Killjoys - 'A Skinner, Darkly'

Dutch wants a war, so it's time to get an army.

I say army; it's more of a logistical support corps.

With Johnny still on the lam and a data retrieval mission going bad due to lack of technical savvy, Turin decrees it is time to get a new brain. Thus he digs up three of the RAC's finest lab rats and sends them on a mission with Team Dutch to determine if they've got the stuff. The mission in question takes them into a facility where a contagion is on the loose. With all five infected and terminal sterilisation protocols in effects, the nerd squad will have to come good to get them out alive.

Meanwhile, Johnny gets Olli checked out – after asking the barkeep those pointed questions - and finds that her 'kill switch' was triggered. Learning that the false-faced assassin had received treatment from a rejuvenation clinic, our intrepid pair infiltrate and learn that the clinic is killing and skinning hackmod owners, in order to allow mods to wear their skins. The skins are preserved with plasma, which is of course of great interest to Johnny. Clara's friend Yuki, who works at the plant, warns them off, revealing that Olli is Clara, with her memory blocked and her face changed due to scheduling conflicts. They meet with Yuki later, but one of her mods emits a pulse that disables all of the hackmods in the bar, leaving Johnny to be captured so that Niko can infiltrate the RAC by giving someone his face.

Dutch's mission goes further south when bio-nerd Zeph sacrifices herself to complete the mission objective. The whole thing is revealed to be a simulation, and Zeph alone fails Turin's test by not getting out alive. She insists that she knew it was a simulation, but Turin is not interested, dismissing her and recruiting the two tech nerds to the fight. Dutch, however, finds Zeph at the Royale and tells her that she needs biologists to fight the Hullen.

"Let me tell you about my mother..."

Niko reveals to Johnny that she plans to destroy the hackmod owners and their factory using her skin-grafted infiltrators and the properties she is discovering in the plasma. Olli busts into the clinic and fights Niko. It's a close fight, but Johnny escpaes the surgical chair using his laser finger and calls in the other hackmods to shut Niko down. Johnny retrieves Niko's list of plasma sources and heads back to the Quad, leaving Clara/Olli to continue the fight for a hackmod homeland at the far end of the Jay.

As Dutch welcomes Johnny home, Delle Seyah revives in a ship, where she is taken to meet Aneela.

I have to say, I'm not loving that Karma Houdini at the end, although from her attitude Delle Sayah knows that she's not come up smelling of roses. Normally in control of every situation, faced with Aneela she's basically bricking it, and that's something. Olli/Clara is a pretty fair replacement for Stephanie Leonidas, and Niko subverts the classic femme fatale tropes of her look by being her own brains and muscle. Zeph looks like being a good addition to the team, although her male competitors are pretty forgettable. Also, she might be a mole; always so hard to say.

All of which pales beside the heartfelt reunion of Johnny and the team (I would say Johnny and Dutch, as the Brothers Jaqobis are sort of 'sup', but there's also Lucy to consider, who informs Jonny that if she could cry, she would be rusting.) Yay!

Doctor Who - Jodie Whittaker, the 13th Doctor

I'm actually a little sad this is just a placeholder outfit. It's got a lot going for
it.

"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."

- The Fourth Doctor predicts the internet

So, there's a new Doctor in the TARDIS, and it's a woman. Naturally enough, the internet has exploded with comments ranging from 'the Doctor has always been male' to 'BBC PC liberal agenda' to 'I look forward to seeing this fail the way Ghostbusters 2016 failed'. Particularly popular, with each commenter presumably imagining themselves to be original, are: 'What next, James Bond as a woman(1)', and 'I'm not sexist, but...'

Special mention to the individual who expressed the hope that now that the lead in this family show was a woman, the Doctor would be flashing her bits in the TARDIS. Keeping it classy, internet.

So anyway, as an outspoken would-be superfan, here's my take on the casting decision that has propelled Whittaker past Foster as 'most frequently searched Jodie on Google.'

A female actor paying the Doctor(3), and why not? Seriously, the only even slightly convincing argument I've seen is that the Doctor was one of a small number of positive, non-violent role models for boys on television, although anyone who's been paying attention lately would have a hard time mistaking the Doctor for a role model as Steven Moffatt set out to remodel him as a dangerous, amoral, petty lunatic. Besides, if we don't have the Doctor, there's always the companions, as I'm sure women who have complained about the lack of a female Doctor have been told for decades.

