Doctor Who - The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

Stetsons are cool!

Yes. I know. I've skipped over Series Five, but to be honest, I was VERY busy last year. Since I'm so far behind, I might as well push on to reviewing Series Six.

Moffat stated in DWM that he wanted this opening story to resemble a Season Finale, with a sense of epic scale. However, a Season finale usually answers questions whereas this two-parter poses them.

In the space of two episodes we get introduced to some shocking moments. The Doctor dies! Amy is pregnant! The Silence are revealled and there's a little girl who seems to be able to regenerate! All of these are fascinating but there's very little plot in between them. The Utah setting is simply a backdrop and really, the story could have been shot anywhere.

 

Matt Smith is now truly comfortable in the role of the Doctor, whether playing the tired and enigmatic future version, or the younger, more eccentric present version. His "don't take chances" speech was one of the best things he's ever said. It was like he was channelling William Hartnell or Colin Baker, a darker side to the Doctor.

 

Amy Pond seemed like a much more detailed character this time around. There were fewer quips and more moments of introspection. The moment where Amy made a promise on fish fingers and custard made it feel like there was a genuine bond between her and the Doctor. Rory Williams was perhaps less well utilized, since he spent most of the story being overcrowded by the more flamboyant Doctor, Amy and River.

 

I wasn't particularly looking forward to the return of River Song, but as with Amy, I found her much more interesting this time. She still says "spoilers" and flirts with the Doctor, but there are moments of genuine emotion when she tells Rory about the day she dreads.

 

Toby Haynes is back and continues to be a good director. The filming is excellant, I love the look of the Utah Lake with its strong orange deserts and clear blue waters. The scenes in the tunnels near the Silents' spaceship was suitably creepey.

In the end, what we have are a lot of good ideas, and a lot of good performances, but not much of a plot.

7/10

Doctor Who 2010 Christmas Special: A Christmas Carol

A spaceship is hurtling towards the surface of an alien planet! Amy and Rory are among the many passengers trapped on board! The only person who can save the ship is a bitter old man called Kazran Sardick, ruler of Sardicktown, and he just doesn't care.  Looks like he needs the Doctor!

Last year's Christmas Special, The End of Time was pretty doomy and gloomy so it's good to have a Christmas Special that is fun, frothy and simple. Steven Moffat promised us the most "christmassy christmas episode" and he certainly did his best. We get a vast planet of snow, and the Doctor building a snowman at the end. The actual story is a retelling of A Christmas Carol, with the Doctor showing Kazran his past in order to change his present. The Doctor and Kazran get to share Christmas dinner with a family and there's even a snowman at the end.

In spite of all the wonder and visuals, the story focuses on the life of Kazran Sardick, and the Doctor's timey wimey attempts in redeeming him. The Sci-Fi plotting was simple window dressing.  Like many Moffat episodes,  the story had fun with time paradoxes, but as they are focused on Kazran's life, they are character driven, unlike The Big Bang, which was concept driven. Some might complain that Moffat is reusing his time paradox trick too often. But then again, RTD repeated his invasion of earth trick, so what do you expect? All writers have their quirks and repetitions.

I've said it before, but Matt Smith continues to be brilliant in the role of the Doctor. Amy Pond wasn't in the episode much, but what I saw of her seemed okay. Her reaction to Kazran is nice, and one of the few occasions we see her empathise with a being on another world. Rory gets even less to say or do than Amy, so I can't really say anything about him at all.

The episode revolves around Michael Gambon's character Kazran Sardick. He is as you would expect from an actor of his calibre, very good indeed. Unfortunately, Katherine Jenkins had very little to do as The Abigail character was sadly lacking in personality, and seemed to exist as a mere love interest for Kazran, and a plot device to save the spaceship.

The design of this episode was great. Sardicktown looked like a wonderful city of steampunk. The only downside was the spaceship set, which looked like the kind of tacky rubbish you'd find in a 70s episode.

This was a fun little episode you can really enjoy while gorged on turkey and wine!

8/10

Next: America! A green eyed Ood! The Lodger Tardis! River Song naked! I want to see Series Six right now!!!

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Death of the Doctor

The Dream Team

We thought that Russell T Davies' time writing for the Doctor was over. Now he returns as a writer in a story that sees the Eleventh Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Jo Grant team up. 

This tale deals with grief. Sarah Jane has to come to terms with the idea that the Doctor may be dead. These scenes are sad and really get across the idea of how people cope with grief. Fortunately she is not alone, batty old Jo Grant appears, like a crazy old relative, bringing much needed humour and levity at a sad time. 

