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.