I have no problem in-universe either. Based on regenerations that we have seen, it's apparent that Time Lords tend towards a given gender, but can fluctuate (the Master always went male except Missy, the Doctor always male until now, whereas the General in 'Hell Bent' is clearly relieved to be back to her more accustomed female form. I get the feeling that the Corsair was more fluid than most, but we really have no evidence. No, there is no in-universe issue with the Doctor being a woman.

"Everyone hates her. Not because she's a woman, but because she sucks."

The main worry I have now is the same one I had about Wonder Woman. Jodie Whittaker is now the test case for a female Doctor, and by extension for anything outside the white male mould. After several seasons of hit and miss stories and twelve years of the still problematic 45-minute single-episode story model you didn't see anyone protesting the casting of Peter Capaldi on the grounds that 'no white man could ever be the Doctor', but if they fuck up Whittaker's freshman year that's the takeaway re casting anyone else. This coming season needs to be gold, and that's a tough demand when you consider that this must surely be the aim every year. On the upside, we have a new incoming showrunner, and traditionally the first year of a nuWho showrunner's residency has been a humdinger. RTD gave us the Ninth Doctor, and Moffatt the excellent freshman of Eleven. It wasn't until later in their runs that the good began to be overtaken by the self-indulgent claptrap(4), messianic bullshit or incomprehensible deconstructive assassination of the main character. If Chibnall can come in with an equally strong opening, with good writing by good writers, then we could be looking at something to convince all but the most diehard naysayers(5).

And what about the Doctor herself? Well, that's going to be fiddly. The fact that the 13^th Doctor is a woman can neither be the be all and end all of her characterisation, nor a purely cosmetic thing, although for my money it should tend towards the latter. At all costs, they should avoid the route taken by Exile of making the female Doctor a joke(6). She needs to tap into a previously underexplored node of the Doctor's core personality, but whatever her script is, it should on some level work for almost any Doctor, give or take a few mannerisms and catchphrases. She needs, above all, to be the Doctor, as difficult a thing as that is to get hold of in these days of Time Lords Triumphant and self-loathing hissy-fits. They should probably steer clear of making her the empathic Doctor or the nurturing Doctor, and conversely avoid anything too cold and prim.

"It's someone else's gun. Loophole!"

If I were going to write this(7), I would go for something in a compassionately pragmatic Doctor, willing to go the extra mile for a stranger, but able to make a hard choice when needed(8). I'm inclined towards the Bakers for a characterisation guide, big and bold, yet capable of quiet intensity and introspection, but that might just be the coat in the trailer. Oh, but definitely not RP. It's well established that lots of planets have a north, so let's stick with that. She should be physically able, but non-violent. There's precedent for a violent Doctor from Pertwee and both Bakers, and even Davidson a little, but nuWho has – I think wisely – steered towards a characterisation that avoids physical conflict most of the time. The 13th Doctor should stick to that. I'd like to see problem solving and improvisation; quick wits and incisive intelligence, and the kind of understanding of people that you should have after millennia moving among them and involving yourself in their lives. And less sonic, but definitely still a screwdriver(9).

And most of all, I want them not to fuck it up. I want for this incarnation of the Doctor to be as beloved as any other; more so than some, I dare say.

(1) Or as we like to call it, Atomic Blonde. Now, I have an idea: James Bond as a decent excuse for a human being(2). Now there's radical.

(2) Male or female; there are women called James.

(3) I prefer this to 'a female Doctor', as the latter suggests a gimmick.

(4) There is a definite case to be made in probably all art for not allowing the creative mind to get comfortable. I'm sure I'd write more if I didn't have the day job. On the other hand, I have a daughter to support, so the day job isn't going anywhere.

(5) And let's be honest, you're never going to convince someone whose stated position is 'I have never watched Doctor Who, but this is a betrayal of all the series means and another sign of the liberal PC rot in British society.'

Now there's an idea for the next round of Start to Finish...

