Doctor Who - Time Heist

Clara was glad this heist came along when she was dressed
for Reservoir Dogs night at the club, rather than disco fever.

Doctor: I know one thing about the Architect. What is it that I know about the Architect? I know one thing, something that I’ve known from the very start.

Clara: What?
Doctor: I hate him! He’s overbearing, he’s manipulative, likes to think that he’s very clever. I hate him! Clara, don’t you see? I hate the Architect!

The Doctor has a mission he can not refuse (unless he could have done, but didn't): To rob the unrobbable bank. There is something in the Bank of Kalabraxos that he needs to steal,  but he doesn't know what it is. He doesn't even know why he's doing this; he only knows that he agreed, and that the TARDIS isn't around.

Don't you just love a good memory wipe?

The Good

• A good, old-fashioned heist with some excellent timey-wimey gives the Doctor a much-needed chance to be actually large and in charge, rather than setting him up for a put-down.
• The fast-paced heist and the rapid progression of revelation and pay-off surrounding the abilities and needs of the other half of the crew made good use of the running time for once.
• The story isn't tied into the arc at all, and it kind of serves as a reminder of why arc plots aren't always good. It was actually pretty refreshing to just have a one off.
• The Teller was an excellent monster, a fun play on words, and capped off with a tragic reveal. Love it.

The Bad

• The terminal firing bit has been done to death. The same could be said of the scifi bank job, but that schtick never gets old.
• On the same note, the monster just looking for its lost/imprisoned love is another callback to 'Hide', but it's not too glaring and the set-up surrounding it is quite different (the other is a deliberate captive and hostage, rather than just being trapped.)

The Ugly

• This episode has no outstanding ugly. Yay!

Theorising

• "I hate the Architect!" - I quite like the idea that the Doctor on some level hates himself for surviving all that he has and anyone else hasn't (a la the Dream Lord in 'Amy's Choice'), but I now have the fear that Missy will turn out to be another aspect of the Dream Lord persona.

Top Quotes

• Doctor: Are you taller?
  Clara: Heels.
  Doctor: What, do you have to reach a high shelf?
  Clara: Right, gotta go, gonna be late.
  Doctor: For a shelf?
• Doctor: Question one – Robbing banks is easy if you’ve got a TARDIS. So why am I not using it?
  Clara: Question two – Where is the TARDIS?
  Doctor: Okay, that probably should be question one.
• Psi: Still don’t understand why you’re in charge.
  Doctor: Basically, it’s the eyebrows.

The Twelfth Doctor
"What do you think of the new look? I was hoping for minimalism, but I think I came out with magician."

So, this Doctor is shaping up to be highly pragmatic (see also 'Into the Dalek'), willing to let someone die when he can't stop it rather than making a wild - often futile - throw. He calls himself a magician, but there's a stronger air of Derren Brown about Twelve; a manipulative streak beneath his almost autistic exterior*.

The Verdict
So, here's a thing: When it works, when the balance is equal, the badinage between Clara and Twelve is beautiful; it just falls down when Clara is given the whip hand, because when push comes to shove this is Doctor Who, not the Clara Oswald show, and I hold to my position that making a given companion too super-special is bad. The companion is the space into which we the audience insert ourselves, and a) how can we if Rose/Amy/Clara is sooo irreplaceable, and b) why would we if the Doctor is a complete pill?

In this episode, for my money, they got it right. They also cracked that pacing thing, and steered clear of too much arc plot (brief mention re. the telephone in the TARDIS, which apparently still isn't redirected to the console). The supporting characters were involving and likable - or hateable, as needed - and the episode managed a strong pace and a satisfying conclusion.

This one, I liked. It falls short only on arc integration (I know, I know; I liked that it didn't get all arc-y, but the arc is here to stay it seems, so it remains a factor in my final score, although not in my gut response.)

8/10

* For an examination of the Doctor's alien perspective and social blindness as a parallel to autism, see - or rather hear - 'The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Nighttime' on the Sixth Doctor Big Finish release Breaking Bubbles and other stories

Doctor Who - Listen

...Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?

"Question: why do we talk out loud when we know we're alone? 

"Conjecture: because we know we're not."

The Doctor is having a theory day. He has become convinced that there is something in the shadows; something stalking every living creature and listening when they speak aloud and alone.

