How to do a proper cliffhanger...

Let the universe end just after reaching half of the time you have to go. That's it.

And basically that's the plot of this week's The Pandorica Opens. For the currant situation is: Auton-Rory killed Amy after a really heart breaking and love-revealing scene, the Doctor is locked up inside the Pandorica, which was actually created for... a nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies, the most feared being in all the cosmos. And, River Song is about to die for being inside the very soon exploding TARDIS which is causing the cracks in time and the end of the whole universe. Well, actually things has been already better than this.

Although I have to admit this is how I would imagine the perfect end of the very last Doctor Who episode ever, Moffat has still 55 minutes to go and to turn this into the perfect happy end of Amy Pond's fairytale. And we know that's exactly what he is going to do.

I Was Not Expecting This....

I seem to be one of those few ones who weren't that fond of this week's episode, but it might be just its teasers which got me too excited... I.Just.Don't.Know.

Anway, to my mind The Lodger is walking the really narrow line between a soap-opera-ish comedy and something which might have been originally some sort of sci-fi, well, maybe before it was turned into an episode. And even back then it was rather bad sci-fi than good one, for although this show has very obviously the label sci-fi on it, this isn't an excuse for not explaining important plot elements. Like, how or through which mechanism were those humans (and also the Doctor) pulled to the machine, or why would a machine explode only because it has a really clever pilot? Or how can a not properly working time-machine keep the TARDIS from landing? Well, maybe it's just me missing something...

But starting at the very beginning, I have to admit, if we cut The Lodger into really short sequences and if we watched them separately, we would get a really entertaining..., ehm, something. Because the only parts of this  episode which worked were it's non sci-fi elements, and, I have to admit that they were outstandingly well done. Indeed, there aren't many not-Moffat episodes having such amazingly well written dialogues and one-liners.

Furthermore, its timing couldn't have been more perfect. Come on, this was maybe the only episode in which the Doctor actually plays football and it was aired just before England faced the USA in the World Cup. Additionally, let's not forget Matt Smith's original plans for the future... Can this be sheer coincidence? Yes it can! Oddly enough, there is even evince that this was *really* not planned. For the whole story is based on a comic strip published somewhen around David Tennant's era, and despite of him not being famous for his football abilities, that original story also features a football-match. So to those who think that these 43 minutes were exclusively written for Matt Smith's Doctor, I recommend to do some research.

However, apart from this and its good conversations there isn't much positive to say about The Lodger. And I'm not absolutely sure whether a football playing Doctor is something positive in the first place. I'm sorry, but it takes more than some witty dialogues to write a good Doctor Who episode. If a good storyline is too obviously not there, there isn't much to save it. And to me this was actually the most pointless and awkward plot I've ever seen in Doctor Who.

In addition, I wasn't exactly comfortable with seeing the Doctor only wrapped into a towel as a result of being in a hurry to save his friend. Sorry, but there is something utterly wrong with that. And yes please, never do that "let's smash our heads against each other to see the world from your perspective" again. Thank you.

Maybe there are a few people claiming that the story was quite funny as a whole, but I think it's already the situation alone guaranteeing that. I mean, the Doctor being forced to act as a human being for a week (or wasn't it rather 4-5 days?) automatically leads to some comical elements. Nevertheless, it's the job of a good scriptwriter to take these good elements and to turn them into an even better and coherent story.

I hope next week's finale-opener will show how it's done in a proper way.

Starry Starry Night...

"If you look hard, there are more wonders in this universe than you could ever have dreamed of."

Sorry for being late. Well, the only good thing about writing a review after every one else have already informed us about their opinions is that I'm able to say Curti's Vincent and the Doctor is quite dividing the whoniverse. And I know saying this is not worth waiting almost one week to write a review, sorry.

I for my part liked it pretty much, although I have to agree with the common opinion, the ending was a bit cheesy, and I really could have done without the music. The next time they should make sure to get rather the acoustic version than the actual song. But apart from that, I really loved it for Curtis' didn't stopped by writing an interesting story sprinkled with quotable dialogues, but there were also some Doctor Who insiders, which maybe not even every fan knows about, but more about this in a minute.

For a start, the episode's beginning was awesome and it worked pretty well also with the small bits, like the Doctor being irritated by the boys' conversation, just like any other fan of this show.

Then, there was the actual part of the story, with Vincent Van Gogh played by an incredibly good Tony Curran. Some fans might have been upset of Vincent having a Scottish accent, but luckily SFX prepared us for that and those who still haven't got it, this was what point 5 on their preview list, the one about the ongoing TARDIS-gag, was all about.

Indeed, this week's (or rather last week's) list was hotly discussed in several Doctor Who forums. And this leads us straight to our next point (point 1o for any SFX fans) which was, and I quote "a major story element that some will decry as a massive plot hole and others will embrace on a metaphorical level".
To my mind, the only important thing lacking some explenation was "the monster", or rather, why Vincent was the only one who could see it. Nevertheless, the monster is real and I think a far more interesting question is how the Doctor appeared to "Vincent van Goff". (At one point I wondered whether David Tennant would have got the pronunciation right, and yes, actually I'm pretty sure he would.)

Furthermore, while some see the monster as a big unnecessary something, others can't help noticing the extraordinary irony Curtis has added to the story through this. Namely, we have an invisible blind monster, which only a "mad" painter can see.

Taliking about Vincent's mental conditions. I'm glad the way this topic was dealt with, so that his depression was not denied or whatever they could have done with it, but it was very much there. His breakdown and suicide were surely major elements of the episode. But at the same time we were also showed that it was the same man "painting" his famous "Starry Night" picture into the sky, which was the most beautiful scene of the whole episode. The Doctor's line "I haven't seen nothing quite as wonderful as the things you see." couldn't have been more on spot.

Maybe also because of this (and that Amy tries to apply the Doctor's "time can be rewritten" theory and has to recognise that sometimes it just doesn't rewrites itself) the ending was surely tragic. Still, again, the Doctor doesn't fail to hit the mark... And he is sooo right. They definitely added to Vincent's pile of good things.