Other Doctor Lives: Good Omens: Episode 3 - “Hard Times” (2019)

It’s like the miniseries knew that involving more setup with the other characters in episode 2 would be a bit of a letdown, because episode 3 comes in like, “Oh, we’re just gonna give you all the Crowley-Aziraphale content!” Probably the most famous episode in the miniseries, as well as the most beloved, and for good reason.

As the end of the world draws ever nearer, Aziraphale and Crowley continue their search for the Antichrist, albeit through slightly ridiculous means. For Aziraphale, it’s not just a question of how do they find the Antichrist child—it’s what do they do when they find him? (Crowley’s theories on the matter don’t encourage him.) As for Crowley, he has one foot in this desperate gambit of a mission while the other tries to think up contingencies for himself and Aziraphale in case it all goes south. Meanwhile, the forces of Heaven, Hell, and the Earth all continue to amass, rallying and/or being nudged toward the positions they’ll need to assume when the end comes, and the Antichrist begins to bring about some unexpected upheaval on Earth.

Re: the non-Aziraphale/Crowley parts of the episode, I’ll only say that everyone is very good, the plot is whimsical and inventive, and the dialogue is clever. These scenes serve more as short detours today, which allows them to both amuse and move the plot forward without making you wonder when our favorite angel-demon duo is going to show up again. This is much appreciated.

Because this episode is all about Crowley and Aziraphale.Certainly, there are their slightly-to-moderately panicked exploits in the present day, their frantic attempts to thwart the end of the world without quite knowing how exactly they plan on doing that. Once again we get those little exchanges between the two of them where the roles and functions of their respective sides get a bit jumbled up. Crowley intimates that the Antichrist child can’t bring about Armageddon if there’s no Antichrist child to do so (hint, hint,) and Aziraphale immediately cries that he, as an angel, couldn’t possibly kill a child—but at this point, we’ve already seen a flashback to Noah’s arc.

And that’s the real headline here. The entire first half of the episode is devoted to the story of Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship across all of human history, from the Garden up to the present day. We see Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing the characters in a plethora of time periods and locales, which offers up ample opportunity for a variety of costumes, wigs, and history jokes (the Shakespeare stuff makes me giggle.) It also shows the twists and turns of the relationship between the angel and the demon over the centuries, adding heft to their interactions later in the episode. There’s a history here, very literally, and when they argue, the clash has the weight of the ages behind it.

Tennant is just splendid. In this episode, Crowley gets to be all kinds of funny. When Aziraphale runs into him and conversationally asks, “Still a demon then?”, Crowley awesomely replies, “What else would I be, an aardvark?”, and there’s a fun scene that features him physically struggling to walk on consecrated ground. He also further pushes that intriguing mix of being both indolently slipshod and intensely earnest. He regularly shirks his demon duties and encourages Aziraphale to do the same on the heavenly side, and he at times makes a show of not caring that much about Aziraphale. And yet, every time Aziraphale is in trouble, Crowley is there, and even when Crowley wants to run and protect himself, he’s vehement about only leaving once Aziraphale is at his side.

Honestly, I know they never come out and say the words or anything, but you will never convince me that the miniseries isn’t written to show that Crowley and Aziraphale are in love, or that Tennant and Sheen don’t play it that way. I mean, just… the dialogue! The lingering beats! The looks! I know I’ve seen that exact same blissful smile on Tennant’s face before, and it was when the Tenth Doctor would look at Rose Tyler. People can quibble about what kind of love the two share if they’d like, but for me, there isn’t any question of the love itself. I adore it.

Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 5 – “Survivors of the Flux” (2021)

*A few general spoilers for the end of “Village of the Angels.”*

I love a good penultimate episode, but this one isn’t quite doing it for me. Like the season premiere, it feels busy and a little overstuffed, but while the various threads here are coalescing toward a point, I don’t feel like things are going in the most interesting direction. Still some great moments, though, so we’ll see how it resolves next week. (If it resolves? Or will this storyline carry through into Jodie Whittaker’s final specials next year? It remains to be seen.)

The end of the last episode saw the Doctor separated from Yaz and Dan, first across time, then across space. While Yaz and Dan are marooned in time, trying to continue the good fight as best they can, the Doctor is brought before the person who may be able to tell her more about the Flux, as well as herself.

Those are the two main plots, but there are several others at play too. Vinder and Bel continue to be awesome in whatever they do, and both of them are brought into contact with other characters from this season. Swarm and Azure are up to their usual creepiness, but as the season has progressed, they’ve been feeling less central as villains; in this episode, it feels like they’re just a couple more on a growing list. The Victorian-tunnel plot, like the Angels prior to last week, is another thread that’s been left dangling a bit, but it’s finally starting to get woven into the larger story here. And finally, there’s an Earth-based historical plot that offers some points of interest and cool appearances but ultimately falters due to sloppy show continuity. With all this stuck in alongside the two separate larger plots for the Doctor and Yaz-Dan, it definitely feels like a lot, and I’m less inclined to allow leeway than I did for “The Halloween Apocalypse.” That episode introduced all the assorted threads of the season—this one is supposed to be bringing them together, which it does but clumsily.

