The Impossibe Book

Even though "Journey" is not exactly a masterpiece, somehow it is still one of the most remarkable episodes of 'Doctor Who' because we'll always remember it to be the first time that a companion learns the Doctor's actual name. Up to now people weren't sure if he had one in the first place. Others thought that his name is  'the Doctor', as he's been telling people the past 5o years.But Clara's reaction on learning the Doctor's name shows us that there is more to it...

Now, revealing the Doctor's name is something that many fans regard as one of the big, golden Don't-s of 'Doctor Who'. And therefore, the scene in which Clara is reading "The History of the Time War" in the TARDIS library and finds out about the Doctor's name is simply wrong in some Whovians'  opinion.  Thompson tries to compensate this by making Clara forgetting the events of "Journey" as they become rewritten.

But it's not only Clara coming across the Doctor's name which seems to be out of place there. Putting some thinking into it you'll notice that "The History of the Time War" is at least as impossible a book as Clara is an impossible girl.  Because, the first, well second, emerging question after seeing that scene is the story behind that book.

So, what do we know about it? Not much. Taking into consideration that the TARDIS does not translate Gallifreyan automatically ("A Good Man Goes to War") it seems that "The History of the Time War" can't be written in the Time Lords' language, otherwise Clara wouldn't have been able to read it.

Then there is the question regarding its author. Well, it has to be someone who's familiar with the Doctor's name. And this makes the Doctor the most obvious candidate. But then he's trying hard to keep his name a secret, so I don't think he'd write it down in a book, even though it's stored away in the library of the TARDIS, which means that no-one who shouldn't read it is going to get the chance to do so. But the point is still standing. He simply wouldn't take the risk of writing his name down.

Another person about whom we know to know his name is River Song. And although she is an Archaeologist (i.e. interested into history) and an academic expert in all things regarding the Doctor, she didn't write the book either. Knowing the Doctor's secret she might have realised why he's calling himself the Doctor instead, and she's not the kind of woman who'd betray him, at least not in this way. Plus, if the Doctor or River had written that book, it's likely that they would have used Gallifreyan or even Old Gallifreyan to do so.

Then there is the Master. We know he's familiar with the Doctor's name ("Sound of Drums") and that he has reasons to keep his own name a secret. Might their reasons be related? Who knows. What makes the Master a likely candidate is the fact that it's not difficult to imagine that he'd be willing to reveal the secrets of his arch enemy, which would also solve the secret of why the book is not written in Gallifreyan. Besides, unlike River, he has been knowing the Doctor for ages, which is an important point, because the reason why the Doctor is avoiding to mention his real name has to lie far back in time, before he and Susan decided to park the TARDIS at 76 Totter's Lane. Already there he insisted on being called the Doctor.

However, the book could have been also written by some who fought against the Time Lords in one of the Time Wars, or vice versa. I'm partly curious why the Doctor got mentioned in that book, i.e. in which context. These days he seems to have a rather pacifist attitude... Well, not really. That's rather the 1oth Doctor then.

At this point it should be mentioned that it's interesting that the book's title does not say "The History of the Great Time War". Is it relevant? Or a mistake? Or does the obvious THE indicate that the book is about THE one great Time War? And why does Clara seem to recognise that name? She's not an expert on the allies involved in the Time War or Gallifrey's  history. So how does she know that the name she read is that of the Doctor? And why does it seem to be familiar to her? After all, she says "So that's who..." I really hope Moffat won't let us down this time because I guess I'm not the only one wanting some answers.

A Mad Man's Mad Box

Now that's what I call an easy escape. Just re-write history, make the things which kept people's hearts racing never happen and allow a big friendly button to save the day. The worst thing is that I wouldn't have minded if this had been the plot of any other episode of this season, after all, this is pretty much the basic idea of Moffat's finales, only that this time it was done in a really un-crafty way. But this was "The Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" (or "Journey"  for the sweet shortness of it). Which was maybe the  most anticipated episode of this season because it is one of those few times that we get to see the inside of the TARDIS. It's almost as if you'd have an episode featuring the Doctor's diary. And as in my humble opinion he isn't keeping one (or not ATM anyway), the TARDIS' interior comes pretty close to a diary's function. She's the one and only companion who manages to stick around. Which means if there is a place in the universe which can tell us something about the Doctor's past then it's inside that magical blue box. Therefore, it's only natural that the title of this week's episode got Whovians exited.

