So Long, and Thanks for... Nah, There's Still Lots More Fish!

As of today, Confessions of a Neowhovian has a new website!  Although this Blogger version will still be available via the blogspot URL, all the current, new content will be posted at the new incarnation of the site with the usual URL:

http://www.neowhovian.com

Please come see what I'm saying this week!

A Pregnant Silence

Review of Day of the Moon
Warning:  This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.  It also contains profanity.  Proceed at your own risk.

This being the first story of the series, I wasn’t expecting resolution for many of the dangling plot threads in the second half of the two-parter. However, I don’t think I expected as many new ones to be woven in, either. And frankly, I’m not convinced that the threads that seemed to get tied up really are. Oh, what a tangled web Moff weaves...

Starting things off in style with a beautifully wrought mind-fuck allows the production team to squeeze in a few more shots of the good ol’ US of A (I have to say, it’s slightly amusing in Confidential to watch the Brits wax poetic about the American landscape; I suppose it’s a grass-is-always-greener situation, since I find the backdrops here beautiful but almost blasé in their familiarity, while I’d be walking around London and surrounds like a slack-jawed yokel, myself), and puts the viewer off-kilter for a beat.

But soon we’re back to the more familiar, with the Doctor having done something incredibly clever (watch him *snap* the TARDIS open), and River having trusted him with her life yet again. A little bit of exposition later, and it’s on to a truly hide-behind-the-sofa-worthy haunted house. I have to say this is one of the creepiest (darkest, if you will - that seems to be the adjective the production team is using) episodes I’ve ever seen, from any era.

True to Moffat form, though, it’s an emotional roller coaster. First we’re creeped out by bloody writing on mouldering walls, a cyborgish woman seen through a non-existent door panel, and an unexplained picture of Amy with a baby (presumably the little girl in the astronaut’s suit; is she Amy’s daughter? the Doctor’s? theirs?) and then we’re snickering at Nixon trying to get the Doctor out of the hot seat while River and Rory stand around in stylin’ ’60s garb in the background. (I wonder if they purposely added in a moment when Rory would salute so he could do it “wrong” - palm out like a Brit rather than palm down like an American - and how many British Who viewers would know that looks wrong to an American?) Up and down, up and down… There are some laughs for sure (the Doctor/River banter is priceless), but there are many more painful moments - especially regarding the Rory/Amy/Doctor not-quite triangle - than light ones.

Let's just examine that triangle in a little more detail, shall we?  The plot development of this Thread really starts after they find Amy's still-transmitting implant.  In defending the strength of their relationship to the Doctor, Rory's clearly working to convince himself that she really loves him, not the Doctor.  The Doctor's trying to believe it, too, and the simple expression of pain and regret as he closes his eyes against her call for him is beautiful in its understatement.

Then she delivers her meant-to-be-overheard monologue about who she loves.  It's ambiguous, and that feeds into the plot nicely.  On second viewing, though, I'm convinced she really did mean Rory all along, what with the "Stupid Face" references throughout.  (While Amy's doing all this ranting, she's surrounded by Silence.  I had to wonder if they had been using their suggestive powers to try to drive a wedge between her and Rory, or if it's just a manifestation of her standard way of creating distance so she won't get hurt...)  Will that Stupid Face come back to us again and again, as it did at a critical moment during their escape this week?

It's abundantly clear that the question of her pregnancy will be an ongoing Thread, too.  Is she?  Isn't she?  Why did she tell the Doctor?  (What do the Silence get out of that - they told her to tell him!)  I think it all ties in with both The Little Girl (TLG) and the Silence.  Witness their comments to Amy:  "We do you honor.  You will bring the Silence.  But your part will soon be over."  Ominous much?

So what are our clues?  The Silence assuring Amy she plays a key role for them, but that it's brief; the Silence wanting the Doctor to know about the Schrödinger's Pregnancy; Amy as apparent mother in a baby picture in TLG's room in 1969; the Silence caring very carefully for TLG; TLG's obvious Timelord DNA...  It's all pretty suggestive of a bigger plot for the whole series.

As for the Silence, I'll be extremely surprised if they're really out of the picture.  Aside from the whole bit where they were there on the beach and the fact that they know the Doctor on sight, I've got a bigger question.  (No, not just "what do memory-stealing, post-hypnotic-suggestive, imperialist aliens get out of sending humanity to the moon?"  And I'm not entirely convinced that the answer to that one is really only "to get the suit for TLG," either.)  Are we sure the Doctor's "defeat" of the Silence is a good thing?  After all, "Silence will fall" doesn't sound encouraging, coming as it has like a warning both from Prisoner Zero and the Disembodied Voice in the TARDIS at the end of The Big Bang.  Maybe causing the downfall of the Silence is what sets off this whole timey-wimey chain of events leading to the Doctor's death.

And where does River fit into this whole mess?  We've been promised that "everything changes" soon (~cough~mid-series cliffhanger~cough~), but there are still only snippets of detail otherwise.  Evidence continues to stack up in favor of the "spousal hypothesis" (to wit, her reference to him as "my old fella" and the big ol' smoochie as they part company), but that's far too straightforward for Moffat.  I still think that's a minor (or at least "secondary," if we're being particular about semantics) aspect of their relationship.  There's something sinister lurking in the future of their relationship (as we are viewing it).  Why else would she have said she was sorry before whispering his name to him when he first met her?

