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Entry tags:
- doctor who,
- dw s5,
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- review,
- telly
DW 5x05 - Flesh and Stone
This is more of a muddle of thoughts I’ve written down as a result of watching Flesh and Stone than it is an actual recap of the plot. You all saw it – you know what happened, right?
I know I read somewhere that Alex Kingston wasn’t that familiar with DW before she appeared in it. But seriously – what she just said in the DWC about never having seen the Doctor behave with such passion and emotion before… what fucking planet has she been living on? Okay, so watching the show isn’t a prerequisite for appearing in it, I get that. But did she never watch David Tennant when she worked with him? Wasn’t she in the scene where River killed herself while the Doctor watched? Serously, there was more passion and emotion in David's little finger in that scene than in the whole of this episode, Matt's tear-filled eyes notwithstanding.
Daft woman.
I still like River though. I think the character works much better with Eleven than with Ten, perhaps due to the fact that when she was originally introduced, Moffat may not have been 100% sure he was going to be able to bring her back or where he was going to go. He more or less said in the DWC that he hadn't planned this storyline when he wrote the Library story, but then went on to say that we'll get to know more about her and her relationship with the Doctor, and who she really is. She’s such an intriguing character – while I do want to find out what’s going on, because there’s certainly more to her than meets the eye, I’m sort of hoping it’s not just a one series storyline. And as for her having killed the best man she ever knew… did everyone else think the same thing as me? That she’s talking about the Doctor himself,? She somehow causes the next regeneration? (Which would mean that her story would have to be more than a one series deal.)
Anyway. A good conclusion to the story begun last week. Amy managed not to get on my nerves again, which is a good thing, and we finally got the by-now obligatory Doctor/companion snog (which had been seen in the original trailer aired at Christmas). And I have to say, the way she was trying to climb him was quite funny. I confess I’d been hoping we wouldn’t be going down that road this time around, although I do get the impression it was more a spur of moment thing on Amy’s part, a kind of “hey we survived death, and you’re sort of cute if I look at you the right way (and avoid looking at your ears), so how about a quick one?” - thing. The Doctor actively fighting her off was a bit different, too – Ten used to let them get on with it and look gorgeously gobsmacked afterwards.
So now we know for sure that the crack is a crack in time – “time is running out” literally, it appears. There was the reference to the events of The Next Doctor - the Cybermen appeared in Victorian London – but how come nobody remembered? The first contact with aliens in the DW world is supposed to have been in the 21st Century. But there’s still the question of Amy not knowing about Daleks as well. (Mind you, nobody seems to have said anything about Daleks in New York in the 1930s either!) I suppose this supports the “alternative universe” theory – but which one is the alternative one and which is the real one?
And what does Amy need to remember from when she was seven? Thinking back to TEH, there was that scene at the end, where we see Amelia, sitting on her suitcase in the garden still waiting for the Doctor to come back. We hear the sound, she looks up and smiles and - cut to grown-up Amy waking up and hearing it. Presumably, we're supposed to think she's been dreaming, but what if the Doctor did come back? Or perhaps a different Doctor, as the Eleven we've seen so far doesn't seem to remember it either. But clearly he does - because he tells her to remember. When did he roll up his shirt-sleeves and get his jacket back? One minute he's saying goodbye to Amy and telling her he'll be back and we see those horrible stripy cuffs. Then in the close up of his hands on hers - no cuffs. It's pretty big for a continuity error.
My head hurts!
I enjoyed the episode, although it didn't feel quite as pacy as last week's. There was a lot of super-fast exposition required and which I need to watch again (the downside of watching with kids, they ask questions at the wrong time so I miss stuff!) The idea of turning the whole “don’t blink” thing on its head by having Amy unable to open her eyes was a good one, although I’m not sure it really worked. “Don’t blink” has become such an iconic phrase – I don’t think “don’t open your eyes” has quite the same potential somehow.
I did like the bits where we finally got to see the angels move – it reminded me of the bit in Jason and the Argonauts where the huge bronze statue of Talos moves for the first time. Scared the crap out of me as a kid!
It seems that Eleven also has a propensity to let his mouth run away with him, although it appears that he has a particular talent for saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. We got to see a bit more of the Doctor’s rage this time around as well. I’m glad to see it’s not completely disappeared, I just think that Eleven is better at suppressing it – which also means (I think) that when he takes the lid off, he’ll really blow. Or that he should – I’m still not convinced that Matt Smith has the gravitas to really pull it off in the way that Eccleston and Tennant did. Don’t get me wrong - he’s doing a good enough job, but he’s just not hitting the spot for me yet, and maybe he won’t. But that’s okay. As long as the scripts and stories are decent and I like what he’s doing - there’s a gawkiness to his portrayal that is strangely endearing – I’ll be here.