So just imagine the disappointment when we find out that the inside of the most iconic thing of this series seems to exist mostly of corridors. Or that's what Thompson decided to show us anyway. I get the idea. If you have many rooms you need many corridors connecting them. But the sheer number of corridors is simply ridiculous. Besides, when you get the chance to write a story set within the mighty walls of the TARDIS there are a number of items and rooms (from the classic series) which could have had a re-appearance on screen.

And this ties in with the second point which could have used improving. The rooms. Sure, we got to see a few glimpses of the Doctor's past (the cot, Amy's model of the TARDIS, and maybe other stuff which will be the only reason for fans to re-watch this episode a few times). But most of us were expecting more than seeing the swimming pool, the TARDIS architectural reconfiguration system and the famous library, which is giant but does not feature the aforementioned swimming pool... come on, how difficult would it have been to change that via CGI? You really could have given us that small pleasure. This way the most interesting part of the library is that the Encyclopedia Gallifreyica is kept in bottles. Whispering bottles. I love the idea. BTW, shouldn't the label translate rather to Encyclopaedia Galilifreyica? But given the fact that the TARDIS just crashlanded it's not difficult to accept that its translation mechanism appears to be somewhat faulty.

Even though I know that the TARDIS has changed its interior twice since the series' revival, I still imagined that some parts of it stayed the same and were still in there, like  the really impressing staircase-y bit  which we got a glimpse at "The Christmas Invasion". Somehow back then the TARDIS looked warm and more alive, something which got more and more CGI-ed away during the last seasons. Being familiar with Moffat's soft spot for fairy-tale-y motives things could have been much more impressive and less mechanic. After all, the TARDIS is not a machine, something which wasn't *really*pointed out this time.

And then there is the pointless and plotholes-ridden plot of "Journey", about which I do not really have the patience to complain. Still, just to mention a few things: after the TARDIS ends up in that salvage space-ship why is the Doctor outside the blue box, while Clara is still inside? And what are the odds of the TARDIS being attacked the very second the Doctor puts the shields down? The only thing which gets explained is those creepy, zombie-like creatures.And they make sense.

Of course, there were a few moments which managed to live up to expectations. The most touching TARDIS-Doctor moment was when he and Clara enter the heart of the TARDIS just to see her engine/heart being torn apart and frozen in time.  His "she's just always been there for me, taken care of me. And now it's my turn and I don't know what to do" was pretty touching. Additionally, "Journey" was the first episode in which the Doctor admits to have secrets and that it's important to him to keep them. Giving the nature of the series, this is only logical, but I can't remember having seen this issue addressed on screen this obviously. Plus, we learn that the Doctor does have an actual name. And it's not the Doctor. Otherwise, Clara  wouldn't have brought it up like this. Although, I think it's strange that the Doctor keeps a book about the history of the Time War ready to hand in the Library which contains his real name. And this brings me to the only good point of the wibbely-wobbely-timey-wimey storyline, namely, that rewriting these event made Clara forgetting about everything, including the Doctor's name.

So all in all, this could have been worse, but at the same time it could have been so much better... Let's hope that Gaiman's Cyberman-two-parter will manage to save this season from becoming the worst of 'New-Who'. Because that's where things are heading ATM.

Thousand Little Secrets Part 7 & 8

'Broadchuch' starts to be one of the best crime series out there (and we're getting another season, whoo-hoo). And they're right to do so, because episode 7 and 8 were just awesome. It had pacing, it kept us thinking and finally the police started to investigate, something they could have done several episodes earlier. Still, the last two parts were pretty exciting, so let's forget about the really long-ish middle part.  And I for my part would have never guessed Danny's killer. So Chibnall did his best to compensate the audience for episode 2-6.

