Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror
May. 4th, 2013 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethJedi day and new Doctor Who: The day is good.
I got up about 45 seconds late for the start of Doctor Who, but my recorder box does chase play so that worked out.
this episode: <3
:-)
Jenny! Vastra! Strax!
And approximately one line from Clara. I think I've figured out what the problem is with this half season. She's not the Companion, she's the mystery. Usually the companion is us and we're trying to figure out the Doctor a bit and the mystery of the week a lot. This companion... it set her up as a mystery, so we can't be her because if we were we'd know the answer. Sort of. Except by the end of this episode now she knows she's a mystery, so she's trying to figure herself out too, so for the first time all season she's in the same knowledge-position as we are and it felt like she snapped into focus. So I think that's the problem, she hasn't been the Companion because she's what we're supposed to figure out, not who we can identify with.
Also, there just plain hasn't been enough of her. Last ep was all running and screaming, this ep she got froze into a statue and said barely anything. If it was just this ep then it would be this season's episode of the spin off we all really really wanted, but it's not just this ep, so it's a bit weak.
But:
Jenny! Vastra! Strax!
Strax is the weakest. He lost all the nurse side and he's comedy Sontaran, except he's also said he's 12 so he's comedy 12 year old boy which is more amusing. Still, he was more interesting with more aspects. But he is proper comedic. Fourth horse this week and he's not even hungry? *facepalm*
Vastra finds things out, and makes people faint. Tricky social life but good filter.
Jenny is awesome. Also, ninja suit? *Yowza*. Yes, I'm easy. Kick arse women rock. The thing where she's peeling off the Victorian proper young lady at the same time helps. So she goes undercover because she's the prettiest, which is f/f cuteness because the logic could have just got as far as 'because she's the only one the right species' and there's never enough f/f cuteness on TV so this is of the good. Then she's all finding the Keep Out doors and picking locks, and asking someone to faint for a distraction but they're sensible and require proper payment. Well, as sensible as someone following the one letter someone sent before they were never heard from again can be. So Jenny sneaks around and rescues the Doctor. :-) But, the spin off series people have soaked up all the things a Companion could usually do, so, Clara is invisible. The flashback bit where the Doctor explained how he got there was not very necessary. Was there new stuff in it? It felt like a hold up. And then there was lots of running around and we stopped following Vastra and Jenny.
... if there actually was a spin off show this would be a two parter where the first half was on Jenny's show and the second on Doctor Who.
Except the Doctor and Clara didn't get much to do.
Creepy leech Mr Sweet was adequately creepy, but all the evil in that plan was from Mrs Gillyflower. Wants to start over with perfect people, keeps using Christian songs to explain it. Having a religion so focused on the end of the world provides much room for creepiness.
Ada and the whole disability arc, I was sort of waiting to go Horribly Wrong. I mean, she starts out evil and blind. There's a horrible history on Doctor Who of shuffling all the disabilities into the Evil pile. But this one was only evil to try and not get abandoned by her mum, and the Doctor told her off for being all moral model about it, and then she was always more compassionate and helpful and ended up on the right side. So an improvement? It sort of tackled head on the idea that blind=evil or blind=worthless, those were things the bad people thought, the Doctor fixed it. She was pretty violent though and squashed the thing the Doctor was going to take back, but I think everyone was on her side about that. So I think that worked out okay.
The waxwork imagery and the whole factory model town milieu and the character types, those are an author having fun with tropes they know real well. That worked out.
I think everything worked out about this episode, except Clara, who didn't exist enough.
Getting home and having the kids she looks after have found her, the photos from across time, that's fun. Makes you wonder how a photo from a soviet nuclear submarine ended up anywhere a schoolkid could find it. Seems like a Clue.
Blackmailing her into trips in space and time: yeah, that's not a horrible lesson for... oh wait, see Next Week, and the general trend of Doctor Who. The moral of the story seems likely to be helpful to parents.
I'm looking forward to Next Week.