(6) Exile was the sixth Doctor Who Unbound audio play, and saw the Doctor switch gender after committing suicide to force a regeneration and avoid the Time Lords at the end of 'The War Games'. As a woman, the Doctor hid out on Earth, numbing her mind with alcohol and working at a Tesco. That she was a woman wasn't the core of the joke, but we still ended up with a female Doctor who was a joke. She finally got to become the Doctor she should have been all along at the end of the play, moments before it was heavily implied she was tricked by the Time Lords into triggering her own destruction by seeking to evade imprisonment within her own TARDIS, which was one hell of a tonal whiplash.

(7) Chris? Chibbers? Email, yeah?

(8) And, vitally, to make a hard call even when it impacts on her companions. Being able to sacrifice strangers is callous; being able to sacrifice yourself is noble; being able to sacrifice a friend to save strangers, and to live with it, is heroic. Not that I'm saying they ought to throw a companion under the bus, but to show the Doctor willing would not only emphasise a different aspect of the character than nuWho's more typical irrational, overriding love of the companion, it would also create an interesting new Doctor-companion dynamic if they knew what had almost happened.

(9) Okay, I could live with a variation on the 11^th Doctor's used-once sonic cane made from the handle of Missy's umbrella, but if they switch the sonic to a 'girly' accessory then I'll rage quit. Sarah Jane's sonic lippy was her thing, and was something that no-one would think to confiscate because she was a sneaky, undercover journalist. The sonic screwdriver is a tool, not a spy gadget.

Castlevania – Season 1

"I don't care."

A young woman begs Dracula to teach her medicine, and to come out of the shadows to teach humanity to be better; to escape the bonds of superstition and ignorance. Some years later, she is burned as a witch by a tyrannical priest, unleashing Dracula's fury upon all of Wallachia.

After giving a year's grace to clear out, in order to properly raise an army from hell, Dracula sets about his dread work, unleashing nocturnal beasts upon the towns and cities of Wallachia. In the city of Gresit, itinerant former vampire hunter Trevor(1) Belmont falls in with a group of Speakers – nomadic oral historians and occasional magicians – who have been accused by the Bishop – the same who burned Lisa Tepes(2) – of bringing down the demonic infestation by being insufficiently god-fearing. Trevor protects the Speakers and fights the Bishop's clerical leg-breakers. Then he and Magician-Speaker Sypha Belnades lead the townsfolk against the attacking demons, before falling into the catacombs of the wandering Castle Dracula and waking Dracula's son Adrian(3) from his slumber to aid them in the destruction of his father.

And that's it. Just four episodes in this opening season of Netflix new animation. Atmospheric, dark, and packed with as many f-bombs and sassy comebacks as they could get Richard 'Thorin' Armitage to set to audio, it's pretty damn good. The cast is excellent, although Armitage is the clear standout just because he has the best writing. Everyone else is pretty sobre and serious, but Belmont gets to snark like a boss. Armitage is a really good straight actor, but for full value you really need to let him sass a bit, and this show lets him roll. The line 'Ask your floating vampire Jesus' is one for the ages.

 

"Fine. We'll do the badass walk, but I still don't care."

While overtly anti-clerical, deep down the series reserves its scorn for false shepherds. The Bishop is dedicated not to God's work, but to his own glory, and reminiscent of Pratchett's Deacon Vorbis. His acolytes are bruisers and assassins in clerical garb, and the one 'proper' priest is genuinely able to bless water so that it burns demons. This is much more interesting than just dismissing religion altogether.

Anyway, that was all there was so far. A longer Season 2 is expected next year. I just hope they keep the cast intact.

(1) A good, solid Wallachian name.

(2) Yes, as a married woman she went by 'Mrs the Impaler'.

(3) Another fine Wallachian name, although he also goes by Dracula's favourite impenetrable alias, Alucard.

Killjoys - 'Boondoggie'

Negotiations for the new series went as well as could be expected.

Have your levels of space-bound sass and swagger been getting a bit low of late? Well, worry no more, because the Killjoys are back.

Well, that's sort of true. Dutch and D'av are present and correct, still in their rocky alliance with RAC superior Turin and forming a supergroup with Fancy Lee, Alvis and Pre, to root out infiltrators from the Hullen(1) and prevent the conquest of the Quad by the green goo monsters. Unfortunately, although he is feeding them locations for goo pools, Johnny is not back with the team. Still on the run following the murder of Delle Sayer, he is separated from Clara (probably because Stephanie Leonidas landed a featured gig on Mockney TV spin-off Snatch) and left with new face Olli and Alice, Clara's good arm, now attached to Olli. He does still have Khlyen's dope ride, at least.