The whole “time can be rewritten” thing is intriguing – it was said twice (or more?) in this story, and Ten said it as well just before River died. Is the Doctor going to have to rewrite time in some way in order to put things back on track? Or will it somehow play into the killing of the best man she ever knew?
I imagine all this will fade into the background a bit for a few episodes, although I’m sure there will be some more breadcrumb trails laid for us to follow!
Is 26-06-2010 the date the final episode airs?
I know I read somewhere that Alex Kingston wasn’t that familiar with DW before she appeared in it. But seriously – what she just said in the DWC about never having seen the Doctor behave with such passion and emotion before… what fucking planet has she been living on? Okay, so watching the show isn’t a prerequisite for appearing in it, I get that. But did she never watch David Tennant when she worked with him? Wasn’t she in the scene where River killed herself while the Doctor watched? Serously, there was more passion and emotion in David's little finger in that scene than in the whole of this episode, Matt's tear-filled eyes notwithstanding.
Daft woman.
I still like River though. I think the character works much better with Eleven than with Ten, perhaps due to the fact that when she was originally introduced, Moffat may not have been 100% sure he was going to be able to bring her back or where he was going to go. He more or less said in the DWC that he hadn't planned this storyline when he wrote the Library story, but then went on to say that we'll get to know more about her and her relationship with the Doctor, and who she really is. She’s such an intriguing character – while I do want to find out what’s going on, because there’s certainly more to her than meets the eye, I’m sort of hoping it’s not just a one series storyline. And as for her having killed the best man she ever knew… did everyone else think the same thing as me? That she’s talking about the Doctor himself,? She somehow causes the next regeneration? (Which would mean that her story would have to be more than a one series deal.)
Anyway. A good conclusion to the story begun last week. Amy managed not to get on my nerves again, which is a good thing, and we finally got the by-now obligatory Doctor/companion snog (which had been seen in the original trailer aired at Christmas). And I have to say, the way she was trying to climb him was quite funny. I confess I’d been hoping we wouldn’t be going down that road this time around, although I do get the impression it was more a spur of moment thing on Amy’s part, a kind of “hey we survived death, and you’re sort of cute if I look at you the right way (and avoid looking at your ears), so how about a quick one?” - thing. The Doctor actively fighting her off was a bit different, too – Ten used to let them get on with it and look gorgeously gobsmacked afterwards.
So now we know for sure that the crack is a crack in time – “time is running out” literally, it appears. There was the reference to the events of The Next Doctor - the Cybermen appeared in Victorian London – but how come nobody remembered? The first contact with aliens in the DW world is supposed to have been in the 21st Century. But there’s still the question of Amy not knowing about Daleks as well. (Mind you, nobody seems to have said anything about Daleks in New York in the 1930s either!) I suppose this supports the “alternative universe” theory – but which one is the alternative one and which is the real one?
And what does Amy need to remember from when she was seven? Thinking back to TEH, there was that scene at the end, where we see Amelia, sitting on her suitcase in the garden still waiting for the Doctor to come back. We hear the sound, she looks up and smiles and - cut to grown-up Amy waking up and hearing it. Presumably, we're supposed to think she's been dreaming, but what if the Doctor did come back? Or perhaps a different Doctor, as the Eleven we've seen so far doesn't seem to remember it either. But clearly he does - because he tells her to remember. When did he roll up his shirt-sleeves and get his jacket back? One minute he's saying goodbye to Amy and telling her he'll be back and we see those horrible stripy cuffs. Then in the close up of his hands on hers - no cuffs. It's pretty big for a continuity error.
My head hurts!
I enjoyed the episode, although it didn't feel quite as pacy as last week's. There was a lot of super-fast exposition required and which I need to watch again (the downside of watching with kids, they ask questions at the wrong time so I miss stuff!) The idea of turning the whole “don’t blink” thing on its head by having Amy unable to open her eyes was a good one, although I’m not sure it really worked. “Don’t blink” has become such an iconic phrase – I don’t think “don’t open your eyes” has quite the same potential somehow.
I did like the bits where we finally got to see the angels move – it reminded me of the bit in Jason and the Argonauts where the huge bronze statue of Talos moves for the first time. Scared the crap out of me as a kid!