She tells him at one point, “Our lives are back to front. Your future’s my past. Your firsts are my lasts.”  (I can't help but think of Piers Anthony's 1980s fantasy series The Incarnations of Immortality, where River plays Chronos to our "normal" timestream.  I loved these in junior high - so sue me...)  Whether or not that chronology is strictly true is yet to be determined, but we have certainly seen the first/last kiss, and more awkwardness - increasingly on River's part, and less on the Doctor's - is sure to follow.  Her story is going to be one that's fun to watch again from her perspective, once we have it "all."

So that leaves us with quite the pile of loose plot Threads.  Weaving them into an attractive tapestry is a tall order, and the image that eventually emerges from the chaos is sure to be different from any we envision now.  Whatever comes of it all, it's sure to be a hell of a ride.

Review of The Impossible Astronaut Posted, Moved

After the issues I had earlier this morning being unable to post to the proper page, I have managed to get things arranged the way I originally intended.  Thus, my review of The Impossible Astronaut has been relocated.  Please go to the Reviews page to see today's post, in which I give my impressions of the first episode of Series Six, and speculate wildly about what it all means for the upcoming series.

Farewell to an Old Friend

All too soon after Nicholas Courtney, one of fandom's favorite Who actresses has passed on.  Yesterday Elisabeth Sladen, known to Whovians of all flavors as Sarah Jane Smith, died of cancer.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was without Internet most of the day yesterday, so I know I'm a little late to join in, but I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of those expressing their regret for her death at such a relatively young age (63).  Everything I've ever heard of her indicates she was a lovely person, and I'm so sad that we will not have her bright light with us any more.

RIP, Lis.  You will be missed.

Elisabeth Sladen

01 Feb 1948 - 19 Apr 2011

New reviews posted: Mara Tales

This week there were two new stories released in North America, Kinda and Snakedance.  In the UK, they were bundled together as Mara Tales, since the stories are related.  You can see my reviews of both stories (each reviewed individually, but posted together) on the Reviews page today.

Confession #10: I Wish the Doctor Wouldn't Lie About His Age

I'm hardly the first person to rant about this, but I have to say it's one of the things that bugs me most about the on-screen revival of the Doctor: he's constantly lying about his age.  Oh, sure, you can hide behind the old saw that he really has no clue - what with all his traipsing through time and space, I've no doubt that he's lost track exactly - but that's really no excuse.

Think on this.  There have been nearly a dozen occasions when the Doctor specified his age (I'm only considering televised episodes here - no spin-off media, since those bring in a whole extra level of complexity and continuity issues).  My research indicates he gave his age in the following episodes with the numbers indicated:

Tomb of the Cybermen:  450
Mind of Evil:  "several thousand years"
DW and the Silurians and Planet of the Spiders:  748
Brain of Morbius and Seeds of Death:  749
Robots of Death:  750
Key to Time (Ribos Operation):  756 759
Revelation of the Daleks and Trial of a Timelord:  "900, more or less"
Time and the Rani:  953

Two of these situations in particular lead me to believe the Time Lords, at least, had ways of keeping track of such things.  For starters, Romana has his exact age (759) on the tip of her tongue when the question of whether or not the Doctor is "old" is raised at the beginning of The Ribos Operation.  He corrects her ("756!"), but she claims he's "lost count somewhere," suggesting his age (or date of birth, even) is part of the "confidential" information to which Romana seems privy (what with details of his Academy record also blithely cascading forth).

My second piece of evidence along these lines is that in his first adventure in his new incarnation, Seven uses his age - 953 - as the door code to the Rani's lab (it's supposed to be her age, too; maybe it's something about those Academy records after all...).  At this stage, he's clearly still got an accurate count - at least by some calendar - on his age, since otherwise the number the Rani used would not have matched.  Somewhere within the next two incarnations, something happens to change that.

Maybe it's something to do with the Last Great Time War (though that seems a bit melodramatic); the loss of his home planet has completely thrown off the Doctor's sense of the relative passage of time.  That at least fits with the idea that other Time Lords knew how old he was - it might have taken their presence to keep him grounded (or honest, depending on how you see it).  Or maybe it's some unknown timey-wimey adventure that regressed his physical age by a couple hundred years, and he's decided that should count toward his overall stated age.  Frankly, any fan can come up with some vaguely plausible explanation to suit her or his own views on canon.

Personally, I think it's just the Time Lord equivalent of "39 and holding."  When he spouted off to Rose about "900 years of time and space," I think he was talking about the time since he'd first stolen the TARDIS.  When she called him on it, he panicked - or, thinking that there was no one left to disabuse her of the notion, decided quite deliberately that there was no harm in claiming it as his age.

From that point on, it's a bit of a different story.  In order not to be caught in a lie, especially now that he's gotten in the practice of popping back and having his various Companions meet each other, I believe he made a conscious decision to start trying to be consistent.  I'm sure he doesn't want his friends comparing notes and finding any more inconsistencies than they already do.  So once he gave the lie to Rose, he's decided to "play it straight" for a while and stick with the spurious personal timeline he gave her.

For those who know he gladly told an earlier Companion he was half a century beyond that age two regenerations before, it's irksome.  It'd be nice if he'd fess up that he shaved off a couple of centuries in there somewhere, even if he doesn't know precisely how old he really is.  He could call it a "new age for a new Age," or some such rot.  I suppose we'll just have to be satisfied that he's trying to be self-consistent with what he's been telling people since the LGTW, since we all know how likely it is that the Doctor will ever admit to that kind of prevarication.

After all, as Four once said, "there's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes!"