Maybe the most outstanding thing about 'Broadchurch' is that it did not end with the police getting the killer, as the big who-done-it mystery was resolved right after 15 minutes into the last episode. Because of this the biggest part of the final story was about how the people were coping with the fact that Joe committed the murder. And this is something you do not get to see often in a crime series. Besides, it was not too dramatical, at least not if you take the usual standards for crime-dramas into account. Even the most dramatic scene, when Ellie learns that it was her husband, was done in a rather realistic way. It fit. The emotion, the way her boss breaks the news to her, her refusing to believe it, and her reaction when she sees that it's true after all. You could see how the information was sinking in and numbing her. Or Danny's family. Well, actually it was numbing the whole community, somehow. In the end everything came down to an accident. Ironically, only minutes before killing Danny, Joe prevented him from committing suicide... By this, Chibnall didn't need to come up with a plausible motive. There simply wasn't one, which is the best explanation for a murder case, because it's the most difficult to investigate. To be fair, without Joe's confession there would have been a good chance of them never solving the case.

So, ITV agreed to a 2nd season. And I'm happy to hear that Chibnall had plans for this all along. Let's hope that him saying  "I mentioned that if people liked it, there was another very different story we could tell afterwards" does not mean that we'll get only one additional season. Well, I guess it's difficult to explain why all of a sudden Broadchurch's crime rate should rocket sky. They are a pretty small community after all, and an additional murder case (or another sort of crime) must have a huge impact on their statistics. Of course there's still the unsolved Sandbrook case which needs investigation, so that might be an option without affecting the local crime rate... But maybe Chibnall is also up to something else.

Anyway. 'Broadchurch' got me hooked. No matter what Chibnall's plans are for the future, he can be sure I'll be watching.

The Oldest Story in the Universe

To you, I haven't been born yet, 
and to you, I've been dead 100 billion years

Maybe my standards are getting low, it's either that, or this was an unnecessarily rushed, bust still rather nice filler. Even though, I have to admit some elements of the plot were a bit strange at times... Like why did they need Emma to open that portal (or whatever that was) to the pocket universe if they had the TARDIS? How did her psychic gift influence it so that it could pick up the Doctor? Who knows if it couldn't have worked without her... Oh, and the Whoniverse has pocket universes now? Aren't parallel universes and bubble universes enough? Do we really need to have pocket universes too? Well, apparently yes, although IMHO this is the most unnecessary complication of the already more than just complex universe-system of 'Who'. But never mind that, 'Hide' was nevertheless rather lovely. 

Do you remember that one of my first objections about Clara was that she's the first companion who does not make the Doctor actually dealing with his past? Well, this time it's the people they meet who take care of that. The Professor mentioning how he feels responsible for the lives he took and how he's trying to live on with that burden felt almost as if the Doctor had been looking into a mirror.  Because the same things haunt him too, in a way.

Additionally, this episode was not only about ghosts, or love, but Clara, and that she is to the Doctor the only mystery worth solving. The scene in the TARDIS right after Clara realises that she just witnessed the birth and death of her home planet may have been the most important one we've seen so far. Not only because of the obvious contrast between the Doctor's and her feelings. He has seen the death of several planets a thousand times, to him it's just another house which gets pulled down. To him that's how time works. To her it's home. This is the first scene in which she actually notices that he sees the world differently than she does and that time is not the same to him as it's to her And finding out if her body does lie out there buried in the ground (and if yes, how often) is a question he'd love to know as well.  If it weren't for Clara (or one version of her, anyway) he would probably still spend his days in Victorian London, inside the TARDIS which he has conveniently parked on a cloud. To him she is just a distraction, or maybe a bit more than that... But I'm not too sure if she's supposed to know. After all, it's not a too flattering remark. 

