Doctor Who Archive

0

TV Review: Doctor Who – Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

By
Adam Shaftoe
– April 29, 2013Posted in: Reviews, TV Reviews

On a very fundamental level, I am not predisposed to enjoy an episode like Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. Try as I might, I don’t see the narrative value in story telling that pushes a reset button at the start of the fifth act only to spend its remaining few minutes doing jazz hands in anticipation of laurels. Even if the reset is planned from the first act, as it likely was in this episode, the need to invoke a modified “it was all a dream” trope shows me that the conflict at the core of the story was simply too impossible to manage. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we have to identify the actual conflict in this episode.

Part of the reason why I think this episode felt so haphazard has to do with the multiple conflicts in play, none of which managed to stand out as the thing which binds the rest together. The episode just moves from one thing to the next, seemingly absent a meaningful endgame.

Journey could have very easily been a “Humans are their own worst enemies” episode. The Venture Van Halen Van Baalen Brothers posses the greed, avarice, and short-sightedness which Doctor Who so often uses to juxtapose the inherent weakness of humanity against the seeming infallibility of the Doctor. The fact that the VB Bros. end up in the TARDIS opens the door to another potential conflict: The Doctor is destructively obsessive.

Consider for a moment that the toxic fumes and insta-death fuel leak within the TARDIS get cleaned up in a matter of seconds. The Doctor didn’t really need the Van Baalen brothers to find Clara. Yet, Eleven threatens to blow them up if they don’t help him. Why does he do this? Does he want to protect Clara, or is he just interested in solving the puzzle of her true nature? Interesting as this question is, it becomes a moot point with the reset button business. The dickish Doctor who all but killed killed two of the Van Baalen brothers becomes a hiccup of timey-wimey story telling.

What about the TARDIS then? We’re meant to believe that the TARDIS doesn’t “like” Clara, albeit through some very clumsy exposition.

 

When the TARDIS failed to let Clara in during the Rings of Akhaten, I didn’t see malevolence; I saw the Doctor not giving Clara a TARDIS key. But suppose we work with the malevolent TARDIS theory for now, except then we’d have to ignore the fact that the artificial labyrinth the TARDIS created within the episode was meant to protect Clara. Even the Doctor says that the out of sync console room is the safest place on the ship, and that’s exactly where the TARDIS led a woman she purportedly dislikes. So much for that conflict. Meanwhile, the TARDIS is snarling at the Van Baalen brothers, crying out to the fake-android-cyborg brother, and Matt Smith is walking around with his, “Oh shit” face on the whole time. So perhaps the conflict is going to be about the TARDIS turned Mr. House on the invading salvage team? Well only for about five minutes because then the XCOM Alien Abduction sound effect (if you’re going to borrow sound effects, don’t borrow from 2012′s Game of the Year) is going to play in place of the standard cloister bell to signal that the TARDIS is going to die.

Great! The now there is a conflict we can all get behind. The last vestige of Gallifrey, a machine that was old when the Doctor stole it 900 years ago, is coming apart at the seams. For an instant I dared to hope that the death of the TARDIS might extend to the 50th anniversary story. If we take Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife as canon, then the TARDIS is more than just a time machine; it is the infinite union of time and space. Something going wrong there could certainly hand wave Tennant and Smith together. Moreover, the audience has a huge emotional attachment to the TARDIS and its death could raise the stakes without putting a gun to the head of the universe. But instead of killing the TARDIS, Stephen Thompson – who is also credited with writing the atrocious Curse of the Black Spot – kills the TARDIS to let Smith and Coleman walk through the time frozen shrapnel of its exploded core.

Is it a cool visual effect? Absolutely? But is it great story telling? Not if the only way out is to call a mulligan on everything that happened in the story and cancel out any potential growth in the main characters or meta-story.

While I’ll offer no quarter to this story as a narrative nightmare, it does shine as an interesting archeological dig into Doctor Who’s internal mythos. The episode very much delivers on its promise to be a journey to the centre of the TARDIS. Along the way we see the much talked about swimming pool and a library which oozes, literally, Time Lord history. There are vanishing walls and West Wing style camera shots of people walking around infinite hallways.

The problem with archeology is that it can often be difficult to craft a narrative around a collection of artefacts. Doing so requires external sources, background research, and inferences which allow for some benefit of doubt. It is on that last point, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS falls to pieces. I’m not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to an episode which invokes a reset button to solve the story’s problems. Either by accident or design, such a resolution is lazy. Fun as the tidbits of Doctor who history are, up to and including the ghost voice of Chris Eccleston, they don’t end up contributing to the story as anything other than fan service. As a critic I don’t see why I should forge what remains into something cohesive; such is the task of the writer, not the audience.