It seems that Eleven also has a propensity to let his mouth run away with him, although it appears that he has a particular talent for saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. We got to see a bit more of the Doctor’s rage this time around as well. I’m glad to see it’s not completely disappeared, I just think that Eleven is better at suppressing it – which also means (I think) that when he takes the lid off, he’ll really blow. Or that he should – I’m still not convinced that Matt Smith has the gravitas to really pull it off in the way that Eccleston and Tennant did. Don’t get me wrong - he’s doing a good enough job, but he’s just not hitting the spot for me yet, and maybe he won’t. But that’s okay. As long as the scripts and stories are decent and I like what he’s doing - there’s a gawkiness to his portrayal that is strangely endearing – I’ll be here.
The whole “time can be rewritten” thing is intriguing – it was said twice (or more?) in this story, and Ten said it as well just before River died. Is the Doctor going to have to rewrite time in some way in order to put things back on track? Or will it somehow play into the killing of the best man she ever knew?
I imagine all this will fade into the background a bit for a few episodes, although I’m sure there will be some more breadcrumb trails laid for us to follow!
Is 26-06-2010 the date the final episode airs?
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I want to know how he got his jacket back from the angels :P
Elinor was scared witless after last week's episode, but not this week, so I suppose that's as good a scary-o-meter as any.
I've realised that, as others have said, I'm watching this as if it's a different show. Yes, I see the throwbacks and references to what's gone before, but I don't have the same emotional connection as I did to Rusty's DW. Perhaps that'll change as things develop.
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Much nodding in agreement with your comments. Not convinced of MS's weight as an actor yet; so far have seen him be competent, occasionally good, and often miss an opportunity to deliver a moment with the kind of zing that his predecessors had. (I mean, it's not an accident that "Don't blink, don't even blink" became an iconic phrase--and not only because it's well-written. It's also well-delivered.)
OTOH, I think Moffat and Smith have made a brave and risky choice to do Eleven as a withholding, opaque hero. He's not human, he never was. He has watched a great many people crash and burn on his altar and he's not gonna go there anymore. What interests him is the job of universe-saving, and he needs companions for that, tant pis. 2 hearts just mean 2 organs for pumping blood (or ichor, or whatever), not a divided and conflicted soul. Or that's his story, anyway, and he's stickin to it.
The risk is that this distant, closed character will not bond so easily with viewers. There's a fine line between being mysterious and being a blank. The payoff is that eventually, if/when we do see the Eleven exposed, it packs a punch. In a way Ten did that a bit at first: he looked all happy-go-lucky and sprightly and jolly for a bit: the very opposite of Nine's towering darkness (which was a brilliant innovation for DW). It lasted until he met Sarah Jane, and she accused him of abandoning her--that was the first crack, followed by Mme de Pompadour. After that, he spiraled straight down into the abyss.
I don't expect Eleven to follow the same path. But I do like the flashes of real anger, arrogance, and impatience we are seeing in him now. And sooner or later he's going to have to stop keeping all his secrets to himself.
Meanwhile, though, the ones who have embraced Eleven so far seem mostly to be the Eleven/Amy shippers, who I fear are doomed to be disappointed.
I also dislike the outfit. Tennant's geekchic was so extreme it sort of worked, and then he had the sweeping duster (= superhero cape) which was not geeky at all. Eleven's clothes are neither ubergeeky nor classy on their own; they just look stupid to me. I liked the publicity photos of Matt Smith in a black jacket and jeans, but I suppose it made him look too young, cool, and contemporary.
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I don't see how someone - even an alien Time Lord - can have lived for 900+ years and NOT have a degree of inner conflict. Unless he's totally heartless (in the emotional sense), which the Doctor clearly isn't. I can buy the thing about Eleven making a conscious decision to distance himself a bit though - given what the Doctor went through as Ten, it makes sense. But that said, he's the same man, with the same memories.
The risk is that this distant, closed character will not bond so easily with viewers.
Yes, that's exactly my feeling. I know that there are some (many?) who say that this is what the Doctor should be, and that Rusty cocked it up by making him too accessible, but like it or not, television has moved on since 1989. I’m not saying that all the developments in TV since then have been good ones (reality TV, anyone?) but the fact remains that things have changed, and kudos to Rusty for knowing that and being able to reshape the show so as to be able to bring it back.
I really hope that MS is able to deliver the payoff when it comes. I watched Dalek during the week, and CE is simply stunning. DT’s quiet rage with the Vashta Nerada - you’re in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up. – is chilling. We’ve had two real powerhouse actors in this role, and while I can understand that a more established actor might have had qualms about stepping into Tennant’s converse, MS simply doesn’t have the experience that they have. I’ve been pleased to see that the character hasn’t left all that behind him – but Smith’s delivery has lacked the depth of his predecessors so far. I can see and hear that he’s pissed, but I don’t feel it.
the ones who have embraced Eleven so far seem mostly to be the Eleven/Amy shippers
Heh. Despite the oncoming snog last night, I’m pretty sure that ain’t gonna happen!