Confession #9: I'm Tired of Catchphrases

The Daleks just wouldn't be the Daleks if they didn't trundle around screaming Exterminate!, but before Nu-Who (or "the RTD era," as some would prefer the beginning of the Doctor's on-screen return to be called), they pretty much had the monopoly on catchphrases.  These days, everybody's got one, from the Cybermen (Delete!) to the Sontarans (Sontar-ha!) to the Doctor himself (the repeated use of Geronimo! is the one thing that really rubs me the wrong way about Eleven).  Even the Companions are getting into the act (Spoilers, anyone?).

Since when was having a clearly identifiable catchphrase cool?  Somehow "fantastic!" didn't sound as inane coming from Nine's lips, but perhaps I just wasn't yet inured to the idea of the same word popping out of the Doctor's mouth every other episode.  It gets much worse with Ten, who even goes so far as to consciously cultivate a catchphrase in Army of Ghosts:  "I like that: allons-y! I should say 'allons-y' more often."  And, of course, after that he does.  He even gets to uncork his self-proclaimed ideal catchphrase ("Allons-y, Alonzo!") in Voyage of the Damned.

It's getting out of control.  For a particular example, put yourself in the Doctor's place.  I mean seriously - you're about to sacrifice everything in a last-ditch effort to save the entire universe, you have one last chance to say something to your beloved friends, and you choose... "Geronimo"?!  What sort of shitty "famous last word" is that?  I mean, generally speaking, I dearly love Moffat's writing (The Curse of Fatal Death still puts me in danger of snorting my drink out my nose every time), but c'mon...

In a sense, there were also a few catchphrases Back When, but - when they existed - they were somehow cooler.  (Note a key difference here, too - each catchphrase in question is an actual phrase, rather than a single word.)  They were more like an Easter egg than anything; there was a bit of fan-service thrill to it.  Who didn't love to hear Two say, "when I say 'run,' run!" or, "oh, my giddy aunt"?  Most famous, of course, is Three's "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" (used just twice as the complete phrase, and more often as simply "reverse the polarity").  In its shortened form, it was also later uttered once by Four and twice by Five.  Even Ten claimed to have been out of practice to have taken so long to reverse the polarity of Lazarus' machine in The Lazarus Experiment.  It may, thereby, be the only catchphrase to span multiple Doctors (and the pre-/post-2005 eras).

Why can't there be more of those cool little sayings these days instead of one-word-character-definers?  Granted, there will always be "Exterminate!" but that's pretty firmly in the cool/terrifying camp - a shorthand, if you will, for "now you should be really, really scared!" - rather than the pithy utterances that have been cropping up in scripts everywhere since 2005, like literary daisies.  Eleven's "[insert item of clothing here] are cool" is a great step in the right direction - see, quotable whole phrases can't be that hard to concoct - but there needs to be a simultaneous reduction of the copious single-word memes in the scripts overall.

In other words, I'm really ready for the writers to Pith Off.

Confession #8: I'd Love to See More Classic Baddies (and Think We Will)

Part of the bread and butter of Doctor Who is introducing new creatures to be antagonists for the Doctor.  Writers experiment with it, thrive on it, even cash in on it (~cough~TerryNation~cough~).  Despite our perceptions, though - thanks mostly to institutions such as the Daleks and the Cybermen - most of them show up no more than twice.  So it's not surprising that we end up with such one-offs as the Sycorax, clockwork robots, the Carrionites, the Vashta Nerada, and the Krafayis (some of which fully deserve to remain relegated to the annals of history).  We've also, however, had recurrences of the (rather regrettable) Slitheen, the Ood, and the Weeping Angels as well as the return of the Autons, the Sontarans, and (WTF?) the Silurians.

But what I really want to see is more links back to some the more interesting - and not yet overused - pre-RTD-era baddies.  Here I'm thinking of entities such as the Toymaker, the Black Guardian, the Valeyard, or Omega.  In fact, all of these crossed my mind at one point or another as a possibility for the culprit behind the as-yet-unexplained Silence and reason for the TARDIS's explosion in Series Fnarg.  And while Toby Jones' brilliantly creepy Dream Lord could well have been interpreted as another aspect of the Valeyard, I don't honestly think either the Valeyard or the Toymaker are good fits for the Big Bad of Series Six.  My money (and a huge pent-up fangirl squee, if this wishful thinking pans out) is on Omega.

It's recently been brought to my attention that I'm behind the curve on this idea.  So I'm certainly not an original thinker on this front, but I submit that I am at least an independent thinker (like Newton and Leibniz, or Hertzsprung and Russell).  Suffice it to say, I had the idea myself - it sprang from the murky depths of my own fandom, not from cruising others' forum posts.

All that aside, why do I like the idea of Omega's return?  For starters, the character is 100%, completely, utterly, and in all ways stark-raving mad (and who doesn't love that kind of villain?).  He's already tried to destroy the entire universe when he was thwarted before, so why wouldn't he try again?  It also makes sense that he would use the Doctor's TARDIS as the vector for destruction, since it was the Doctor who prevented his return twice before.

Another intriguing tidbit about Omega is that for countless eons, he has been trapped in an alternate universe, having been converted entirely into antimatter.  It would give him both motive and a method as plausible as any Who science for getting to the TARDIS and rigging it to explode.  Who knows, maybe it would even lead to enough of a universal change to allow Omega to transfer himself back through to his native dimension.

