line.

New Universe was a line of comic books put out by Marvel in 1986, in honor of their 25th anniversary.  It was pretty much a sputtering, gasping failure from the beginning, but for me it was really cool... something that wasn't your regular spandex-clad super-hero fare.  I especially enjoyed Star Brand, a book that seemed to have a story arc, but I'm guessing like most things back then they were just winging it.  In 2006, probably to keep the trademark alive, Marvel let Warren Ellis revive the concept with his newuniversal mini-series.  It has been said that a catastrophic hard drive failure left WE with none of his notes on the series, which smells suspicious to me, but it was a great mini anyway, updating a nostalgic concept for more modern and engaging story-telling.

And now this.  Jonathan Hickman has taken control of Avengers and New Avengers, and has brought the NU into 616, or at least the concept of it (meaning the concept Ellis had fleshed out), and I am fucking hooked.  It's like the Godfather, just when I thought I was getting out of comics, they pull me back in.  I don't know yet if they're planning on incorporating NU stuff into 616, and after today's issue of Avengers I think they might not. But still, it's pretty awesome.  

(I will always lament that Kickers Inc. never got a second chance... super-hero FOOTBALL players fore hire?  Awesome.) 

Hello, I must be going.

Hello there, little neglected blog.  I hope you've been doing well.  I've been through a lot since I last grokked you, including...

June 13th, 2012.. Buster, Alice, Kenny

...MEETING ALICE COOPER!

Yes, it finally happened.  That's my former partner on the left of the photo, and a much heavier me on the right, and Uncle Alice in the middle, getting faux-choked by us.  It was a great show (so far Alice has never disappointed me, unlike Meatloaf, who is awesome half the time and a miserable waste of money the other half).  Now if I can just meet the Aquabats...

It was my first show in Dayton, where I've moved to for a job.  Dayton is okay, a bit boring but close enough to home that it's worth staying here a while.  I'm good at my job and people here like me... in fact, they seem to have a miserable time if I take time off or a sick day.

I don't want to segue into the rest of a personal update too ham-handedly, so let's just do bullet points for the rest of it:

• I had a stroke late July of last year; I'm very close to 100% recovered.
• My father passed away while I was recovering.
• My partner left.  (As I said, that's him above on the left.)

I want to say that the stroke was really horrible, but because of it and the other two events in my life, i'm finally treating my depression, and the meds I'm on rob me of an appetite.  I actually have alarms set on my phone to remind me to eat.  The picture above shows how much weight I've lost, but I wouldn't suggest trying to induce a stroke for that reason.

I want to say that I still miss Dad, but I rarely think of him now.  His health had been declining for years, and he just didn't seem like Dad anymore.  That's partly why I stopped making Hillbilly videos.  I did have a bit of a meltdown about it at the time, but now I'm just glad I took those videos.  They mean a lot to my whole family.

I want to say something mean and scathing about my former partner.  I can't.  Every time I try, it feels fake.  He left because he couldn't watch me do what I did to deal with my depression, and I can't blame him for that.  I should have been on anti-depressants a long time ago.  Too late, however... he's already partnered to somebody else.  I just hope his new guy will keep him happy, the pain I caused him needs to be undone.  There's a whole story there, but it doesn't need to be retold.

So, to fill the time void in my life now, I am going to update this geek blog with the regular... commentary on sci-fi stuff, comics, Dr. Who reviews, and other miscellaneous stuff.  I also want to work on some of the other mashups I've been contemplating for years.... the Beavis+Butthead vs. Pulp Fiction one, Star Trek; TAS vs. Shatner's She Blinded Me With Science cover, GI JOE vs. Village People megamix... Wish me luck.

In happier news, it seems Fox has given up policing their videos for user-created content, so my Buffy+Sheryl Crow The Body mashup is live.  Watch it if you're a fan.

When The Tripods Came... for him

a.k.a. his proper name, Samuel Youd

John Christopher, one of my favorite authors of the apocalypse fiction, has died.

I'm not going to recap his life... there are plenty of resources on the internet for that (although not nearly enough, in my opinion). I'm just here to express my grief on the loss of this author.

The Tripods

I guess I should just start out with what most people will be familiar with, his Tripods Trilogy (+1). Fanboys a little older than me probably read the first three books in grade school... they were common in libraries across the country. The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire tell of a world thrown back into the pre-machine ages, ruled by aliens who strode across the land in thrice-footed titans known as Tripods, who are also worshipped and loved by the populace thanks to a "cap" they place on humans upon reaching an agreeable age of maturity. Naturally, there are people who eventually rise up against this... the Freemen... and this is the tale of three young boys who join their camp and the fight against the tyranny of the Tripods.