I confess, I tend to stick to LJ for my news and meta, and don’t stray very far (I’d spend ALL my time on the internet otherwise!), and I’m only now starting to see a bit of cooling off towards Matt Smith. So far it seems to have been a bit of a squee-fest in most quarters, and anyone who has dared to say that he’s yet to prove himself has been accused of being too much of a Tennant fangirl and not a true DW fan etc. Now, I freely admit to being a Tennant fangirl (although I maintain I’m far too old for the ‘girl’ part!) but I’m also a DW fan who grew up watching the show so I knew he’d move on one day. I’m not interested in a pissing contest as to who’s best, but I do get annoyed with those who are already saying that Matt Smith is shaping up to be the best Doctor yet when we’ve only seen five episodes.
Ten’s outfit was iconic – but let’s face it, it’s not just the outfit. Smith is skinny but there’s no way he could pull off that look. I think that every Doctor has dressed as differently as possible to his immediate predecessor and the outfit you describe would probably have looked too close to Nine’s. I don’t like or dislike it – because on a purely shallow, fangirly note, I don’t fancy MS one iota so it doesn’t matter to me what he wears!
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But I did somehow like him much more in this ep as the Doctor which I take as a hopeful sign - some kind of emotional signals were definitely travelling between 11 and Amy and 11 and River (and indeed 11 & Octavian) - and I don't mean re Amy just the last 10 mins!! which I thought were just fun and the most honest reaction the show has had to the reality that if you were travelling with the most exciting man in the universe, well what would you do girls?? So anyway I'm taking this ep and ep 1 to prove that Matt can do oK if not heart stoppingly when given good material - but just dies when given bad ( ie V of the Daleks) where Tennant would aways have scooped the most out of anything :(
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I also will go out on a limb and say that I really disliked Ten's shorter hair after season2.
Not sure why Smith's clothes bug me so much. I guess they seem sort of cliche and familiar from bad Disney movies about Nutty Professors and Doctor Doolittles and nerdy librarians, all of which distill down to the following simple but classic TV trope:
People who love learning, books, and education are hopeless eunuchs.
I so very much dislike that trope that I react badly to tweed jackets and bowties and suspenders played for humor. In the punk era, kids wore plaid trousers in exactly this way: So aweful it's cool. And it worked, but I was very relieved when it was over, as well as the baggy plaid flannel shirt thing. (Because I like baggy flannel shirts but I tend to wear them without subtext.)
Yes, the thought of a lot of 5 year old kids suddenly wanting to wear clip-on jazzbows is kind of cute. But The clothes are adding one more obstacle to Smith being able to command the stage fully. And he needs all the help he can get. Why make it more difficult for him?
At least he has stopped saying "Geronimo" for the moment.
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In fact, a lot of season 1 was pretty bad writing, but Eccleston totally sold it, and then we got The Empty Child and all was well with the world (which is to say: veryveryunwell).
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The hybrid-pig-mutant-Dalek-slaves make me cringe, but Tennant is SO pretty in those episodes that I just stare at him instead *g*
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Not just me, then. Although actually, I got used to it until they attacked it with the garden shears at the end of S4!
What you say about the professorial garb is true, it is a stereotype. I know MS has said that he didn't like the original suggestions for the costume - I'm sure I read he thought it was "too piratical"?? although what on earth that means, I've no idea! I can't exactly see him done up like Jack Sparrow!
Clearly they wanted to get away from the suit, and also away from the Doctor as a) someone who acts the age he looks and b) a hottie. Mind you, Harrison Ford carried off the tweed and bow-tie and managed to look hot. Matt Smith, not so much.
I'm sure I read somewhere that one of the reasons Tennant adopted the glasses for Ten was so that it would show kids that wearing glasses was okay and maybe even cool (!) - which I think says so much about him as a person, an actor and a DW fan.
A bow-tie isn't going to have the same impact.
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*folds arms and sends best Ten-style glare across the pond!*
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Ten's coat is a great coat, rather than a duster.
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I miss the coat...
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And yeh i miss it too.. though i was very amused when DT said somewhere that when they ran both he and jack were constatky being tripped up by these daft long coats.. can youimagine what would happen to Matt if he's as clumsy as they keep sayimng?!