Closing Time
Sep. 24th, 2011 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcBasically, a classic Who romp with a popular monster and returning guest star, where the arc is, as it's been for most of the second half of the season, an undercurrent on a seemingly standalone story.
So, in the absence (mostly...) of Amy and Rory, the Doctor gets back with Craig. The character interaction here is interesting. Following on from "The God Complex", the Doctor is now trying not to rope people into his life, but as Craig points out, he needs help, even if he can't admit it (ooh, parallel narrative structure!). Craig meanwhile, claims to be by the Doctor's side because it's the safest place to be, but really it's because he wants to help.
(A lot of what TV Tropes calls Ho Yay here, from the Doctor, with his typical cluelessness, not realising it might be inappropriate to distract Craig with a kiss, to the dotty til-lady who Mistakes Them For Gay.)
The Doctor working in the shop was fun, and I was intrigued by the Amy and Rory cameo ... how long is it since they last saw the Doctor from their perspective? Long enough for Amy to go from kissogram to national perfume model, apparently. And I loved the latest twist on "The Girl Who Waited".
The Cybermen ... well, the Doctor goes to the trouble of explaining that these Cybermen are low on power, but let's face it -- the Cybermen look impressive, and have good potential for Body Horror, but basically they've always been slightly rubbish villains; "a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers", as the Fourth Doctor put it. They can be dangerous, but it's never entirely surprising when they're not. This bunch, skulking around in a department store with a masterplan to create a Cyberleader out of some random human, strike me as entirely typical.
By the way, does anyone know if there's been an official statement as to where Moffat-era Cybermen come from? Because they look like Cybus-Cybermen, only without the Cybus logo, but they're a spacefaring race like Mondasian Cybermen, and the last time parallel universes were mentioned in relation to them was a throwaway line in "The Pandorica Opens".
Continuity geek alert! The idea that Cybermats are cyber-converted animals, not just little robots, appears in the Big Finish audio Spare Parts and the Past Doctor Adventures novel Illegal Alien (which also gives them sharp teeth), but this is the first time it's been confirmed in the series.
The resolution ... well, it was blatant sentimentality, but I'd be inclined to call it blatant sentimentality that worked ... if we hadn't just had a story where the monsters get defeated by the Power of Fatherhood.
And then ... Craig gives the Doctor a stetson, which is confimation that we're reaching the end of things. And River is in the spacesuit, in Lake Silencio. At this point even my suspicious mind is prepared to concede that maybe the Impossible Astronaut is exactly who it appears to be...
(My suspicious mind wasn't helped by one blink-and-you-miss-it scene from the "Next Time" teaser. So the Daleks aren't appearing this year Moff, you big fibber?)
So, in the absence (mostly...) of Amy and Rory, the Doctor gets back with Craig. The character interaction here is interesting. Following on from "The God Complex", the Doctor is now trying not to rope people into his life, but as Craig points out, he needs help, even if he can't admit it (ooh, parallel narrative structure!). Craig meanwhile, claims to be by the Doctor's side because it's the safest place to be, but really it's because he wants to help.
(A lot of what TV Tropes calls Ho Yay here, from the Doctor, with his typical cluelessness, not realising it might be inappropriate to distract Craig with a kiss, to the dotty til-lady who Mistakes Them For Gay.)
The Doctor working in the shop was fun, and I was intrigued by the Amy and Rory cameo ... how long is it since they last saw the Doctor from their perspective? Long enough for Amy to go from kissogram to national perfume model, apparently. And I loved the latest twist on "The Girl Who Waited".
The Cybermen ... well, the Doctor goes to the trouble of explaining that these Cybermen are low on power, but let's face it -- the Cybermen look impressive, and have good potential for Body Horror, but basically they've always been slightly rubbish villains; "a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers", as the Fourth Doctor put it. They can be dangerous, but it's never entirely surprising when they're not. This bunch, skulking around in a department store with a masterplan to create a Cyberleader out of some random human, strike me as entirely typical.
By the way, does anyone know if there's been an official statement as to where Moffat-era Cybermen come from? Because they look like Cybus-Cybermen, only without the Cybus logo, but they're a spacefaring race like Mondasian Cybermen, and the last time parallel universes were mentioned in relation to them was a throwaway line in "The Pandorica Opens".
Continuity geek alert! The idea that Cybermats are cyber-converted animals, not just little robots, appears in the Big Finish audio Spare Parts and the Past Doctor Adventures novel Illegal Alien (which also gives them sharp teeth), but this is the first time it's been confirmed in the series.
The resolution ... well, it was blatant sentimentality, but I'd be inclined to call it blatant sentimentality that worked ... if we hadn't just had a story where the monsters get defeated by the Power of Fatherhood.
And then ... Craig gives the Doctor a stetson, which is confimation that we're reaching the end of things. And River is in the spacesuit, in Lake Silencio. At this point even my suspicious mind is prepared to concede that maybe the Impossible Astronaut is exactly who it appears to be...
(My suspicious mind wasn't helped by one blink-and-you-miss-it scene from the "Next Time" teaser. So the Daleks aren't appearing this year Moff, you big fibber?)
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 08:36 pm (UTC)Yeah, was that a Dalek eye-stalk? I wasn't sure whether it was prop-reuse, teasing, or the real thing. I know a lot of people thought the glimpse of The anti-bodies in Lets Kill Hitler were Daleks, based on the curvature of the top of their head-casing and voices.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-01 12:58 pm (UTC)This has made me suspicious, actually. I've been resisting the theory that it's going to turn out to be Rory who was the Good Man because it would be awful if he got killed with so much of life ahead of him - but what if he shows up to get killed at the end of a long and happy life? The make-up people have now had a chance to practice aging both of them up...
And then ... Craig gives the Doctor a stetson, which is confimation that we're reaching the end of things.
And the envelopes.
And River is in the spacesuit, in Lake Silencio. At this point even my suspicious mind is prepared to concede that maybe the Impossible Astronaut is exactly who it appears to be...
I still don't believe it for a moment. At this point last year the Doctor was in the Pandorica - remember how that turned out?