Snatching Clara from the jaws of the date from hell, he expounds his theory and sets out to track her own experience of a dream that everyone has in his attempt to uncover the truth of a camouflage more perfect even than the Silence. From a children's home to the most distant future, and back to the beginning of everything, they chase down the monster under the bed.

The Good

• The atmosphere is perfect; the creep factor is what last year's ghosts-and-future-time-travellers effort Hide was aiming for, but much more potent for the absence of special effects.
• The thing on Rupert's bed is creepy as all get out, and yet might just be a small child. A small child with a pathological commitment to his art as a joker that hints at a promising future in serial murder, but a small child nonetheless.
• Linking the Doctor's past to The Day of the Doctor was a nice touch. I know that there's a thing about them getting into Gallifrey's past, but I'm assuming that's because they were following Clara's timeline, which as we all know weaves like a mad thing through the Doctor's.
• I was initially disappointed that the reveal made something cosmic into something so slight, but in retrospect I realised that, actually, the final scenes in the barn are both intimate and epic. They are an impossible thing that shapes universes, and perhaps provides the capstone on Clara's influence in the Doctor's lives.

The Bad

• There are many, many echoes of Hide here.

The Ugly

• Oh, help us the date! It was cringe-making, and failed to seem natural; from a writer whose big break came from the naturalistic awkward teen romance in Press Gang, this is disappointing.

Theorising

• What was outside the door at the end of the universe if what's underneath the bed is Clara? Well, allowing that what was in Rupert's room was just a lad, my suspicion is that that is the 'promised land'. Echoes of Utopia, although if Missy is the Master, then we can write that up as a tribute act, I guess.

Top Quotes

• The Doctor: You said you had a date. I thought I'd better hide in the bedroom in case you brought him home.
• Clara: It looks like your handwriting.
  The Doctor: Well I couldn't have written it and forgotten, could I?
  Clara: Have you met you?
• The Doctor: Scared is a superpower! Your superpower! There is danger in this room. And guess what? It’s you. Do you feel it? Do you think he feels it? Do you think he’s scared? Nah. Loser!
• Clara: If you’re very wise and very strong fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing under the bed or in the dark so long as you know it’s okay to be afraid of it.
• Clara: Fear makes companions of us all.*

The Twelfth Doctor
Apparently the Twelfth Doctor's understanding of human courtship and appearance is only slightly better than Strax's, but in his case this is because the new regenerative cycle has left him in many ways childlike.

The Verdict
Definitely the strongest episode of the series so far, Listen has atmosphere in bags and some good character work for Clara and Twelve. It's a little let down by the cringy date scenes, but other than that is pretty darn perfect. I would knock off points for the reuse of so many ideas from Hide, but the fact that this one does them universally better covers that multitude of sins quite nicely.

8/10

* I wish I could claim to have spotted for myself that this is a callback to An Unearthly Child, but I didn't.

Secretary

Recently released from psychiatric care, Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is seeking an escape from her family home. She finds it in employment as secretary to eccentric lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader), and as the relationship spirals rapidly beyond the professional it provides more of an escape than Lee could have expected.

Secretary is another of those films that I really ought to have watched ages ago. In this case, I didn't because so many people raved so much about it, I was worried they'd be disappointed if I hated it (which in the end, I didn't).

The film is described (by Wikipedia, at least) as an erotic romance, although it also has elements of romantic and/or sex comedy. The film neither glamourises nor scorns the central BDSM relationship of the film, instead painting it with good and bad tones. Grey's pervasive and self-destructive sense of shame at his own nature is clearly painted as the deviance here (alongside the requests of the self-styled sadists Lee meets later in the film), and the continuation of her unfulfilling relationship with her 'normal' boyfriend the only blameworthy act on Lee's part. In many ways, it takes a subject that expects to be treated as kinky and weird, or played for laughs, and instead makes a conventional romantic comedy of office relationships out of it.

The relationship itself is nuanced and well observed, and the balance of power within it is beautifully portrayed. The distance between the sneering accusation of 'submissive' by Edward's ex and the determined, controlled persona that submission actually brings out of Lee is tremendous. Much of the film's subtext relies on wordless moments, where a lesser film would throw in a bunch of voice over, but Gyllenhaal and Spader carry it with their bodies and faces alone, with Lee's ordeal presented throughout not as degradation, but as triumph.

If the film has a notable weakness, it is that it is too successful in normalising the central BDSM relationship, to the point that it sometimes seems to have lost its USP. It might also have had more punch when it was made, that being a dozen years ago now. It remains an excellent film, however, and one I am glad to have finally seen.