The Yaz-and-Dan stuff is fun. As I said last week, I like it when companions are forced into situations where they can’t rely on the Doctor and those true companion traits really come shining through. Yaz delivers hard on that front—she’s smart, intrepid, and determined, not to mention just a bit badass. Dan is somewhat more the comedy sidekick, although he has his moments. I try not to be too overly-hard on Dan. Given his experiences thus far, he’s still barely had the chance to be a “proper” companion, so he doesn’t have nearly the tools that Yaz does. Still, we join this plot already in-progress, so we could be seeing more from him by now. But their story is intriguing, their banter is amusing, and their outfits are very smart. My favorite bit here, among a number of strong scenes, is an emotional moment of Yaz replaying a holographic message from the Doctor, recorded before their separation.

The Doctor’s plot is hit-or-miss for me this week, which is a problem since it’s the one that’s definitely tied to the Big Deal of the season. There definitely are things to like here—Whittaker does a compelling job as always, with the Doctor having to confront some pretty huge stuff, and I love the design of the place she’s taken to. But the plot leaves something to be desired. We’re doubling down on certain elements in a way that makes a destructive force like the Flux feel weirdly small, which is disappointing. It’s like it’s too massive to derive from such a narrow focus, and on the whole, this feels like a waste of some interesting story potential. I hope the finale takes us in a good direction next week, but I’m warier now than I was after the last few episodes.

Relationship Spotlight: Kara Zor-El & Mon-El (Supergirl)

*Some Kara and Mon-El spoilers.*

During my rewatch of Supergirl, I tossed in some new write-ups based on revisiting the early seasons. I didn’t do this one at the time, but now that the show has wrapped up, I want to swing back around to it.

When it comes to season 2 additions to Supergirl, I know that Mon-El is contended much more than Maggie, but personally, I’m a fan.  While I think 1) the bait-and-switch with James is still shady and 2) Kara’s friendship-and-maybe-more with the new arrival from Daxam could have benefitted from a slower burn, I do think these two had a lot of storytelling potential and the kind of chemistry showrunners pray for.

Kara is drawn to Mon-El from the moment she recovers his pod.  Given her history, it’s no wonder—although Kara has adapted well to life on Earth, makes it her home, and clearly claims Alex as family, she still feels a pull toward Krypton and all she lost.  It’s no coincidence that she’s faced with the possibility of another surviving Kryptonian right around the time Superman is in town and she’s basking in the joy of being with her cousin.  She’s been living for her life as it is now, but she can’t deny that call for the past she once knew, and an apparent Kryptonian dropping out of the sky has to feel like fate.

However, it’s when she’s pushing back against anti-alien sentiment in the city that Mon-El finally wakes up, and this is also quite timely.  Because, as it happens, he’s not a Kryptonian.  He’s a Daxamite, hailing from Krypton’s neighboring planet.  Kara may have been only a child when she left, but she was still old enough to learn Kryptonian prejudices from her parents and her society, and her immediate assumption is that Mon-El has hostile intentions toward them.  Even though I don’t like to see this sort of kneejerk animosity from Kara – obviously! – it’s good to see her confront her own biases and realize she has some work she needs to do on herself.  It’s startling to see her bristle so much at the thought of Mon-El, and in a season where plenty of the villians are anti-alien bigots, I appreciate the acknowledgment that being one of the “good guys” doesn’t mean you have a spotless track record that’s free of prejudice (shades of Zootopia there.)

As Mon-El challenges Kara’s assumptions about him (while simultaneously making a few not-so-flattering ones about her,) Kara starts to analyze her own thinking more—again, this process is a bit too quick and a bit too smooth for my taste, but I like that it’s there.  She makes a concerted effort to do better, recognizing the ways Mon-El is like her as she once was:  a newcomer to Earth who doesn’t understand the culture around him or the new powers he has here.  She undertakes to be his guide to acclimating on Earth, and she’s kind of hilariously terrible at it.  Obviously, getting him an internship at Catco when he doesn’t know how to use a phone is an awful idea, particularly when he’s mostly left to his own devices and Kara isn’t keeping a constant watch over him, but the thing is, I don’t think she realizes how much she’s throwing him into the deep end.  It speaks to how at home she now feels on Earth and all the little things she’s forgotten she ever needed to learn.  I really enjoy Mon-El’s cheerful cluelessness about things and the way he’s so confidently wrong about everything (casually handing Kara a bag full of stuffing from his mattress when he comes to Thanksgiving dinner is awesome.)