Of course, I have no idea how any of this would fit in with the resolution of River Song's story, which - since posting Confession #5 - I've read is supposed to be wrapped up this series.  Is River really Omega in disguise?  (Nah - that's patently ridiculous.)  Do River, Amy, and Rory have to save the Doctor from Omega, or is River secretly in his employ?  None of those ring true; my imagination isn't yet good enough to find a way to mesh those two characters in a believable plot.  Maybe it's too much even to ask of the Grand Moff.

But I've got a squee saved up, just in case.

Bonus Post

This week I've made a bonus post before my regular Wednesday post goes up.  You can see my latest entry on the Nu-Views page ("First Thoughts on Four"), in which I detail the Ladies' initial reactions to the Fourth Doctor.

New review posted: The Seeds of Doom

Today's update is a review of the recent DVD release of The Seeds of Death, starring Tom Baker as Four.  It is posted on the Reviews page.

At this point I am not sure whether next week's post will be a Nu-View or a Confession, but I'm leaning toward the former.  Tune in...

New review posted: The Ark

Today's update is a review of last week's North American DVD release of The Ark.  Check it out on the Reviews page.

Next Week:  Review of The Seeds of Doom - a Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) adventure

Confession #7: I've Learned to Like Six

As I was first learning about the pre-RTD Doctors, I heard a lot of love for Three, Four and Five, and a lot of hate for Six and Seven.  Although I've never understood why Seven was so reviled (perhaps because my first experience with him was Remembrance of the Daleks, which included Ace, who was to become one of my all-time favorite Companions), I must admit that I took an instant dislike to Six, as I'd come to expect I would.

I suppose it was partly a self-fulfilling prophecy, but when you consider my first exposure to Six (not counting the regeneration scene) was in Vengeance on Varos - in which he is exceptionally snotty to Peri (who, granted, kind of deserves it, but not that much...) - perhaps it's not surprising I didn't take to him right away. All I got from him was egomania and disregard for his Companion - not a Doctorly attitude at all. It wasn't till much later that I discerned any sort of affection for Peri underlying the banter.

Since those first few months, though, I've come to appreciate him as a great character in his own right. Mostly, this is due to the brilliance of Rich Morris, artist and web comic writer extraordinaire, who penned the epic fan comic The Ten Doctors (also available in PDF format here). It was through Rich's work that I was finally able to see the beautiful potential of Six, who really had been done a disservice by his writers, in my opinion. (Not to mention the costume designer - what is up with that nasty outfit? Why couldn't they have gone monochrome?) The Six of TTD was extremely clever, yet never out of acerbic character from the televised episodes.  He was somehow simultaneously grumpy and charming. I had a lot of respect for that version of Six, and was able to superimpose the positive qualities exhibited there onto the on-screen Doctor afterward.  (In fact, I learned a lot about Doctor Who as a whole from both TTD and the associated forums, which are populated by some really knowledgeable folks in what is probably the friendliest community on Teh Intarwebs.)

It also helped when I was finally able to watch Trial of a Timelord.  In his second series, Six finally came into his own.  (Getting rid of Peri - my all-time least favorite Companion - was a step in the right direction, too.  ...though Mel wasn't much of an improvement.)  There's finally a real, noticeable warmth between Six and Peri (at least before the brain scrambling incident in the second sub-story), and he radiates confidence without arrogance in the adventures viewed through the Matrix. He's still kind of a prat in the courtroom on Gallifrey, though, faced with the Valeyard's vitriol. It seems that being under fire brings out the worst in him (though having recently taken a couple of hits at work, I can't really blame him); when he can't be the one in charge, he gets huffy. However, when things clearly go awry as the Doctor tries to make his own case, his discomfiture affords him a bit of humility.  Without all that smug self-satisfaction, Six is actually rather engaging. Perhaps it's that it gives him just enough of the "humanity" that the Companion (largely absent in court) usually affords the viewer.  Whatever the case, by the end of Trial, I was much more willing to cut Six some slack, and count him among "Doctors I Like," rather than have him all alone on the other side of that tally sheet.

Sometimes it takes someone else's perspective to make you take another look.  That experience changed my mind.  If you've never had an appreciation for Six, maybe it's time for you to look again, too.

Confession #6: The Fourth Doctor Kind of Bugs Me

If Confession #3 irked a few Neo-Whovians (and yes, I did catch some flak from the Ladies), then this one is sure to incur the wrath of some Old Skool Whovians.  Tom Baker, aka Four (you know the one - "all teeth and curls," perpetually wrapped in a ridiculously long scarf), is one of the best-loved Doctors of all time.  In fact, before David Tennant's stint, he was the most popular Doctor ever.  However, though I do generally enjoy him, a lot of times Four just sort of rubs me the wrong way.

First, there's the way he seems to work so hard on being weird.  Sure, the googly eyes give him a head start, but that's the least of it.  There are so many instances where he'll just repeat! someone else's line enough to startle ("of course!"), and then come down from that vocal high still as confused as ever ("nope - still don't know what you're talking about") that it ceases to either surprise or amuse (a trait Tennant borrowed for Ten, though I don't believe he wielded it as often).  I think it would bug me less if it weren't such an ongoing gag.  It's something that feels like it started as one of Baker's many attempts to make the cast and crew lose their composure and start laughing on set - except that once it worked, he kept inserting it as one of Four's quirks, and it lost its effect (file under: funny once).

What really irritates me, though, is how rude he is to everyone.  He frequently cuts off his Companions mid-sentence, usually when they're trying to tell him something important that he needs to know.  It doesn't matter who it is - Sarah Jane, K-9, even Romana (who's supposed to be as clever as the Doctor) - all suffer the same indignity and implication of insignificance.  Again, every once in a while it can be amusing, but it seems to happen nearly every story.  His self-centeredness in this sense feels very anti-Doctor to me, and makes me wonder:  where's the Doctor who loves and values his Companions?  Oh, I know he does, but as the saying goes, he has a funny way of showing it...