Edited to add: In a more recent discussion of the film, I suggested that it is a film about two very unhealthy people, who are unhealthy in large part because the world tells them that they are and forces them to conform and to hate themselves, who come together and ultimately forge a healthy relationship together.

Doctor Who - Robot of Sherwood

Doing the reviews a week late also makes it much easier
to find images.

The Doctor offers Clara her choice of outings in the TARDIS and, despite knowing that he probably isn't real, she chooses a visit to Robin Hood. The Doctor is dismissive, but no sooner has he left the TARDIS than the merrie outlaw (Tom Riley) is shooting at him.

In an unseasonably mellow Sherwood Forest, Robin and his outlaw band oppose the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Miller, gnawing through the scenery like a badger with the munchies), who is taxing the shit out of the locals, but despite my fears this is only in order to create circuit boards for a crashed spaceship from the future (theme!), and not to shoot Cybermen (although I'm sure they'll be along soon enough, mostly because they're on the series poster). It all ends with evil defeated and Robin and Marian (a sharp lass who helps the Doctor out when he's thrown into the dungeon) reunited , by way of a better musing on the nature of the Doctor as a hero than we got last week.

The Good

• The episode has a palpable sense of fun, there's no denying it.
• The idea that the Doctor has trouble believing in Robin Hood as a 'larger than life hero', just like the Doctor, is a better handling of the series theme (whether the Doctor is a good man, a hero, whatever) than last week's clumsy 'good Dalek' story.
• The idea that Robin laughs because otherwise he'd collapse into helpless floods of tears is actually kind of moving.
• Although she had a small role, so as not to tip their hand, Marian was proper feisty.

The Bad

• Robin is remembered as a legend, but not a man, yet the legend - or at least, the version Clara knows best - is spot on in every detail (except for the robots).
• The bickering between Robin and the Doctor is fun in places, but again robs the Doctor of some of his gravitas. Seriously, the point of scenes in which the Doctor is or seems childish was traditionally to offset the character becoming too serious or too authoritatian; if those scenes take up more than half of every episode, he just looks like a bit of a useless tit.

The Ugly

• Clara mocks the overuse of the sonic screwdriver; this is only okay if they stop actually overusing it (see also Day of the Doctor). If they do, I may move this, but for now, it's an ugly.

Theorising

• So, that's two time-travelling future spaceships to the promised land in three episodes. I have a bit of a theory forming, but I'll talk more about that next week when I discuss Listen, as it touches on stuff from that episode.

Top Quotes

• Robin Hood: I am many things but never that. Robin Hood laughs in the face of all.(laughs merrily and loudly)
  The Doctor: And do people ever punch you in the face when you do that?
  Robin Hood: Not as yet.
  The Doctor: Lucky I'm here then, isn't it?
• The Doctor: When did you start believing in impossible heroes?
  Clara: Don't you know?
• Clara: It is not a competition about who can die slower.
  The Doctor: But it definitely would be me, though, wouldn't it?
• Robin: History is a burden. Stories can make us fly.

The Twelfth Doctor
The Doctor is starting to come into focus a little more now, as a man who questions incessantly (represented by his blackboard scribbling, as well as his attempt to analyse the merry men out of existence), and questions himself more than anything. I think that the line from the first episode 'Who frowned me this face' is going to be important; somewhere between the Eleventh and Twelfth 'official' Doctors, the self-loathing which generated the Dream Lord from his subconscious seems to have crystallised into a desire to disprove his own purpose and invalidate his own actions.

The Verdict
Robot of Sherwood benefits hugely from following an underwhelming opening to the series. a promising concept is ultimately squandered on silliness - disappointing, as writer Mark Gatiss is usually much better at controlling the silliness in his scripts and making it work with the story - but where Deep Breath was a mess and Into the Dalek took itself rather too seriously, the joy and energy here were just what the Doctor ordered (although not this Doctor, because he's a bit of a misery at the moment).

In the long run, I don't think that Robot of Sherwood will ever count as more than fluff, but it's good fluff. It's the kind of episode I wouldn't mind sticking on of an evening if it's been a tough day and I'm in need of distraction, even if it's never going to be one of the classics.

