DW 6x09 - Night Terrors
Sep. 3rd, 2011 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caz963I said after LKH that I've more or less given up hoping to enjoy Moffat's episodes and have instead put my faith in the four standalones that are to come before the end of the series - and hope that they (together with The Doctor's Wife) are going to stop S6 from becoming a complete washout.
Fortunately, Mark Gatiss and the team delivered an excellent episode - probably the best one he's ever written for DW. It was funny and silly and scary in equal measure; my kids watched it huddled up together on the sofa and at the point where the doll grabbed the "evil landlord" and turned him into a doll, Cazlet #1 announced that she'd never sleep again! And shortly after that, they were both insisting they wanted to get rid of their big doll's house.
Job done, Mr Gatiss :-)
SM might have been the one talking about bringing DW back to the kids and making it scary again, but Mark Gatiss has beaten him at his own game on this one.
The story was pretty straightforward; the bit about George not really being Alex's son was a twist I didn't see coming - and even though the resolution was a bit cliched, this is one of the few episodes from the current series I'm actually keen to rewatch.
Not so much the kids though ;-)
Oh - when Amy was transformed into the doll, was I the only one who snarked about wooden acting?! /meeow.
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Date: 2011-09-03 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-03 10:27 pm (UTC)I agree with you on that one. But I've become so disillusioned with Moff's writing that I've decided to look to the "non-arc" episodes for enjoyment instead.
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Date: 2011-09-03 10:57 pm (UTC)I'm just prejudismed towards Scottish people.
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Date: 2011-09-04 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 08:20 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly - and that very thought went through my head, too.
But that's been the whole problem - for me - with this series and the last one. The characters aren't acting as they should in those circumstances. Okay, so I know this is a tv show and a science-fiction based one at that, so our heroes are inevitably going to face circumstances that are not at all "true to life". But Amy and Rory have just lost their baby and are acting as if she'd never even existed. Not just in this episode, but in LKH as well.
I've been trying to like what SM is doing with the show and as a result, I think I've been willing to make too many excuses for some elements of it in the hope that there is some amazing master-plan which will be revealed and which is going to make me jump up and down with excitement. But I'm becoming more and more convinced that's not going to happen. I mean - nobody actually expects the Doctor to really die by Lake Silencio, do they? The Beeb's not going to kill off one of its most valuable cash-cows (and this isn't 1989! *g*) so the Doctor isn't going to expire. Which means this whole series is going to be "unhappened" somehow and I'm not sure that I'm all that interested in how that is made to work any more.
As for River - SM has managed to make me not care about her any more, when previously, I'd always looked forward to seeing her.
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Date: 2011-09-05 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-04 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-05 11:24 am (UTC)