Most of us either read these books in the school library, or the public library, or watched the BBC adaptations of the books on PBS and THEN read the books. That's how it happened for me. It didn't help that I had a crush on the actor who played Will (who looks disconcertingly like a young Paul McCartney).

This is the cover art from our library's copy.

I remember discovering the series on our local PBS channel, a branch of Kentucky Educational Television (KET), one Sunday morning. My brothers and even my sister were pretty captivated by it. Science Fiction? British? Sunday morning? Sign us up. Later I would see one of the books serialised in comic form in Boy's Life, but it was not as engrossing as the series. I sought out the books and of course raced through them, lamenting Henry's fate in the third book and eagerly awaiting the second series to see the alien Masters on screen.

In the 80s, for some reason, Youd penned a forth book, When The Tripods Came, a prequel telling of how the Tripods took over. They apparently used viral programming on television to do so, which was a bit prescient of how the internet would eventually help spiral popular things to the top of popular culture. When the internet finally started doing this, I noticed this similarity and thought it very peculiar. I wonder who really put that Hamster Dance online... Anyway, the book was a good chapter in the story, but it did feel kind of tacked on.... good, but unnecessary.

I liked how the books played as a comedy in the strictest terms, because, after the Masters were defeated and driven from the planet, humanity started its in-squabbling again. Oh humanity, will you ever learn? Yes, I view The Tripods ultimate as a comedy, in the strictest sense, because my actual favorite trilogy from Youd is very definitely a tragedy...

Art in the style of the Tripods, above...

It wasn't until I was an adult that I would come across many more John Christopher works. One that sticks with me is the Sword of the Spirits trilogy. It's a tragedy, in that our hero does not meet the best of fates at the end. Youd also manages to do something remarkable... he takes a likable protagonist, and through the course of three books, turns him into an absolute asshole without you really noticing it until the very end. Christianity also gets a very cold shoulder at first in the trilogy, being something to be ridiculed, but in the end it overturns the now-tyrant protagonist, who had become the aforementioned asshole. An awesome trilogy, with a very depressing end, that I can read over and over again.

The Lotus Caves

Youd wrote other stories as well, some quite well received, still. Probably the most famous is The Lotus Caves. It takes place on a Moon base. Humans are living there, squee, so it's already pretty fun from the start. Two boys hijack a go-cart and have an adventure in the moon mountains, only to discover a hidden cave where a Hive mind lurks, wanting to soak them in. Pretty gripping stuff for youngsters, lemme tell you.

But I don't think anything compares to his apocalyptic novel, No Blade of Grass.



I came across this very edition in a used paperback store in Lexington, KY, for only two bucks. I was elated when I realized what I had found... a JC novel I'd never read and knew nothing about... I knew I'd eat it up in mere days.

Kind of ironic, because the book is about the world starving to death. All grain based plants... meaning, most of them, fall ill to a virus, and the story follows a group of survivors trying to make it to one of their relatives' farms to live off of potatoes. The depravity they have to endure along the way is astonishing, when you consider when the book was published. It's my favorite John Christopher book of all, I have a first edition in storage even.

Anyway, it's not like I thought that he was going to write another book, but it is sad that he is gone. I wish they'd finished the Tripods on BBC for him.

Doctor Who Preview, The Wedding of River Song

It could just be Dress Like a Pirate Day...

(clicky the pic to embiggen)

So the Doctor Who fandom is having shouting matches all over the internet (I must say, polite ones) about theories on the Season 6 finale, and some of the theories make sense and others make my Flesh-boot Doctor seem genius.

Take the above photo. many questions are raised, such as:

1.) Why do River, Amy, and Rory all have Madame Kovarian eye-patches? What are the eye-patches for?

eye-patches are cool, that's why.

2.) Why are the Greys (not sure what to call them now since the race isn't really called The Silence or Silents) submerged in a tank of (presumably) water while all the other ones are running around free?

I'm moisturizing AND I'm doing the dishes... at the same time!

3.) What's up with Rory's get up here? Is this like an alternate time-line version of Rory, like the Micky who worked for an alternate universe's Torchwood?

Super-Rory? UNIT Rory? G.I. Rory? Hot Role-Play Rory?

4.) Are you seriously trying to get us to believe that the Doctor doesn't know how to knit already? What's he need anyway, a cozy for his sonic?

OMG They have a Hello Kitty section!

5.) But I think the most exciting is this photo, which really seems to bring it home that the Doctor ain't messin' about this time...

Hmmm. Well I think after the last episode's finale, everybody's pretty much agreeing that the eye-patch thing must be a way to circumvent the effect the Grey Silents have on you. Other footage from the show seems to suggest a splintering of time, with lots of historical events happening at the same time... as if all of history is taking place in the present. Hence the pterodactyl, the future pyramid thingy, the Romans still being around, and it'd even explain (kinda) how Dorium the merchant returns after being decapitated, but I bet they're going to explain that away with something cuter, like his race doesn't keep anything important like a brain in their head.