6/10

A note on my rating system, as it's kind of arbitrary:

1-2 - Truly terrible; if I get the season on DVD, I'll be skipping this one.
3-4 - Some redeeming features, but overall either dull or offensive.
5-6 - Good ideas poorly executed, or weaker ideas beautifully realised.
7-8 - Good fun, atmospheric, clever and/or tying in well with the arc plot; at least two or three of the above.
9-10 - Liquid Who.

Doctor Who - Into the Dalek

The Doctor and soldiers. It's... complicated

Clara is still working at Coal Hill School - an arrangement which is likely to continue to disappoint me if they can't get William Russell in for at least a cameo - and making eyes at ex-squaddie Mr Pink, whose reaction to being asked if he ever shot a non-soldier and being called a 'lady killer' are highly suggestive of his tragic backstory. I fear that he may end up being controlled by the big bad in some fashion.

Meanwhile, back in the plot, the Doctor is called upon by human rebels to save the life of a Dalek that has decided all Daleks must die because their purpose is ultimately futile. This, apparently, is a 'good' Dalek, but the opportunity to explore whether simply wanting to wipe out the Daleks is in and of itself evidence of good is not followed up, and in place of any philosophical musings we get Fantastic Voyage the Dalek edition, with the Doctor, Clara and three soldiers shrunk down and sent in to repair the Dalek.

The Good

• Using the doomed soldier to save the others was a nice touch. Past Doctors might have warned him, and that this one rather chose to let him die hopeful was one of the few well-done character pieces for him this episode.
• Gretchen's sacrifice (a perfect example of why the Doctor's attitude was offensive; while he has never approved of a military first option, he has also never been dismissive of self-sacrifice.)
• The design of the ship interior and the atmosphere and effects of the battle.

The Bad

• The characterisation of Journey Blue, the hero resistance soldier, felt uneven, as she vacillated between supporting and condemning the Doctor.
• The story took a lot of its beats from Dalek, or even The Evil of the Daleks, in which a group of Daleks attempted to distill 'the human factor' and thus make more creative Daleks, and ended up returning their conscience (something which the Doctor forgot, apparently.)
• The failure to really address the distinction between hating Daleks and being good. It's touched on when the Doctor tries to provide the Dalek with a template from his own mind and just makes it hate Daleks, but since that's what has been defining 'a good Dalek' for the rest of the episode, it is a discordant moment for me.

The Ugly

• The Doctor's attitude to soldiers is as mercurial as Blue's attitude to him, and his stayed position here is frankly disrespectful of past companions. Harry Sullivan was a soldier; James McCrimmon was a soldier; Ben Jackson was a Navy sailor; Jack Harkness was a paramilitary time agent. The Doctor's best and most consistent friend for almost nine regenerations was the Brigadier, so to have him condemn all soldiers just to establish a forced emotional conflict with Clara over Danny Pink makes me angry.

Theorising

• Missy again, snatching people from the brink of death; apparently. I really don't want her to turn out to be a corrupt version of digital River Song living in the Doctor's screwdriver.
• I'm starting to feel that Moffatt has made it his mission to go too far the other way from RTD, and instead of building up the Doctor to be like unto a god he's almost tearing down the idea that the Doctor can possibly be real.

Top Quotes

• "It's smaller on the outside."
  "Yeah; it's a bit more exciting when you go the other way."

Verdict

Into the Dalek was pretty much what I was afraid it would be; a below-par episode trying to subsist on the touchstone of the Daleks. Despite a well-done battle sequence, they still aren't scary anymore, and I'm still not sure what happened to the New Paradigm. Did the toys really sell that badly?

The Twelfth Doctor is still a bit of a cipher, but his total antipathy to soldiers harks back to some of the less-positive memories of the Tenth Doctor. In fact, so far Twelve seems to be combining the whimsy of Eleven with the arrogance of Ten to produce almost a spoiled child. I guess that the idea is to show that despite the physical aging, this Doctor is almost a complete reboot, but it sits horribly uncomfortably with the fact that each episode seems to be shouting out to his depth of knowledge and experience.

The Doctor should be competent; that's why he gets to do what he does. Sometimes he should make mistakes, but at the point when he has to be corrected by his companion on a weekly basis, or is regularly making errors that cost lives, the audience begins to question why he has the slightest right to act as he does. In calling the Doctor's moral authority into question and not supporting it, the series undermines itself, because if the Doctor is actually a dangerously unstable sociopath with vast power at his disposal, then why aren't we watching a series about the hero trying to bring him down?

On the other hand, props if this Doctor actually turns out to be the Valeyard.