Dutch and D'av kidnap a fixer named Pippin, also known as 'the Mouth', to help them retrieve a chemical beacon sent from allies outside the Quad to identify the Hullen infiltrators. Now, this is one hell of a thing to just drop into the first episode of the season, but it turns out to be a bluff. The beacon flushes out the infiltrators because the Mouth is just indiscrete enough to tip off a group of sixed agents, who turn up to arrest the team and thus give them the opportunity to a) prime and collect some more plasma-killer to take out the pools, and b) be all kinds of sassy badass.

"And I shall call my good finger 'Steve'."

Meanwhile, Johnny bonds with Olly as he explains that he and Clara were planning to take out the Factory; the industrial plant which creates hackmods. They find out that Rat City, a hackmod sanctuary, is increasingly unsafe, and Johnny is given a mod of his own – a tiny lightsabre in his finger which makes him incredibly chipper – as the price of leaving a hackmod bar alive. The barkeeper also insists on giving Olli's mods a once over. Later, a supposed contact dummies Johnny away while a mysterious assailant comes to take out Olli, but luckily this isn't Johnny's first rodeo(2). Less fortunately, Olli collapses for reasons unknown, although I feel the barkeep maybe is owed some pointed questions.

Every time a beloved series returns, I worry that it's going to go tits up, but this is a promising opening for my current favourite space opera and inter-Librarians TV happy place. The humour is sharp, the action is cracking, and the characters are just the best. Within the space of the episode, Hanna John Kamen's Dutch is kicking arse, telling scary stories to scary people, and sitting cross-legged on her cabin floor working up a heartfelt conversation with Johnny's latest voicemail. Separating Johnny and Dutch is a bit of a risky play, since so much of the heart of the series rests on their relationship – Olli asks what his deal with Clara was 'fetish, wifey, non-sexual life partner' and he tells her that the latter would be Dutch – but this episode at least makes the separation play to strengthen the bond.

My one disappointment is the absence of Clara, who was awesome, but Olli is pretty good too, and has an immediate chemistry with Johnny as they share 'dark talk' and save each other's lives. She seems pretty eager to belong somewhere, and I hope that's tragedy and not infiltration, because I like her.

(1) And not, as I misheard last season, Holla.

(2) As ever, huge props to the series for remembering that Johnny is the least badass of a Killjoy crew that includes Dutch and D'av, not a wimpy tech diva.

Sense8 – ‘Who am I?’, ‘Obligate Mutualisms’, ‘Polyphony’ and ‘Fear Never Fixed Anything’

"Who am I? Do you mean where I'm from? What I one day might become? What I do? What I've done? What I dream? Do you mean ... what you see or what I've seen? What I fear or what I dream? Do you mean who I love? Do you mean who I've lost? Who am I?

"I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than, not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me."

Okay, so... I'll be honest, I didn’t; review the first three episodes of this series before because I figured we'd binge through the season and I'd do it in a oner. Then the news of the cancellation and unresolved cliffhanger hit and we lost momentum. Now there's the promise of a last hurrah and resolution, so... Here we go.

Season 2 of Sense8 retains much of the feel of Season 1, with our multicultural cluster of Sensates(1) each doing their own thing, but there's a much stronger arc feel, not least because three of our characters are deep into the arc so that their thing is arc thing.

Will and Riley are still hiding from Whispers, with Will playing cat and mouse as each tries to locate the other. Whispers pins them down to Iceland, thanks to an elaborate ruse with yoghurt and seagull soundtracks, while Will ultimately gets the drop on him, allowing the cluster to set up a meeting with one of his superiors. Unfortunately, Whispers reverses the advantage by murdering his boss after he makes a deal with the cluster, forcing them back on the run but leaving Will with actual blockers instead of heroin.

Never alone.