It is not long before the Eleventh Doctor himself turns up, having been stranded on an alien planet by the Shansheeth. You can tell that Matt has clearly grown into the role of the Doctor. He can stand with two older ladies and still seem like he's older than both of them. 

Although there are three major Doctor Who juggernauts, the Bannerman road kids  do not get overshadowed. Finn Jones' Santiago felt slightly shoehorned in. He didn't actually contribute anything. Even the Groske contrinuted more. Some people might have found him easy on the eye but that doesn't excuse a slightly superfluous role. I suppose he was there to make the Sarah Jane gang seem more impressive. 

This was ultimately a quite uplifting piece. It ends with Sarah Jane ruminatingon the success of previous companions. It's a far more optimistic tone than The End of Time, and that is how it should be. 

Despite being a Doctor Who fan for many years, I never really got into The Sarah Jane Adventures I think the kid's show moniker put me off. However, with this series I've started taking an interest. Perhaps it is a show worth sticking to after all.

9/10

The Dark Knight (2008)

Although Batman Begins proved that Batman could be made to work again on the big screen, it was The Dark Knight that really cemented the popularity of the Nolan series.

In this film, Batman and Gordon team up with Harvey Dent in a plan to bring down organised crime in Gotham City. They almost succeed but soon the Joker starts causing trouble. The Joker's plans get worse and worse including the death of Rachel Dawes and the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face. The plot draws on elements of  The Killing Joke and The Long Halloween to create its own plot.

Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne although his Batman voice continues to be unintentionally funny in certain scenes. The new costume he wears is slimmer and ,much better looking than the bulky affair he wears.

Gordon fares better in this film as the head of the Major Crimes Unit. Gary Oldman is good in the role. The character is less exciting than the others but he needs to be the reliably good cop.

The character of Harvey Dent is far better than the version in Batman Forever. Aaron Eckhart is great in the role, succeeding in the role of a good guy turned evil in a way that Hayden Christensen didn't quite manage as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.

Of course Heath Ledger as the Joker is phenomenal. This is certainly the scariest Joker with his obsession with standard blade weapons.

Rachel Dawes is back but dies off. Maggie Gyllenhal is good as the character. The decision to kill the character off is a wise one, though if they make a sequel they'll need more female characters

There are plenty of memorable characters. Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth and Morgan Freeman as Lucious Fox provide moral and technical support to our hero. On he villains side there is also Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni as well as a nice cameo of Cillian Murphy returning as the Scarecrow.

At one point in the film, the Joker tells Batman that he has changed things forever. That is as much of an apt description of the film. It has taken risks and other superhero films must up their game to catch up.

10/10

Batman Begins (2005)

There was a general sense that Batman and Robin had brought the Batman film franchise to a screaming halt. Aside from a turgid Catwoman movie in 2004, there was nothing Batman related to watch on the big screen until 2005. That was the year that Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins came along and brought the character back into popularity.

The film follows Bruce Wayne as he meets Henri Ducard joins the League of Shadows, a ninja organisation run by a mysterious Rhas a Ghul, and learns how to fight crime. As this happens there are several flashbacks to the murder of the Wayne parents. In contrast to Tim Burton's Batman, this script by David S. Goyer gives us the full details of how Bruce was shaped into Batman. It's a good way of reintroducing the character.

When Bruce realises that Rhas a Ghul expects him to kill, he instead burns down the League's Bruce  rescues Ducard and returns to Gotham City and we build up to the appearance of Batman. The construction of the suit and Bruce's motivation was shown in painstaking detail. As Bruce he adopts a playboy persona and reunites with his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes. He also gets gadget advice for Lucious Fox. As Batman he teams up with Commissioner Gordon.

The final act of the film sees Batman facing the big threat. He soon faces the Scarecrow's fear gas and that leads into fighting Henri Ducard revealled to be the real Rhas a Ghul. Although the League of Shadows try to destroy Gotham with gas, Batman defeats them.

Christian Bale's portrayal of Batman is decent enough. It is a pity that the growling voice is a little too over the top. The suit is bulky but effective.

Gary Oldman is good as Jim Gordon, having the same weathered look as the character did in Frank Miller's Year One. Michael Caine's take on a cockney Alfred is a good take on the character. The only weak link is Rachel Dawes who feels like the obligatory love interest. It is a shame that she is not a more interesting character in herself.