As I said, I’d have liked to see matters move a little more slowly between these two, and I wish we lingered more on the angle of Mon-El as a vehicle for exploring Kara’s own past as an alien refugee on Earth. But I’m not opposed to the romantic route things take. While it’s true that the show’s execution of it leaves an awful lot to be desired – the portrayal of Mon-El as a frat boy living below his potential until Kara inspires him to clean up his act, the whiplash with which things start and stop between them when they eventually get together, and so forth – there’s still something I like about it, and I think that ultimately comes down to the spark between them. Obviously, Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood went on to get married, so there was nothing manufactured about that chemistry. And that’s what keeps me rooting for them despite some iffy writing, the way they light up around one another. After their initial combative dynamic (a classic love/hate scenario,) it’s nice to see Kara unwind around Mon-El, watching them have fun together and seeing how he makes her smile.

As it is, I’m all right with these two not ending up together. I’m sad for both of them when they’re forced apart at the end of season 2, and the time shenanigans of season 3 provide decent fodder for romantic drama (although I’m most grateful to those time shenanigans for the introduction of Brainy, who’s tied with Kara for my favorite character.) And then, after all that tampering and Mon-El leaving the show outside of brief guest appearances, I’m not left yearning for him or their relationship. So it doesn’t surprise me that these two aren’t thrown back together at the last minute when Mon-El returns in the finale. They had their moment, but that time is past now and it wouldn’t have made sense to me as an ending for the show.

There’s a lot I would do differently when it comes to this relationship, as I’ve written about before, and I unfortunately think the show squanders a lot of good potential here. But throughout, Benoist and Wood make it work to the point that I do root for their relationship in season 2, which is no small thing. The show really lucked out there, and I just wish they would’ve taken full advantage of it by making more interesting choices.

A Few Thoughts on Stephen Sondheim

Like so many theatre lovers, I was hit last night by the news that Stephen Sondheim passed away. He was 91 years old, so it’s hardly a “taken too soon” situation, but I hope that it was peaceful and without pain. May his loved ones find the solace they need in the days ahead.

So today, I’d like to just spend a little time thinking about Sondheim and his music. This post doesn’t have a specific aim or agenda. I’m just going to start writing, and we’ll see what comes out.

I believe I was around 17 when I first knowingly fell in love with Sondheim’s music (I’d gotten into West Side Story late in grade school, and I knew I loved the lyrics to “America,” but I didn’t know Sondheim’s name.) This was a little late in my informal musical-theatre education, and it was interestingly roundabout. I wasn’t introduced to Sondheim through Into the Woods or Sweeny Todd or A Little Night Music. It was actually Assassins. The Broadway revival cast performed the finale of “Everybody’s Got the Right” at the Tony Awards, and even though it was a brief and far-from-flashy performance, it piqued my interest enough for me to seek out the cast recording. It was an album I listened to repeatedly—there were songs and sections and lines that grabbed me from the start, but others needed to grow on me as I took time to acclimate to the very singular style of the show I was listening to.

This was repeated with the Pacific Overtures revival the following year (and they didn’t even perform at the Tonys—the show had already closed by that point, but just the short montage they aired during the telecast made me want to check it out,) after which I was ready to learn a lot more about this Stephen Sondheim fellow and his music. Through the rest of high school into college, I gradually increased my collection of Sondheim shows, picking up a new album every few months until I’d heard every score, including multiple productions for many of them (I just did a quick count, and I have 32 different Sondheim albums.) I tended to begin with revivals, which starred actors I already loved (ex: Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone in Sweeney Todd, Raúl Esparza in Company,) so I often came to the iconic original casts later in my exploration. I got my hands on some of the filmed productions too, watching with rapt attention as, for instance, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters broke my heart in the most beautiful way in Sunday in the Park with George. Every few years, I’d find a new splashy tribute concert for his birthday, which I could sometimes catch on PBS.

And of course, I started seeing live productions. The 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd is, regrettably, the only one I’ve seen so far on Broadway, but I’ve seen a number of others in all manner of regional productions (again, some more than once.) I remember sitting in my seat awash in the arresting harmonies of A Little Night Music, the tremendous production of Into the Woods I saw that filtered the fairytales through the lens of different Asian folklore influences, the moment that I realized the opening notes of “Sunday” would always put my heart in my throat. I saw an inventive A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at a delightful hole-in-the-wall theatre and a sumptuous professional mounting of West Side Story. I hope that, at some point in my life, I’ll be able to say I’ve seen them all live.

For me, what makes a Sondheim score so exquisite is the way he was able to blend those intricately-clever rhymes and puzzle-box patter melodies with searingly-beautiful themes and the spare simplicity of honest emotion. I love that Sweeney Todd features both “A Little Priest” and “Johanna,” that A Little Night Music is home to both “Now” and “Every Day a Little Death,” that Pacific Overtures is known for both “Please Hello” and “Pretty Lady.” He wrote marathons of cadence and internal rhyme like, “No dared to query her superior exterior,” and he wrote achingly-simple expressions of emotion like, “There is nothing between us.”

Rest in peace, Mr. Sondheim, and much love and comfort to your family. For more than 50 years, you exemplified the words that you yourself wrote, words I strive to live by as a writer: “Anything you do, / Let it come from you. / Then it will be new. / Give us more to see.”