Not all of these annoying traits crop up in every story.  Occasionally, none of them do (like The Invisible Enemy - Nu-View pending).  Yet somehow, the pall of them tends to color my enjoyment.  Maybe I've seen a few too many interviews on DVD extras or something, because Tom Baker and Four seem indelibly intertwined, even outside the studio.  That makes it difficult to know how much of Four's posturing is Tom Baker's larger-than-life personality coming out, and how much is just the way he chooses to play the character.

I've also gotten the impression from various accounts that Baker was very jealous of "his" role, and didn't exactly play well with others at conventions and such, having made Four so iconic during his tenure.  For example, at one convention, he reportedly greeted his fans on an entirely different floor than the other Doctors present.  I suppose my opinion of the character has thus been a bit influenced by what I've learned of the actor.

On the other hand, I'm certainly not going to stop watching him.  He delivered a whole lot of really good stories, and - especially after my recent viewing of Meglos (DVD review sadly scrapped) - I have plenty of respect for his acting chops.  When you can see how distinct the Doctor is from another character Baker is playing, it makes even the over-the-top bits more palatable - Four as caricature rather than alter-ego is somehow less off-putting.  So Four's stories will most definitely stay in my "happy to re-watch it" queue.  I just need to make sure I'm in a properly off-the-wall mood.

Schedule Adjustment

In the interest of maintaining the quality of my posts (and my sanity), I have decided to change my posting schedule, starting next week (Wednesday, 23 Feb 11).  Rather than trying to post a Confession every week and squeeze in Reviews and Nu-Views as they arise, I will only post something from one of those three classes every week, depending on DVD release schedules and WhoFest session dates.

Partly, this allows me to "ramp up" to my intended eventual tripartite blog structure.  A revised, custom site is under construction (don't ask about a release date for that; I've no idea at this stage) in which each type of post (Confessions, Reviews, and Nu-Views) will have its own blog-stream.  You'll be able to follow the RSS feed for any one of them, or all of them.  If I gain a real Readership, I might even consider adding a forum.  It'll be cool; just wait and see.

Another thing I hope to improve with the upcoming site is giving readers the ability to post comments on Reviews and Nu-Views as well.  Not that there are many comments yet...  (C'mon, people!  I can see you in my stats!  I know someone's at least loading my pages!)  I recognize that episode reviews are probably the most likely to inspire chatter, so that's one of the main reasons I wanted to blog-etize all three sections.  In the meantime, please feel free to comment about any section of the site on the Confessions page.

Now just because I've declared that I will only post in one category a week, it doesn't mean I won't occasionally post to more, if I get inspired.  Sometimes I'll want to write a lot - I do get slightly obsessive about things like blogging.  And, of course, there's Series Six coming up.  So pull up a chair and settle in.  There's plenty to come.

Confession #5: I Have My Own Theories About River Song

This is more an "admission" than a confession, but hey - it's my blog.

Especially with Series Six coming up in a matter of weeks, and a promise that "everything changes," ideas about who River Song "really is" are as abundant as fans who watch Nu-Who (if not more so).  I figured now was as good a time as any to put forth my own.

Perhaps I should start with a brief list of the most common hypotheses that I don't buy.  For example:

• She's the Doctor's wife.  Yeah, right.  They may act "like an old married couple" and there have been hints dropped left and right that they are, but I just can't credit it.  Undoubtedly, there's a romantic (or even just sexual) component to the relationship, but if River is the Doctor's wife, then that is only a fraction of the whole story.  Otherwise, the rest makes no sense.
• She's a future incarnation of the Doctor.  This idea clearly comes out of certain fans' long-standing desire to see a female Doctor, but River Song is no Valeyard.  While she clearly knows how to handle herself in the TARDIS and such, she's much too comfortable with violence in general, and guns in particular, for me ever to believe she's the Doctor.
• She's another Time Lord.  I'm more willing to believe this one than some of the others, but it still doesn't ring true to me.  If she's traipsing around the 51st century, why is the Doctor convinced all through the rest of Nu-Who that he (or, for a time, the Master) is the last of the Time Lords?  Supposedly he can sense other Time Lords, regardless of where (or, presumably, when) they are.  None of that fits with what we know of River.
• She's the Doctor's mother/daughter.  Are these people on drugs?  There is nothing either maternal or filial in River's attitude toward the Doctor.  If there were, then other comments would be distinctly incestuous in nature, which is far too creepy for someone like Moffat to include in a show that is - at least in Britain - specifically aimed at a family audience.  I'd sooner believe the Woman in White from The End of Time had either familial relationship with the Doctor (most certainly not my interpretation) than that River does.

So what are the big clues we're given?  Well, among other things, we're led to believe by dialogue in The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone that she kills the Doctor at some point.  Various comments through the six episodes in which River has so far appeared lead us to think that at different points in her timeline she is alternately untrustworthy and his most trusted (capital-C?) companion ever.  Aside from copious attitude-based implications from their interactions up until that point, the end of The Big Bang gives another nicely confused hint at their marital status.  Most importantly to me, though, she knows the Doctor's true name.