Verdict on this week: :-)
I got up about 45 seconds late for the start of Doctor Who, but my recorder box does chase play so that worked out.
this episode: <3
:-)
Jenny! Vastra! Strax!
And approximately one line from Clara. I think I've figured out what the problem is with this half season. She's not the Companion, she's the mystery. Usually the companion is us and we're trying to figure out the Doctor a bit and the mystery of the week a lot. This companion... it set her up as a mystery, so we can't be her because if we were we'd know the answer. Sort of. Except by the end of this episode now she knows she's a mystery, so she's trying to figure herself out too, so for the first time all season she's in the same knowledge-position as we are and it felt like she snapped into focus. So I think that's the problem, she hasn't been the Companion because she's what we're supposed to figure out, not who we can identify with.
Also, there just plain hasn't been enough of her. Last ep was all running and screaming, this ep she got froze into a statue and said barely anything. If it was just this ep then it would be this season's episode of the spin off we all really really wanted, but it's not just this ep, so it's a bit weak.
But:
Jenny! Vastra! Strax!
Strax is the weakest. He lost all the nurse side and he's comedy Sontaran, except he's also said he's 12 so he's comedy 12 year old boy which is more amusing. Still, he was more interesting with more aspects. But he is proper comedic. Fourth horse this week and he's not even hungry? *facepalm*
Vastra finds things out, and makes people faint. Tricky social life but good filter.
Jenny is awesome. Also, ninja suit? *Yowza*. Yes, I'm easy. Kick arse women rock. The thing where she's peeling off the Victorian proper young lady at the same time helps. So she goes undercover because she's the prettiest, which is f/f cuteness because the logic could have just got as far as 'because she's the only one the right species' and there's never enough f/f cuteness on TV so this is of the good. Then she's all finding the Keep Out doors and picking locks, and asking someone to faint for a distraction but they're sensible and require proper payment. Well, as sensible as someone following the one letter someone sent before they were never heard from again can be. So Jenny sneaks around and rescues the Doctor. :-) But, the spin off series people have soaked up all the things a Companion could usually do, so, Clara is invisible. The flashback bit where the Doctor explained how he got there was not very necessary. Was there new stuff in it? It felt like a hold up. And then there was lots of running around and we stopped following Vastra and Jenny.
... if there actually was a spin off show this would be a two parter where the first half was on Jenny's show and the second on Doctor Who.
Except the Doctor and Clara didn't get much to do.
Creepy leech Mr Sweet was adequately creepy, but all the evil in that plan was from Mrs Gillyflower. Wants to start over with perfect people, keeps using Christian songs to explain it. Having a religion so focused on the end of the world provides much room for creepiness.
Ada and the whole disability arc, I was sort of waiting to go Horribly Wrong. I mean, she starts out evil and blind. There's a horrible history on Doctor Who of shuffling all the disabilities into the Evil pile. But this one was only evil to try and not get abandoned by her mum, and the Doctor told her off for being all moral model about it, and then she was always more compassionate and helpful and ended up on the right side. So an improvement? It sort of tackled head on the idea that blind=evil or blind=worthless, those were things the bad people thought, the Doctor fixed it. She was pretty violent though and squashed the thing the Doctor was going to take back, but I think everyone was on her side about that. So I think that worked out okay.
The waxwork imagery and the whole factory model town milieu and the character types, those are an author having fun with tropes they know real well. That worked out.
I think everything worked out about this episode, except Clara, who didn't exist enough.
Getting home and having the kids she looks after have found her, the photos from across time, that's fun. Makes you wonder how a photo from a soviet nuclear submarine ended up anywhere a schoolkid could find it. Seems like a Clue.
Blackmailing her into trips in space and time: yeah, that's not a horrible lesson for... oh wait, see Next Week, and the general trend of Doctor Who. The moral of the story seems likely to be helpful to parents.
I'm looking forward to Next Week.
Verdict on this week: :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-04 11:02 pm (UTC)noticed lots of good things
no subject
Date: 2013-05-06 06:58 pm (UTC)makes a very good point about non-consensual kissing
but it's a bit late, cause he smooched Rory for a thankyou too.