Bottom line: It’s a pretty episode, it’s a fun episode, it’s even a nice nod to the series’ long running history, but at best it’s a narrative hot mess and at worst it’s self-congratulatory navel gazing.


Tags: , , , ,
0

TV Review: Doctor Who – The Bells of St. John

By
Adam Shaftoe
– April 1, 2013Posted in: TV Reviews

For want of a new episode of Spartacus this week, I thought it only fitting to put together a few words on the return of Doctor Who. As is ever the case with Doctor Who’s revival, I expect The Bells of St. John rung true for as many viewers as they sounded discordant. For me, the episode was a beacon of hope amid a seventh season mired in the heavy handed pathos associated with the departure of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) as the Doctor’s companions.

In broad strokes, I saw The Bells of St. John as a much improved version of the 2006 episode, The Idiot’s Lantern. In the aforementioned Mark Gatiss episode, a one-off alien calling herself “The Wire” – she looks nothing like Omar – uses television to suck the souls of people in 1950s London. “The Wire’s” endgame is to employ cheap televisions and the pending broadcast of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation as a way of eating all of England’s essence. So, television makes zombies out of people, how timely.

The Bells of St. John, written by Steven Moffat, works along similar lines as The Idiot’s Lantern while adding a few more culturally resonant layers to the story. It begins with an almost Torchwood-esque warning from a stranger about something living in the world’s wireless networks. In the pre-credit scene we witness people connecting to wireless networks with seemingly alien identifiers. When a person signs on to one of these mystery networks they become a target for surveillance and a potential consciousness download into a human data cloud. The Doctor stumbles upon this mystery when Clara (Jenna Lousie Coleman) calls the TARDIS’ public call phone, thinking she has reached tech support – hence the Bells of St. John.

Wocka wocka.

Prediction: River Song gave Clara the Doctor’s phone number. Apply handwavium as necessary for effective suspension of disbelief.

Despite the convenience of the Doctor’s reunion with the third iteration of Clara “Oswald for the win” Oswald, this is a reasonably clever episode.

Buried beneath the idea of brain hacking people through wireless networks is a poignant discussion on privacy in the digital age. Though one mis-click puts us in no immediate danger of getting our brains downloaded like so many cheap Cylons, the idea of free wireless networks acting as malicious entry points into a person’s computer is quite conceivable. This potential breach in a seemingly safe digital space becomes a conceptual seed from which the episode’s broad fiction grows. Such an approach gives the mid-season premiere a measure of speculative fiction legitimacy. Yes, there’s a bit of jargon and obligatory sonic screwdriviering, but standing just to the left and right therein is a decent bit of storytelling. Maybe it’s not the best spec-fic in the world, but it’s certainly a demarcation from the science = magic = hand waving = ‘shut up and accept it’ methodology I’ve come to expect from recent Who entries.

Further, I continue to be impressed with Clara as the Doctor’s sidekick. One of my wish-list characteristics for post-Pond companions is a broadening of the “Ubiquitous Earth Girl” template. Classic Doctor Who offers no shortage of extraterrestrials joining the Doctor in his adventures; whereas the revived series has always played it safe in terms of using the companions as contemporary gateways into an alien universe. Even though Clara mk. 3 is of modern London, her past iterations have been a Victorian nanny and an assimilated Dalek. She’s still somewhat an UEG, but I’m willing to let it slide in this case if only because she is more than a dough eyed girl who falls in love with/runs away with the Doctor.

It’s also worth mentioning that Clara is the first companion in recent history that has done anything better than the Doctor on the first try. Even though her hacking skills are the product of a partial upload into the human consciousness cloud, she still manages to outdo the Doctor. It will be interesting to see if this singular talent branches further into the writing.

My concern emerging out of this episode is the reveal of the “client” behind the human aggregation firm as the Great Intelligence. Though I enjoy the call backs to classic Who, I’m somewhat worried about how this portents the broader trajectory of the season. Moffat’s long-game writing has burned us in the past with telegraphed endings and ultimately pointless gimmicks half-resolved through the magic of Deus ex Machina. I’m a little too suspicious to write off witnessing the Great Intelligence in both the Christmas Special and the mid-season premiere as random chance.

Theory: The Great Intelligence has been manipulating Eleven since his regeneration. The cracks in the universe, the Silence, the alternate Doctor of Amy’s Choice, and everything else has been calculated to make the Doctor ask the ultimate question on the Fields of Trenzalore as a means of turning all life in the universe into pure thought, upon which the Great Intelligence will assimilate us into some massive gestalt…or something.

This may not be a bad way to go. Life, the very thing the Doctor holds most precious, could become his ultimate undoing.