Ever since Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, I've been firmly convinced that knowing his name is the big key.  There's something extremely unpleasant behind River's relationship with the Doctor.  Why else would she preface the revelation of her knowledge with "I'm sorry; I'm really very sorry..."?  That's the most telling exchange we've yet seen, in my opinion.  While some people interpret Ten's admission that "there's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could" as evidence to support the Wife Hypothesis, I find it all more sinister.  (It also clearly debunks the Future Incarnation Hypothesis, as he would never need to tell himself his name.)  In what circumstances would it be critical for someone besides the Doctor to know (perhaps to preserve) his name?

I think it has something to do with his thirteenth (and canonically final) incarnation.  Somehow - though through what mechanism I'm not creative enough to contrive - I believe River is involved in extending his regenerations beyond the "normal" limit, probably needing to end his life as Thirteen in the process.  I'll be the first to admit that this is an incomplete idea at best, and utterly off the mark if Moffat's plans don't extend beyond Eleven's tenure.  Given River's off-handed comments about "all [his] faces," I prefer to believe she'll be with us at least until Twelve, and Moffat has assured us that River's entire story will play out on screen.  Whatever the case - and I'm perfectly willing to adjust my own hypothesis as more clues come to light - I cannot be swayed from my conviction that there is something really dark in the Doctor's future with River.

Maybe we'll learn more in the middle of Series Six*, when "everything changes."

*I have a sneaking suspicion that the upcoming mid-series cliffhanger will be all about River and her portents.

Post-poned

Due to the unfortunate encroachment of Real Life, Confession #4 will need to be postponed until next week.  With yesterday's release of The Movie and The Mutants, there should be some new reviews in the next week or two, as well.

My apologies if I've disappointed anyone (with my vast, single digit readership, I'm sure there's somebody...).  I'll get back on track as soon as possible, once these pesky RL issues are resolved.

Confession #4: I Hate the "Standard" Regenerations

Warning:

This site (specifically, this post) contains profanity.  If you can't handle that, turn back now.

When Nine regenerated into Ten, Rose looked on in consternation as all the energy of the Time Vortex streamed back out of him as a bright, shining light pouring from his arms and head.  It was dramatic, it was beautifully done, and it was appropriate.  So what the hell was going on when the same effect turned the Jacobi-Master into the Simms-Master?  He'd just been shot, for shit's sake - why would he get all glowy?

Former Head Writer/Executive Producer Russell T. Davies (commonly known as RTD) would have us believe that there needed to be a sense of continuity about the regeneration process, or new viewers wouldn't understand that it was the way all Timelords change their bodies whenever they near death.  Give me a fucking break.  Are we really so stupid we can't figure out that a body change is still a body change?  How does it make sense to have all regenerations the same, no matter the cause?  If a Timelord dies of a paper cut, should his regeneration cause him to stand up from where he's collapsed and shoot golden light out of every orifice?  Hardly.  That's clearly something else coming out of one of RTD's orifices, if you ask me.

Who knows what current head honcho Steven Moffat (aka The Grand Moff) will decide to do when it's time for Eleven to become Twelve, but I sincerely hope he gives fans a bit more credit in the mental capacity department.  He always challenges us to pay attention to little details in order to get to the heart of one of his twisted plots, so I'd like to think he'll be willing to throw this RTD-era relic of "standard" regenerations in the bin where it belongs.  I advocate the return of the Unique Regeneration - a process that is specific to the place, time, and method of the Doctor's (or other Timelord's) death.

Just look back at the history.  From One through Seven, we witness each Doctor undergo regeneration from a new cause of death, and each time it's a little different.  Check out the details to see what I mean:

One to Two - Apparent ill health / old age
          morph while collapsed
Two to Three - Decreed by Timelords
          off-screen; new Doctor stumbles from TARDIS
Three to Four* - Radiation poisoning
          K'anpo "kick starts" process, morph where collapsed
Four to Five - Fell from a height
          Watcher merged with Four, became Five
Five to Six - Spectrox toxemia; antidote given to Peri
          Hallucinations, morph where collapsed
Six to Seven* - Cranial(?) trauma when TARDIS hijacked
          morph when rolled over by a Tetrap
Seven to Eight - Cardiac surgery gone wrong
          morph on slab in morgue fridge
*These are regenerations I've only seen in snippets on YouTube, rather than in full episode context.

Compare these to the Nu-Who regenerations we've seen so far:

Nine to Ten - Absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex
          standing morph; golden light of Time Vortex shooting from head, arms
Jacobi-Master to Simms-Master - Shot by companion Chan Tho
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
Ten to Ten Point Two* - Shot by Dalek
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
Ten to Eleven - Extreme radiation exposure
          standing morph; golden light shooting from head, arms
*Hardly counts as a regeneration; merely setting the stage for the Timelord-human metacrisis.

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture? Why is there no correlation between the manner of death and regeneration in Nu-Who?  Worse, why is there a brilliant connection in the first case, and nonsensical repetition ever after?  Once again, this feels like a case where RTD's fanboy'er-than-thou attitude has gotten the better of him. In the land of Russell Knows Best, Classic canon has been chucked out the window (let's not review the Doctor's purported age too closely in that light, shall we?) and RTD's poorly-thought-out vision inflicted on all of us.  Let's just hope the Grand Moff sees the not-shooting-golden light.

Maybe I'm being a bit hard on RTD (lord knows I'm not the only one); he did, after all, do a lot of things right, not the least of which is bringing the whole shebang back to our screens and introducing a whole new batch of people to Doctor Who (THANK YOU!).   But I'm sticking to my guns on this one.  Regeneration is as individual as death; every person experiences it differently, and as we are all well aware, every Doctor is a unique person.  Let's do them each the honor of allowing their final moments to be truly distinct.