All in all it looks to be a very curious episode and could be incredibly good or incredibly awful. Just so long as it's not incredibly average.

Doctor Who Review: Closing Time

Closing Time was a pretty good return to form.

Next week, the Doctor travels to Lake Silenci...

...mmm? Yes, I know it's not much of a review, but while the show was good, it wasn't really much of a show was it? It was... good. It's like when I gave up reading Ultimate Spider-Man. It's not that it was bad... it was just more Ultimate Spider-Man. This was more Doctor Who, more of the character of Craig Owens...

he has a profile on biggercity.

Oh okay. So in the previous Craig Owens episode, chubby chasers finger-banged their poop-holes for an hour over James Corden, who portrayed The Lodger mentioned in the title, with his slight fuzz and chubby cheeks and omghessocute... Well. I gotta admit he's a nice looking fellah, but I've never been one to understand getting your panties all bunched up about movie and TV stars. Well in Closing Time, all those fanfic slash people who wrote about Craig and the Doctor hooking up so that one of them could sonic the other right in his TARDIS probably lost control of their bowels during this scene:

their love is so pure.

...in which the Doctor and Craig have instantaneously been transported into the Cybermen's lair only Craig doesn't realize it yet so the Doctor tries to distract him by feigning a sexual and love interest in his friend and asking if he could kiss him and kind of being absolutely dirty about it. I imagine their bladders also emptied when Craig didn't really fight him all that much.

Personally, the thought of snogging Matt Smith kind of makes me gag, but whatever, I've had worse I guess.

their crotches are really close there.

So they beat the Cybermen and the Doctor gives Craig and his annoying girlfriend (who are NOT married and have a baby, living in SIN) a new living room suite as a goodbye gift.

And then we get to the really good part of the show: one word... spoilers.

River Song, i.e. Melody Pond, Amy's daughter. We did see her parents in this ep, as the Doctor hid from them as Amy signed an autograph for a small fan. Why is she famous? She's the model for a line of perfume, for the woman who's tired of waiting. Cute. Anyway, River's just received her doctorate in (presumably) archaeology, when Madame Kovarian (sp? who the fuck cares) pays a visit. And is it just me, or does Madame Kovarian look like Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager?

separated at birth?

Anyway, my thoughts that maybe it was really Future Amy from the Girl Who Waited ep who was really in the astronaut suit was shot out of the sky, as MK and the greys (I guess we can't really call them the Silents or the Silence anymore) put River in it to set up the next episode.

BUT. I still have a theory. It's not really the Doctor who gets killed.

WELL... it is, but it's not. It's a Flesh doppleganger.

I know, I know... this is not a new theory. But what is new about it is how the Doctor-ganger survived his fate. I know plenty of fans think it's this fake doctor from the Rebel Flesh two- parter earlier in the season:

bowties are cool.

So we all think that the Doctor Two (I think that's cuter than Doctor-ganger) sacrifices himself at Lake Silencio so the real Doctor can live. But why? And how did the Flesh Dr. get there when we saw him discombobulate? And where is the Doctor's TARDIS in the first ep? And why was he driving an Edsel? Here, dear Dr. Who fans, are the answers to all of those questions.

1.) The Edsel is the TARDIS. The Doctor fixed the chameleon circuit for just this adventure. After all, a police box was a very British thing... if he was going to "die" in America, he'd need an American icon, and the Edsel is as good as any other transport... distinctly American, a thing out of time. And pretty fucking good looking too.

2.) Why does Doctor Two sacrifice himself? Because of two reasons. A.) the Doctor would, for him, in his place, but B.) because the universe needs to believe the Doctor is dead. So his huge legend dies with him and he is no longer a being who can stop a fleet of attacking invaders with a little speakerphone like he did at Stonehenge with the Pandorica.

3.) How did the Flesh Doctor survive? His shoes.

Remember, they changed shoes so they could fuck with Amy Pond and figure out more about The Flesh and her signal to it. They never changed back, did they? And those shoes the real Doctor were wearing were part of Doctor Two, and each cell of the Flesh contained his whole structure and stuff... you know, like stem cells. That one captain of the humans in The Rebel Flesh said that the Flesh can grow, it's cells can divide. The Doctor kept the shoes, put them in a safe place in the TARDIS, and regrew Doctor Two.

BOOM. Did I freak you out? ARE YOU TRIPPING BALLS NOW?

Anyway, we'll all find out next week when The Wedding of River Song airs... I'll hopefully be watching it from Missouri with Dale.