Capheus is going about his business, but having attracted the interest of a journalist has become quite a celebrity, even beyond his neighbourhood. He is approached to consider running for office, and while he protests that he is not a politician, he is told that people don't want a politician; they want a leader. He goes to the journalist, possibly for advice, but is driven off by her jealous colleagues, who hint that he is a fiction she created and crudely asserting that his interest must be carnal and is thus hopeless, because she is gay(2), leaving him a little adrift.

Wolfgang and Felix hover on the edges of a potential gang war, and are unexpectedly offered a club to run. The owner's secretary makes eye contact with Wolfgang and starts turning up naked and sexy in his brain, revealing herself as part of another cluster, one apparently aligned to some extent with BPO for protection. I practically punched the air when Wolfgang actually told his cluster-mates about this instead of keeping it as a pointless secret.

Kala remains somewhat disconnected, although her pharmaceutical knowledge is key to understanding the blockers, and she begins to discover not only that her father-in-law's religious intolerance is deep-seated and hateful, but that her husband is more interested in making delivery dates than providing good quality drugs.

I'd completely forgotten that Sun fought the same cop on a roof in her
underwear.

Sun is forced to escape from prison after her brother hires guards to murder her. She goes on the run with the old lady who killed her abusive husband, although her partner in crime then hands herself in so that Sun can get away. Sun goes into hiding with her old martial arts teacher, who is then visited by what seems to be an honest cop, who fought Sun in their student days and was roundly thrashed.

Nomi remains in hiding with Bug, doing the cluster's hack work, until Bug suggests a way around her problems. Reaching out to 'the Guy', he arranges a meeting in a cinema showing one of Lito's films (giving us a lovely scene in which Bug remotely fanboys at Lito,) with a contact who shows in a V for Vendetta mask and offers 'e-death' – Sense8's version of The Dark Knight Returns' clean slate – in exchange for an unspecified but non-tawrdy future favour. Nomi's records and warrants promptly vanish.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure everyone else in the bar just saw Lito neck eight
tequillas.

Lito's career founders as he is typecast as doomed, gay characters, causing him to reject an invitation to be president of the Sao Paulo Pride Parade. He also reminisces about one of his first gay lovers, a photojournalist who turns out to have been part of Angelica's cluster and a victim of BPO's purges. Lito returns to the bar from last season to drink shots with the cluster (not sure how that works to an outside eye) in part in memory of Jonas, who is killed having outlived his usefulness. The bartender tells him that Lito's kiss inspired him. He proposed to his boyfriend and they have enjoyed the best year of their life. This not only shows Lito what he can achieve as a gay actor, but propels the cluster into their next big act of rebellion.

Their last run at Whispers revealed how big the organisation is, which they realise means that there must be lots more Sensates out there. Thus, Riley agrees to DJ a gig for one of her old contacts, in order to put the message out. Three conspicuous figures – one in saffron robes, one some sort of biker and Sylvester McCoy in a Barber hat – see the gig, and Riley draws McCoy to 'visit' the stage, prompting him to flee, but getting their message out before she and Will escape along the Thames ahead of Whispers and his goons.

Man this season is a rollercoaster ride, with first the cluster and then Whispers getting the whiphand week by week(3). Next episode is going to be a downer by that pattern, but on the upside, Sylvester McCoy!

(1) Although this term is actually dropped for the most part in favour of 'homo sensorium'.

(2) She may well be, but the immediate read of this is 'won't sleep with us'.

(3) Or however often we manage to catch it.

Preacher - 'On the Road', 'Mumbai Sky Tower' and 'Damsels'

With American Gods wrapped up, Amazon fills the 'neo-mythic American road movie weirdly heavy on British acting talent' slot with the return of Preacher, which readers may recall as the slow-building story of a preacher with a dark past receiving a superpower of dubious origin and trying to save his town.

 

"Are we there yet?"

This season ain't like that.

Aside from anything else, the town of Annville was destroyed in the finale of Season 1, in large part thanks to the despair caused by Jesse Custer's failed attempt to get God on the phone. We open therefore with the aptly titled 'On the Road', in which we find Jesse, Tulip O'Hare and Cassidy embarking on their epic road trip to find God, as yet ignorant of the fate of Annville. Almost immediately, they are side-tracked by a police chase in grainy, grindhouse contrast to the tune of 'Come on Eileen'; because of course they are. Jesse uses the Word to disable the police, but then the literal cowboy from Hell shows up, blowing cops to red mist from a mile away.