And then there is still that funny thing about Emma Grayling, which is the reason why the Doctor and Clara end up messing with pocket universes in the first place. He wants to know her opinion on Clara, instead she tells Clara her opinion on the Doctor ('Don't trust him,  there's a sliver of ice in his heart').

Anyway... next week it's the Doctor's adopted home being destroyed, with Clara still inside the TARDIS. In fact, looking at the feedback 'The Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS' has received so far, it might be one of the most anticipated episode of this season. So I for my part am looking very much forward to it.

The Big Moff and 'Who''s Golden Rules

 I'm not sure what Sydney Newman (you know, the guy who basically invented 'Doctor Who') would think of the title of season 7's finale episode. Being dead there don't seem to be  many options left but turning over in his grave, even though, he may wait and save that for another occasion, like when someone will turn the Doctor into a woman (*shudder*). But teasing to reveal the biggest mystery in the Whoniverse comes actually pretty close to that. Well, we know Moffat is not *really* up to it. After all, this series is called 'Doctor Who' for a reason,and I'm pretty sure Moffat is aware of that too.You simply cannot go and break 'Who's golden rules at your will.

Sadly, it's almost as if Moffat's big goal was to try how far he can go interfering with those aforementioned rules without actually breaking them: he made the Doctor marrying River, he even killed him, and know he's trying to reveal the one secret which nobody really wants to know. Well, we know it's much ado about nothing, as Moffat has a record on not keeping his promises, but even teasing things like this should be forbidden. If you add something to that part of 'Who's legacy then it becomes to stay forever, just like that odd 13-lives rule (which is there for a really important reason, so I'm not complaining). And as much as I love most of Moffat's episodes, I'm not sure if I want him to have this much power. Because if you're messing with the Doctor's past you're craving your own ideas into stone, and future main editors will have to stick to them, no matter if they like it or not, or if it's worth it. 

On the other side, this is something which would have happened at one point in the future anyway. And I can come up with much worse scriptwriters than Moffat who could have had a go at it (I'm glad RTD didn't). So we can deal with it know, and settle things forever. And let's hope that Moffat has a brilliant solution to deal with this very obvious red herring, i.e. without causing too much damage.

Resurrecting the Ice Warriors

Is anyone familiar with Alien, the sci-fi horror film? This week's episode felt a lot like that, only without the really creepy chest-bursting alien life-form, and the cat. But everything else was pretty much the same: the ridiculously bigger on the inside submarine, the Ice Warrior killing crew members and you didn't know who's next... Thinking about it, IMHO it felt almost as if it had been something written for 'Torchwood' and not 'Doctor Who'.

Leaving the rather scary side of it behind and looking only at its science-fictional qualities, I have to say, that 'Cold War' is one of the most old school sci-fi episodes I've seen for ages. And this is a compliment. Because back then stories did not rely on CGI but an excellent plot with a lot of (necessary) explanations and almost no plot-holes (which is not exactly true about the old series, but good sci-fi in general). And that is exactly what Mark Gatiss offered us this week. In fact, I can't remember the last 'Who' episode whose plot  did not have a lot in common with with the famous Swiss cheese. Gatiss even took the time to explain why the Doctor could not use the TARDIS as a means of escape. And it's great that he used something form the classic stories (the Hostile Action Displacement System, HADS) to do so.

What I do not get, though, is why the fact that the Professor turns up singing Ultrafox's Vienna stops the Soviets blowing up the world (again). But this is only a minor remark. Everything else is more than just plausible, the Professor finding a creature while drilling for oil on the North pole, the reason why he is there in the first place, the way it comes alive, the Ice Warrior's emotional reaction after spending thousands of years in hibernation. Besides, I love the pun created by using the Cold War as the background for the episode in which the Ice Warriors get some sort of resurrected. This is something only 'Doctor Who' allows you to do.

Thousand Little Secrets

Something the fan girl in me has been wanting to write about for quite a while now is 'Broadchurch'. Yes, it has David Tennant in it, and yes, it's all about crime, and an interesting case, which is a great combination if you're me. And, as the biggest advantage of all, there are (hopefully) no vampires involved. Watching TV has been tough in the past 3 years if you're not into blood-sucking creatures...