The villains are fairly low key. Cillian Murphy is a decent Jonathan Crane and Scarecrow. Liam Neeson is well cast as Henri Ducard, and Rhas a Ghul.

To say that Batman Begins is realistic would be inaccurate. This is a film with an army of ninjas trying to upset the city's economy and then release a gas to turn everybody mad. It would be more accurate to say that this is a James Bond style universe. It is a very successful film and brought the bat back into fashion.

8/10

Doctor Who: The Big Bang

Last week's episode, The Pandorica Opens ended on several exciting cliffhangers . The Doctor's old enemies had teamed up against him and trapped him in the Pandorica. The Tardis had exploded. Amy had died. The Universe was destroyed. Having raised the threat level as far as it could go, Steven Moffat has no choice but to bring it back down. The cliffhangers were resolved in a fairly dull way.. How did the Doctor escape the Pandorica? Through Rory using the Sonic Screwdriver. How did Amy survive being killed? The Pandorica suddenly is a life preserving device.   How did River escape the exploding Tardis? The Doctor simply teleported in to rescue her. The one question we didn't get an answer to was the identity of the party that blew up the Doctor's Tardis.

The Big Bang  is, unusually for a finale, small in scale. The main focus is on a museum where the Doctor, Amy, Amelia, Rory and River run around, trying to find a way to reboot the universe and evade the one surviving Dalek in the universe. It wasn't a direction I was expecting Steven to take us, and I admit to being a little disappointed that we didn't find out who was pulling the strings behind this whole incident. It seems we must wait a while before we find out the identity of the mysterious voice was that drew the Tardis off course.

It was nice to see little Amelia back. The alternate universe with no stars was at least a fascinating idea. The Stone Dalek was a good look even if it was a fairly flimsy monster that had to recharge itself over time.

Matt Smith has been the best thing in this series. In many ways the show has relied on him when stories were not up to scratch. The scene where he says goodbye to little Amelia is heartbreaking as we see the old man in the Tardis.

I was disappointing that nothing was revealed about River. She is apparently scary enough to make a Dalek beg for mercy. I hope there's a good reason for this and it isn't just Moffat trying to make her look more impressive.

The other big moment in this episode was the wedding between Amy and Rory. . It is great that they will carry on travelling with the Doctor as we have never had a married couple as companions before.

Since the story focuses so much on the regular cast, other characters, such as Amy's Aunt Sharon get practically no development. Amy's parents appear briefly but they are not particularly memorable and I have no desire to see them come back. All in all, this episode was alright on its own merits but did not match up to the anticipation.

So, who is River Song? What caused the Tardis to explode on the day of Amy and Rory's wedding? And what is the mysterious Silence? These are questions that we will have to wait several months to find out.

7/10

Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens

The Pandorica Opens is almost the inverse of the previous season finale, Journey's End. The latter story featured several old companions teaming up to save the universe from the Daleks. This time around, it is the old monsters who have teamed up to face a single Doctor/Companion team. The Pandorica of the title serves as a trap, an ultimate prison for the Doctor. 'The Pandorica Opens' did not refer to something getting out but the Doctor getting locked in. It was a nice bit of wordplay from Moffat.

Matt's Doctor is brilliant. This episode afforded him some great loud moments and also some great quiet moments. The loud moment highlight was his speech to the monsters from Stonehenge like a rockstar. I can imagine fans quoting that one for years. The quieter moment was when he contemplated the idea of miracles in the universe.

Amy Pond is a bit more likeable now that she has been reunited with Rory. She gets a good encounter with the husk of a Cyberman. It is good that her memory has come back. Her death was more funny than sad though.

River Song is back again and she had a cool introduction, pretending to be Cleopatra and manipulating a group of Romans into doing her bidding. She ends the episode trapped on an exploding Tardis but there is no doubt it is not the end. Could her final line 'I'm Sorry my love' mean that she is sorry she couldn't escape or was she sorry because she set off the explosion herself?

Another character return was Rory who is great as ever as the defender of Amy. He also has great chemistry with Matt's Doctor. He is revealed to be an Auton but I really hope that nex episode is not the end for the character.

The Pandorica Opens also boasted good set design. The underhenge was a good design. Overall Toby Haynes did a good job directing this episode.

Things certainly ended in a bad way for our heroes. With Amy dead, the Tardis exploding and the universe destroyed. Is there any hope? I will certainly be watching to find out.

7/10