 

"This sort of thing happens to us a lot lately."

Jesse takes the gang to visit an old religious contact. Mike, a stern preacher who locks his parishioners in a covered cage to help them deal with their addictions, has a weird and eclectic body of esoteric knowledge, and I'm looking forward to learning how he acquired it. He shows no surprise that god is missing, and sends them to a lapdance club, the owner of which professed to have met God. This key witness is killed by a stray gunshot when Cassidy gets into a fight after touching one of the dancers, but tells them that God didn't come for the girls; he came for the jazz.

Meanwhile, Mike is confronted by the cowboy, whom he knows – as do we, thanks to one of Preacher's trademarked whole-screen captions with accompanying hate-filled musical sting – to be THE SAINT OF KILLERS. Mike acknowledges that the Saint could force him to say where Jesse has gone, but stabs himself in the heart to keep that from happening. I guess we'll never know where he came by his knowledge.

 

Boom.

The Saint catches up with the gang and shrugs off the Word, as well as the assembled bullets and grenades of an adjacent not-the-NRA rally, and our protagonists flee another massacre to the 'Mumbai Sky Tower', hoping to get some answers from Fiore, who is shown in a short montage to have come to the titular casino resort to try to kill himself, only to be defied by his angelic nature until, finally, coming back from the dead becomes a career in which he is murdered on stage over and over again. He reveals that he and the late deBlanc hired the Saint, and his contempt when Jesse threatens him with the Word tips Jesse off that this is how the Saint is tracking him.

This series is weird, but good.

Having now learned – in an unexpectedly emotional scene – that Annville is gone, Jesse and Tulip contemplate marriage. Tulip, however, is reminded by a chance encounter(1) that she has problems of her own, in particular a crime boss named Victor. This prompts her to reject the cosy notion of forging a family with Jesse. Meanwhile, Cassidy is given two hours forty-five minutes to talk Fiore around, which he does in another montage, this one of a riotous drugs bender. Cassidy persuades Fiore to call off the Saint, only for Jesse to fuck it up by refusing to give up the Word. To call the Saint, he orders Fiore to 'find peace', which they angel does by engaging the Saint to kill him while keeping him on Jesse's trail(2).

Next stop is New Orleans, which Tulip is less than happy about, but seems the logical place for God to find jazz.

 

It's that man again.

And so to 'Damsels', which opens with Eugene being called to his best friend's side and talking her out of suicide, only for her to try to go through with it – after he burns the suicide note – because he mistakes her intent and tries to kiss her. This is the tragedy of Eugene, and of course Tracey's failed suicide attempt and his own are being replayed to him in HELL(3), just as the Saint's bloody deeds were. However, something goes wrong and the punishment projector fails, leaving Eugene alone in a little grey cell.

Oh, and we also get opening credits, having missed those for a couple of weeks. Not sure what that's all about.

...

In New Orleans, Jesse seeks for God, but after a disappointment involving a woman and a man in a Dalmatian costume, Tulip cries off and Cassidy takes her to stay with his old mate, a francophone named Denis who clearly detests Cassidy. Jesse gets a lead, a singer, only for her to be abducted by men in white. He rescues her and gets another lead, although it turns out that she was working with the men in white to confirm that the Word exists, and now kicks Jesse upstairs to 'Samson Team', and their terrifying, one-eyed leader. He also gets hella ratty with Tulip on the phone, prompting her to take a walk, apparently with the deliberate intention of getting recognised and picked up by Victor's men.

And in Hell, Eugene finds his door is open, and goes out into a corridor. He sees another man out of his cell, who may in fact be Hitler, and hears other doors opening.

"Perhaps you know my work?"

Season 2 is a massive change of pace, but retains the mix of humour, gore and pathos that made the first season so successful. The motel massacre at the start of episode 2 is an insane tour de force of splatter, while every scene with Fiore is melancholy and moving in one way or another. It is also rewarding to see the characters finally learn about Annville and be dumbstruck, even in the midst of a firefight. It makes the first season and its sprawling cast of characters seem like less of a throwaway.