Sadly enough, these 4 elements do not automatically add up to a great mini-series by themselves. It also takes a great plot, showing how the interesting case is solved. And this is the point in which 'Broadchurch' fails the audience, which is interesting when you're looking at Chris Chibnall's background. After all, he's a regular on 'Law & Order: UK' (something I've never watched so far, as I have to admit) so one might expect that he knows how to write a crime-related storyline. Then there are his various 'Doctor Who'* contributions, which were usually less spectacular in my humble opinion, with 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' being the one big exception...

One thing about crime series is that most writers fail at creating non-stereotype characters, and luckily Chibnall does not fall into this convenient trap. His characters seem to live real lives, all of them. Every resident and non-resident of Broadchurch has a proper background story and it's great to see someone putting this much effort into it°.

And this is also not my actual objection. The only thing, the really only thing Chibnall gets wrong is the police. Unfortunately he makes a big beginner's mistakes, namely, that the crime-related plot of 'Broadchurch' is boring and predictable.

You want proof? First of all, from episode 1 onwards it's so obvious that Danny's dad didn't kill his own son. You only need to put some thinking into it and you'll understand that the reason why he is behaving strangely and not answering the police's questions properly is because he cheated on his wife. And only by looking at the people living in Broadchurch you know whom he slept with, after all, there are not that many attractive, young-ish, single women around there (and single is an important criterion as then you do not need to go into how their mistake is threatening her marriage as well, something you do not want to deal with in an 8 part long story). But the police doesn't reveal this till episode 3.

The next suspects are Jack the newsagent, and Paul Coats the vicar. Well, when we see Jack burning the pictures of Danny and him you know that it wasn't Jack. He's no fool, so it's likely that he'd have burnt them before the whole fuss started happening. Besides, he is the one who gives Danny's mobile to the police. I mean, if it had been him, being familiar with the sea, he could have certainly come up with a nice salty, wet spot on the sea ground where (beside the fish) nobody would have ever found it again.

And the vicar? It's a TV drama, and nobody wants to offend the church. Additionally, it would be far too obvious. And as a good script-writer you're shunning the obvious. So, in a few days we'll watch the last but least episode of this 8-parter and so far the police has only eliminated those people about whom we already have been knowing several episodes ago that they were obviously not responsible for Danny's death. 

Yes, pacing might be an issue here. And that's something crime series (or any other series in general) should never have a problem with. I'm not complaining about them not solving the case faster. But they could have focused on some  more likely people. Like the guy who is constantly complaining about the bad effect the case has on the village's reputation. As a scriptwriter you could get a good story out of that.

Or Susan Wright. Why was noone, no-one looking into her background right after the police found out that she obviously lied to them about Mark. I mean people tend to remember phoning a plumber. After all, it takes a major event to trigger that.

And why are people not focusing on the postman who had an argument with Danny? And even though he denies the whole thing, why didn't they ask if there were any colleagues filling in for him during that time? It's a question people would expect the police to tackle. Or why did it took this long to learn about Danny going paint-balling? What else do they not know about, then? It's not like this would have been kept a secret.Or the money they found in Danny's bedroom? Or Nigle, even though I'm not sure if he'd done it. Chibnball obviously wants us to think that, but he's a pretty bad liar, so I'm not sure. Besides, why should he have killed his mate's son? They seem to be pretty close friends...

In my humble opinion, none of these people mentioned in this post murdered Danny (they might have influenced things, but in the end, I don't think they made their hands dirty). Nevertheless, all of them would have been adequate suspects to investigate and to make an 8 hour long crime mystery appear less boring. Now, one might argue that the borderline boring storyline (as far as the actual inspection is concerned) is part of the reason why the series feels so real. Plus, Chibnall is trying to compensate the slow paceing by adding several sub-plots to the story; like Alec not wanting the police to find out about his illness, the way the news agency is (and is not) involved into Jack's death, the way Mark's family is coping with the new situation and the baby, not to mentioning the whole drug-stuff about Dean (and Chloe?), and then there's Tom and his laptop... and so on. It's almost as if their purpose were some sort of distraction. In the end of the day, it all comes down to appearances. It's a whole village trying to keep their little secrets.

