The series
6 two-part opener is, in part, indicative of a lot of the problems with that
season. It starts things off with a big,
involved adventure that leaves trailing threads of multiple mysteries that need
solving. In general, it’s just too
wrapped up in itself, massively interconnected storytelling that’s hard to do
in a show without a writers’ room where everyone can be on the same page and
characters can react organically to events over time. That said, it’s still an exciting yarn with
fun characters, a sublime creep factor, and a handful of really nice character
beats. Given all that, it’s hard to
begrudge it too much. (Season 6 arc spoilers by necessity.)
There’s a
colossal amount happening here, so I’ll just give you the thumbnail
version. Amy, Rory, and River see the
Eleventh Doctor killed actually-for-real-no-fooling-this-time, only to run into
him minutes later (the dead Doctor is from the future, and the one in the
present doesn’t know about it.) Earth is
occupied by some supremely freaky aliens known as the Silence, who can only be
remembered while a person is looking at them.
So, team TARDIS – along with Canton, former FBI agent and cool temporary
companion – struggles to combat an enemy they can’t remember, and there’s also
a bunch of stuff about the moon landing, Richard Nixon, a mysterious little
girl, and a possibly ambulatory spacesuit.
The
characters are definitely the high point here.
The Doctor is the man, especially in the Oval Office scene and in the
big final confrontation. Rory has some
fantastic scenes – there’s a really good conversation with River and a nice
heart-to-heart with the Doctor about some of what he went through last
season. River is in fairly good form as
well; this is one of my favorite stories with her. I like guest character Canton, a pragmatic
man who rolls pretty well with discovering that the world isn’t what he thought
it was. Only Amy gets shortchanged. Despite some cool, creepy encounters with the
Silence that make for excellent television, her contributions mainly boil down
to acting weirdly out-of-character and getting majorly damseled – sigh…
The
Silence are also fantastic here. In
design, they’re perhaps trying a little too hard to be the Gentlemen from Buffy (nothing can touch that
creepiness, oh good gracious,) but the concept and execution is awesome. The memory-hook is classic Moffat nightmare
fuel, and it leads to some amazing scenes of characters being completely
oblivious to the danger they’ve just turned away from or, later, realizing
they’ve left a message trying to warn themselves about a monster they’ve
already forgotten. Brr…
The arc
stuff here really isn’t bad, although
I tire of storylines about how the Doctor is totally gonna die for realsies –
it’s more pronounced on rewatch, since there’ve been so many of them in more
recent seasons. It’s not done too
convolutedly, it creates some nice tension, and the Schrodinger’s Baby image on
the TARDIS scanner is intriguing.
However, it’s a lot less satisfying on rewatch, knowing how messily
these storylines are dealt with. It’s
jarring to go from these giant arc episodes to Happy Carefree Adventure romps
with only tenuous connections, and particularly because the major developments
have such strong impacts on Amy and Rory, the style of the show doesn’t give
them the space to react to it as they need to, which really hurts the
storylines. Also, I’m not a huge fan of
arcs that are tied to such character-specific drama. I know that sounds like a really bizarre
complaint, because I love the characters, but I like Who to be bigger, more expansive.
I love seeing small characters in an enormous universe, witnessing the
extraordinary and doing what they can to make a difference. For me, that hits the spot so much better
than the troubles of the Pond family across time and space.
No comments:
Post a Comment