Confession #3: I Might Like Matt Smith Better Than David Tennant

Blasphemy!  Heresy!  Buuuuuurn heeeeeer!

OK, that's probably overstating the reaction a bit, but I may well be ostracized at my own get-together after this one. The Ladies of WhoFest are firm Tennantites, so admitting my Smithian leanings is sure to engender some antagonism, or at the very least disdain.  I can't deny it any more, though.  I think Eleven has surpassed Ten for me in terms of watchability.

Don't get me wrong - Ten is my Doctor.  I fell in love with him (yeah, I mean it that way - how Mary Sue of me; and yes, I wept like a pregnant lady during The End of Time...), and through him learned to love all the Doctors, each in their own way.  But there's something a bit off-putting about The Lonely God after a while.  While I loved the Saddest Doctor when he was in a manic phase - oh, that smile... - I got tired of him getting screwed (metaphorically, and - depending on how you interpret a few things - literally) all the time.  The guy couldn't catch a break.  Given how RTD chose to write his story arc, I have to say it was probably time for Ten to regenerate; I mean, how much lower could he go?

Perhaps it will come as no surprise, then, when I say that what I've come to love most about Eleven is the return of his joie de vivre.  Sure, the pain is still lurking there in his eyes when someone forcibly reminds him of it, but for the most part, he can put it out of his mind the way anyone who's lost a loved one learns to do (or, as Two put it in Tomb of the Cybermen, "I have to really want to - to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they... they sleep in my mind, and I forget.").  But overall, Eleven gives off a kid-in-a-candy-store vibe, like he hardly knows where to begin because it's all so fabulous - sort of like Ten's breathy "that's beautiful!" upon first seeing the werewolf in Tooth and Claw, except all the time.  New regeneration, new companion(s), new outlook; in a sense everything that Ten was really did die.  And while part of me misses him, another larger part just doesn't have the time, because watching Eleven is too damn much fun.

This certainly wasn't a quick or simple transition.  I went through a real grieving process for My Doctor (details are irrelevant, and vaguely embarrassing).  How many times before had fans gone through this?  "This Doctor was so good; how can the next bloke possibly measure up?"  Over and over again, though, it worked (with a possible exception of the Five to Six transition, which really wasn't Colin Baker's fault so much as his writers').  Knowing that, I resolved to remain Cautiously Optimistic.

Hard as I tried, though, I couldn't help doubting.  I'd debate myself.  I'd start with "he's so young" (not how I saw Tennant, who is all of 2 months my junior), "he's a bit odd-looking" (though so were Troughton, Tom Baker, McCoy...), and "what's with that bow tie?!".  I'd counter myself with "Moffat wouldn't have chosen  him right off the bat if he weren't brilliant" and "you can't possibly judge him on two minutes, immediately post-regeneration."  As the new series approached, I got progressively antsier.  I felt like a junkie jonesing for a fix (as perhaps I was).

Once Eleventh Hour aired, I was somewhat mollified.  All right.  Not bad.  Nothing too alarming there.  He didn't feel very Doctor-y until he walked through Ten's image to intone, "I'm the Doctor," but that's OK.  After all, by his own admission, he wasn't done cooking yet.  However, apparently that episode was all some fans needed; Smith's performance had already outstripped Tennant's in their views.

By contrast, it took me a relatively long time to warm to Eleven. It wasn't until his "funny how you can say something in your head, and it sounds fine..." leading into the credits for Vampires of Venice that I wholeheartedly embraced him in the role. Even then, he was just "a worthy successor" in my book. It was several re-viewings of the series later that I started to feel that Smith's performances are surpassing Tennant's. I think it's the way he's so Classic'ly "proper bonkers," as Moffat put it.  Really.  If you look back at Classic Who - perhaps especially at Tom Baker's over-the-top performance as Four - you'll see there's always something... a bit mental about the Doctor.  He comes off a bit of a nutter.  Ten didn't quite have that (nor, come to think of it did Five, the one Tennant considered "his" Doctor).  Quirky, perhaps, and definitely a bit odd, but not a nutter.  Not a mad man in a blue box...

I guess when all is said and done, for me it's a matter of accepting the inevitable, of embracing the present. It was great while it lasted, but Ten's time has gone; now is the Eleventh Age. Matt Smith is the Doctor and I, for one, am enjoying the hell out of it.  The Doctor is dead; long live the Doctor.

David Tennant still wins hands down on hotness, though.

Confession #2: I Haven't Seen Them All

Now I may damage my cred with certain parts of The Community by this admission (perhaps especially those Neo-Whovian friends who regard me as a font of knowledge about Classic Who), but the sad truth of the matter is, I haven't seen all the Doctor Who stories out there. Shocking, I know.

This lapse in my own Doctor Who education is the product of one of my general character flaws (or "quirks," depending on who you ask): I'm not only a completist but also very particular about what I choose to collect. When I began my search for Classic stories, I didn't want anything on VHS, dinosaur technology that it is, so I started looking for what was out on DVD. Rather to my surprise, not everything had yet been released. (What had the BBC been doing all these years that I didn't care about Doctor Who? They were supposed to be getting everything ready for me, for when I discovered a new obsession!) Not only that, but each story (often misleadingly labeled as an "episode") was its own DVD, worth anywhere from $10 to $35 ("on up" for boxed sets of related stories) at list price. Yikes!