Then again these sub-plots give us inevitably more information on people's backgrounds, which makes things even more real. Well, that and the amazing acting. Talking about it, Olivia Colman and David Tennant are great. The frictions between them add a new (and the only interesting) side to the otherwise rather boring investigation so far. But maybe that's the point. Maybe Chibnall didn't want to write a well investigated crime story. Unfortunately, generally they are those which get all the attention... Besides, if you're good, you can even make a badly investigated crime story appear interesting.
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* You can't write a 'Broadchurch'-review without mentioning 'Doctor Who', can you, although I guess usually it's not because of Chibnall. 

 ° Just compare the characters of any the major crime series to this (except Navy CIS, maybe, they're paying a lot of attention to that too). Chibnall manages to reveal more about his characters in 6 episodes, than 'Criminal Minds' or 'The Mentalist' managed to tell us about their main and less main characters in several seasons.

We Don't Walk Away...

... the Golden Rule(s) of 'Who' revisited.

The first out-of-time/space adventure of the new companion is usually some kind of a bummer*. And this might  have been one of the numerous reasons why many people wasn't expecting much from "The Rings of Akhaten" in the first palce. With stakes this modestly set, it managed to live up to exceptions. Sadly, flawless CGI is simply not enough for a great episode, it takes a good plot too, and one may be tempted to suspect that with an almost 5o year old history of writing sci-fi 'Doctor Who' has already leaned this lesson. 

Of course, not everything about the latest episode is bad. It's great to be shown Clara's background story, and to have all those blank spots filled out, more or less. Ironically, with every detail we learn about her childhood, Clara's other versions (and their deaths') are becoming more and more impossible. And that's exactly the Big Moff's agenda, I suppose. 

At the same time it's some sort of difficult to ignore a giant plot hole of Cross' debut story: Why exactly was the Doctor's knowledge and more than just long-ish life experience not enough for Grandfather? Yes, I know that nice catch about the most important leaf in human history; it's standing for the infinite number of Clara's mum's un-lived adventures, and all the chances and possibilities never taken. But then we have the Doctor who "can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not" (as he explained to Donna in "The Fires of Pompeii") which is infinite too... and which even includes the never taken adventures of Mrs Oswald in a way. So why is that infinite infinity not enough? It's not as if there'd be a mathematical difference, you know.

Apart from that, it's odd how the Doctor manages to get away with not introducing himself to Clara properly again. It's almost as if she had a crash course about the Doctor: him being an alien, Gallifrey, the Time War, ect., ect. She gets the whole package, but she doesn't question it. She may be the first companion who doesn't make him deal with his past. Her emotional involvement wouldn't be less if he were reciting the periodic table. Strangely, this creates the impression as if she already knew, and maybe the impossible girl does. And maybe that's what the TARDIS senses when she refuses to let Clara (and Merry) enter...

Oh, and am I the only one who isn't that sure that *nothing* has changed while Clara was away saving the people of Akhaten?
_____

*No rule without exception. I LOVE "The Shakespeare Code" and Donna's trip to Pompeii was also not too bad. But still, neither "The End of the World" (Rose), nor "The Beast Below" (Amy) belong to many people's personal highlights. In fact, in my humble opinion, "The Beast Below" may be the worst story which sadly wears Moffat's personal markings.

Matt Smith's Guardian Interview

The dear 'Guardian' asked Matt Smith a few questions and here is the result for us to 'enjoy'. But do not get too excited about it, there aren't any 'game-changing' revelations or anything similar to it. Still, it wouldn't be a typical 'Guardian' interview, if they wouldn't ask him some unusual questions, like, what's his favourite word (snuggle), his most overused ones (classic, safe and sick) or whom he'd invite to a dinner party. And other trivial stuff.