3/10

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

All these, and more...

It's a well-known fact that Marvel has it over DC in terms of the movies these days, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but ten years ago comics adaptations were all about the DC Animated Universe, a series of interlinked cartoon series which began with the nigh-perfect Batman the Animated Series.

After the end of the DCAU at the close of Justice League Unlimited, this must have placed a pretty hefty burden on anyone looking to make the next Batman cartoon. That series was actually The Batman, a far more conventional series, with toy-oriented gadgets and a less distinctive art style. It was not unsuccessful, but it was no Batman the Animated Series.

What followed the end of The Batman was something very different. Batman: The Brave and the Bold is usually described as a love letter to the Silver Age, a 'team-up' series characterised by four-colour heroics, an upbeat tone and a general air of silliness (with many plots, as well as characters, lifted directly from the pages of Silver Age comics.) It thumbed its nose at chronology, freely featuring Batman fighting Nazis in WWII, and made frequent use of time travel and alternate dimensions. It was wacky, it was joyful, it was a whole heap of fun.

Oh yeah; that happened. And then...

Halfway through season 2 came Chill of the Night, in which Batman is tempted to choose between justice and vengeance in confronting his parents' killer.

Dark and thoughtful, it was probably the shark jump of the series in the original sense (the shark jump is not the cause of decline in a show, but the high point to which it never ascends again). It was closely followed by The Siege of Starro and The Last Patrol, neither of which was short on dramatic punch. While it continued to be an excellent show, it certainly never matched this standard.

Season 3 was admittedly weaker, with aspects of the series becoming almost self-parody (barely an episode goes by without Batman referring to his fists as 'the hammers of justice'), and after only to and a half series the show wrapped up, to give way to Beware the Batman, a return to a more serious tone.

In its short run, BTBATB brought a real zip back to the Caped Crusader's mythos, and made Aquaman awesome again in the first time since... forever (which isn't entirely fair; the dude rules 2/3 of the planet and is stronger than pretty much anyone but Superman and Wonder Woman, but he gets treated like he's the Man from Atlantis.) It swiftly became one of my favourite things and looks set to remain so.

Believe

Delroy Lindo, Jake McLaughlin, Johnny Sequoyah, Jamie Chung, some guy and Kyle MacLachlan. Seriously, I don't know who that fifth guy is. At all.

First in a short series of reviews of the series I have watched this year that got cancelled right out of the gate is Believe, a paranormal conspiracy thriller created by Alfonso Cuarón and Markus Friedman, and exec produced by JJ Abrams.

William Tate (McLaughlin) is saved from death row by Milton Winter (Lindo) and his right hand woman Channing (Chung), in exchange for which he is asked to protect Bo Adams (Sequoyah, who despite her name is not a bounty hunter or professional riverboat gambler), a psychically gifted girl who is being sought by the federal authorities on behalf of Roman Skouras (McLachlan, not to be confused with McLaughlin). Bo is, it emerges, Tate's biological daughter, whose mother was killed by a biological breakdown caused by her own powers.

Bo is the most gifted, and the most stable psychic ever studied, capable of unconsciously recognising the feelings, needs, pasts and futures of the people that she meets. Tate is a damaged young man who lost the only good thing in his life when he got involved in a robbery that led to him being framed for murder and hasn't really matured since his late teens. Winter and Skouras represent different sides of science; Milton is driven, but still cares on a human level, while Skouras is absolutely focused on his goal, even when it manifests as a possessive and protective love for Bo.

In the half season that it got to run for, Believe established a solid premise. Interestingly, by the end it had effectively resolved a lot of the plot surrounding the main pursuit, apparently intent on settling into an old school hobo series vibe, reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk, The Fugitive, or even The Littlest Hobo, with Bo and Tate drifting into a new town every week and finding someone who needs their help. Tate had opened up and matured from the surly ex-con into a sympathetic fledgling dad, and Sequoyah managed to go thirteen episodes as a child prodigy without being a brat. Lindo and McLachlan provided the heavyweight support, and the only one who seemed a little lost was Chung, who as the muscle of Winter's organisation basically existed to nay-say Tate's suitability. She did have an episode to establish her history and purpose, but nothing further came of it. Without any other significant female leads, it was a shame that they did so little with her.

I'm sad to see it go, but in a way also glad not to have seen it falter and fall. I don't know if it would have made the transition to hobo anthology, and I guess I never will now.