Although the more trigger-happy of the two, Tulip proves to be the moral core of her relationship with Jesse, especially as regards the Word, and Jesse's insensitivity to her troubles – however minor compared to 'God is missing' – reminds us that he can frankly be a bit of a dick sometimes. A lot of the time, in fact. In a series about a struggling preacher literally looking for God, it's the career criminal and the anarchic vampire who provide the moral and spiritual backbone.

Eugene and Tracey have a very cinematic tragedy, but it's hard not to feel for them both. In a more conventional narrative I'm sure we'd be supposed to sympathise more with friendzoned Eugene, and maybe it's just perception that steers me away from that, but I see in that scene a boy misled by his own hopes and society's false promises, and a girl who breaks when the one peer in the world whom she thought didn't see her as a prize or a rival proved otherwise. Their story was heartbreaking without details, and it's heartbreaking with.

(1) Ending, as so many encounters do in Preacher, with her having to kill someone.

(2) I have zero doubts that Jesse will blame Cassidy when the Saint next turns up.

(3) Thanks, hyper-aggressive captions!

Doctor Who – The Doctor Falls

Image (c) Stuart Manning. Yay!

" Pity… no stars… I hoped there’d be stars… "

This review will contain spoilers

The Cybermen are rising, Bill Potts is a Cyberman, and there are two Masters knocking about. Fortunately, thanks to a little Doctoring, the Cybermen are after the Masters as well, so that’s three Time Lords, one first generation Cyberman a community of farmers and… whatever Nardole is with three days to prepare to defend a synthetic farm from an army of upgraded warriors who have had centuries of their own time (thanks, relativity) to arm for the attack.

It is as hopeless a situation as the Doctor has ever faced, but running is not an option. It’s time to stand. And maybe it’s time to fall.

The Good

The use of Bill’s human form as opposed to her cyber-converted self was an effective visual shorthand for her remaining humanity.

Making things explode to make the farmers seem better armed was a more Whovian way of approaching a problem than making their rifles better.

The interaction between the Master and Missy was excellent, and Missy’s redemption was well done, if (deliberately) underwhelming.

“The original, you might say.”

The Bad

Not sure what was going on with the Doctor getting pissy that the Cybermen didn’t know him. Didn’t he deliberately erase himself or something?

I’m a little sad they went with David Bradley. William Russell does a killer First Doctor, although I guess at 92 he might not be up to a whole Christmas Special, and in fairness Bradley’s Hartnell is also the bomb.

The Ugly

Nothing glaring.

Theorising

So, has the Doctor gone back somewhere his old self already was, or is this an icy version of that pantemporal mental space from ‘The Name of the Doctor’?

Top Quotes

“Like sewage, smartphones, and Donald Trump, some things are just inevitable.” — The Doctor

“Without hope, without witness, without reward.” – The Doctor

“Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that… Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So, I’m going to do it. And I’m going to stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Someday… And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” —The Doctor, and the writers, finally get it.

Verdict

‘The Doctor Falls’ is easily the best Doctor Who season finale in years, although that’s not saying much. Bill’s fate is much less egregious than Clara’s, because while Bill doesn’t deserve a second shot at life any more than the hundreds who die in the course of a series, her doom was through no fault of her own, whereas Clara engineered her own death and escaped it by stropping at the universe until she got her own way. Not even the Doctor should ever get to do that, and Bill does not; she accepts what has happened to her, uses it to do what good she can, and is ready to die by the Doctor’s side when she is saved by Chekov's water nymph. Is it a cop out? I don’t think so. I'll miss Bill, and often that's the best thing you can say about a departing character.

The episode delivers on the promise of ‘Extremis’. ‘Without hope, without witness, without reward,’ the Doctor says, and the truth is… that’s not talking about him. It’s talking about Missy. Her arc may have been somewhat truncated, but her ignominious death – to choose the right course and be cut down for it, without a heroic moment – is all the redemption that she gets for the Master’s crimes. She doesn’t save the day; arguably, she doesn’t make that much of a difference(1); but in that moment, she is good. It’s honestly more payoff than the arc has deserved, because Moffatt’s Doctor Who does not do arc plot well. Whatever you may say about RTD, he had a deft touch with the arc words; Moffatt’s more involved and heavy-handed approach doesn’t work well with the overall episodic nature of the series.

7/10

(1) Although I guess closing the Master’s timeline is, in itself, likely to save lives.