Much to my chagrin, my local library system failed me. Not only were there no DVDs in the system to check out, there were precious few VHS tapes, either. Fumbling around in the dark on my own, not having found any real link to The Community yet, I didn't even know whether or not to waste my time with what the library had. There had to be a better way...

Then I hit paydirt. Nosing around on eBay, I found a lot of roughly forty-five stories on DVD - every one that had been released in Region 1 (here in the US) up to about 3 months before the auction. Although the asking price was more than I really had to spare, it was a great deal for what was being offered; I couldn't pass it up.

Suddenly, I had an embarrassment of riches. I'd read a few reviews or passing comments by this time, so I had an idea of what was considered "great" (Genesis of the Daleks, for example) and what was considered contemptible (Timelash). Sometimes I agreed, and sometimes I didn't, but I got a feel for all the Doctors and many of the companions, forming my own opinions and preferences among them. (In the meantime, I hemorrhaged cash, trying to catch up on the constantly-growing list of releases.)

Originally, I watched them in broadcast order, starting with the earliest stories and prowling the now-defunct Outpost Gallifrey website for plot synopses of the missing stories - or parts of stories, for One and Two (I tend to refer to the various Doctors by number; another "quirk" of mine). This afforded me an awesome sense of continuity, most especially because that meant I didn't find it weird (as I do on subsequent viewings) to see the Brigadier (going by Bret) working next to One - still military but with a completely different manner (The Daleks' Master Plan), or Romana chatting with herself (The Armageddon Factor). As my collection expanded, I backfilled the viewings, which often led to brief confusion (was Story X before or after Story Y?).

As I did so, I also got a great feel for the uniqueness of a regeneration (don't get me started on the RTD-era "it should always look the same" crap; perhaps that's a rant for another post). The first regeneration is one of the few snippets that remains from One's final story - and what a blessing to fandom that bit of serendipity is. I've seen four (or is it five?) of the other six, including The Movie, and it's always amazing to watch that prone figure morph. (Note to Neo-Whovians unfamiliar with Classic Who: not till the transition from Nine to Ten did the Doctor stand for a regeneration scene.) Having all of these finally in my repertoire made my first "real time" regeneration (Ten to Eleven) simply delicious to anticipate. Now I know how Old Skool fans must have felt.

The upshot of all this is that, while I can proudly say I've watched every Doctor Who story that's been released on DVD in Region 1, plus The Movie (OK, OK... I haven't gotten around to watching The Dominators or Meglos yet; it's been a busy couple of weeks), I've still never seen The Krotons, Planet of the Spiders, Terror of the Zygons, or any of a couple dozen other well-known stories. My education continues.

Maybe I'm due for another chronological viewing bonanza...

Confession #1: I Am a Neo-Whovian

My folks didn't watch a whole lot of tv when I was growing up, and when they did, it was mostly PBS (public broadcasting). I suppose that's why on very rare occasions, I'd come across my dad watching some unknowably ridiculous thing and have to ask what it was. A few times, it would be Star Trek, which - as an American - is a show I learned quite a bit about, eventually becoming a bit of a Trekker myself in college (where we watched new episodes of TNG religiously). On at least one occasion, though, I remember being really taken aback at the absurdity of the two minutes of something-random I watched with my dad. That was my first introduction to Doctor Who.

It wasn't a part of the American psyche the way it was - is - in Britain. I mean, sure, I'd heard of Doctor Who and its slightly... OK, very eccentric fans. For example, the Doctor Who Club in college tended to consist of shady figures who wore long woolen cloaks around campus (come to think of it, many of them were part of the campus Druids, too...), which didn't particularly inspire the uninitiated to jump right in and join the fandom. I didn't really know much of anything about the show, though. I'm a bit embarrassed in retrospect to admit that when my husband commented that the first little house we bought was like a TARDIS, he had to explain to me that he meant it was bigger on the inside.

Not until one of my friends nearly forced the "new series" (aka, Nu-Who) on me by showing me the first four episodes (which I thought were OK, but not exciting; thankfully he persisted) did I really catch the fever. And when I did, I caught it bad. In the course of approximately two weeks, I watched the end of Series 1, the entirety of Series 2 and 3, and caught up to the then-currently-airing Series 4 at about episode 6. I have watched every episode from S04E07 (The Unicorn and the Wasp) onward as they were broadcast.

Perhaps it was the intensity of this experience - 36 episodes in 14 days is nothing to sneeze at - that branded it on my soul and made me want more. Lucky for me, there were another 26 seasons' worth of backlog on which to catch up! Being the obsessive personality that I am, I immediately started looking for a way to get my hands on as much as I could (more on that in my next Confession).

I understand that there are plenty of Neo-Whovians out there (those who, like me, cut their teeth on Nu-Who) who have never warmed to the Classic Doctors. But I don't understand why. It makes the whole Nu-Who experience so much richer when you have that sense of history, of continuity. How can you not love it all the more when you recognize that Ten's drawling "well..." is a holdover from Four, or that Eleven sitting in a chair confronting a baddy with just a jaw-wiggling non-response echoes Three's mannerisms perfectly?

This love of the entire series - Nu-Who and Classic Who alike - has led me to try to share the joy of stories well-told with anyone who will listen. I managed to get several members of my pipe band hooked on Nu-Who, for a start. From there, I've moved on to the Gospel according to Classic Who, and am currently introducing some of those same people to the wonders of Doctors One through Eight.

So in reality, I'm not just a Neo-Whovian, though that's certainly where my roots lie. I'm an evangelical Whovian. C'mon in. Join the choir.