My verdict: In a season which has been hit-and-miss, at best, The Bells of St. John is equally satisfying as a piece of short and long-term story telling. The allegory resonates within a culture that is both obsessed with its own digital privacy and concerned, at least on the fringes of tech culture, with the physical implications of wi-fi on the health of humanity. Freed of the Ponds and their perpetual drama/bungling as plot devices, I have hope that Steven Moffat is going to do something extra special with the remainder of this season.


Tags: , , , ,
0

First Impressions of a Web Series that is Legally Distinct from Anything Owned by Sony or NBC

By
Adam Shaftoe
– September 12, 2012Posted in: Web Series Reviews

Travis Richey is known on the internet as the creator of the Sesame Street spoof Smiley Town, the roommate comedy Robot, Ninja and Gay Guy, and the internet parody 2 Hot Guys in the Shower. However, fans of the NBC series Community will probably recognize him by another name, Inspector Spacetime. Back in February Richey launched a kickstarter campaign to fund a web series charting the adventures of the Community created Doctor Who send up. One business day after he came on my podcast to promote the project, then known as Inspector Spacetime: The Web Series, Sony and NBC lawyered up. Rather than bowing to corporate tyranny, Richey gave the Inspector a different coat and officially changed the name of his project to Untitled Web Series About a Space Traveller Who Can Also Travel Through Time.

After months of fan supported work, the Inspector’s first web adventure, Boyish the Extraordinary, has gone live. And if the entire series is as sharply written as the premiere episode then we are all in for a treat.

 

As a series taking some level of inspiration from the ephemera of Community’s screw-ball comedy, it would be easy to expect the same from UWSAASTWCATTT. Yet the tone of this series draws much more from Douglas Adams than it does Dan Harmon. The story is set on “Second New Old Earth 7”, which is described as a planet that came to be recognized as the pinnacle of human culture and civilization by the time we got up to the 42nd copy of Old Earth. Viewers familiar with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will no doubt revel in the absurdist exposition, while anybody who hasn’t read the book will probably be as temporarily confused as the Inspector’s associate Piper (Carrie Keranen).

Despite having fun with Douglas Adams’ style, Richey and co-writer Eric Loya have not neglected the Inspector’s origins as a Doctor Who parody. Piper’s name is an obvious nod to actress Billie Piper who played Rose Tyler, companion to the ninth and tenth Doctor. There’s a sign in the background of the episode’s first scene that in true Steven Moffat fashion demands, “No Spoilers.” Though Community saw the Inspector square off against the Dalek inspired Blorgons, this episode changes the antagonist to the creatively distinct, yet Cyberman derivative, “Circuit Chaps”. As clever as these ideas are, it is the BOOTH, the Inspector’s means of conveyance, which almost steals the episode. Though only a set piece, the special effects which usher the BOOTH into the frame are some of the best that I have ever seen in a web production. Truly Mr. Richey has mobilized some fantastic post-production talent for this project.

Now we must ask who is Boyish the Extraordinary? (Travis may have left a few hints during the podcast, but the sign said no spoilers, so I won’t say) And will he be so easily hand waved out of the story as the Circuit Chaps? (Probably not since his name is in the title).

UWSAASTWCATTT releases new episodes on Mondays. Kudos to Travis Richey and team for a fantastic start.

The Untitled Web Series About a Space Traveller Who Can also Travel Through Time is written by Travis Richey and Eric Loya. It stars Travis Richey and Carrie Keranen. The first season is directed by Vincent Talenti.


Tags: , , , , , ,
0

I, Kaled: A Short Primer on Dalek Origins

By
Adam Shaftoe
– September 7, 2012Posted in: Television, The Daily Shaft

Earlier this week I wrote a rather exhaustive piece on Asylum of the Daleks. After I posted it, a film maker friend of mine emailed me on a point of detail regarding my thumbnail description of the Dalek’s origins within Doctor Who’s canon. Knowing my friend to be a Whovian of the first order I set about reviewing my source material, the 1975 Doctor Who serial Genesis of the Daleks. Though the Daleks had existed as the Doctor’s foes long before this twelfth season plot arc, it was in this particular story that Dalek creator and Doctor Who writer Terry Nation, who later went on to define British dystopia with the subversive series Blakes 7, detailed the specific origins of the Dalek race.

Dalek history begins on the planet Skaro. Once a technologically advanced world, Skaro at the time of the Daleks’ creation was in a state of ecological collapse and technological decay due to a thousand year war between two rival humanoid nations, the Kaleds and the Thals. The course of the war saw both sides deploy atomic as well as chemical weapons, thus rendering Skaro’s surface nearly lifeless. Moreover, prolonged attrition cost both sides much of their advanced technology, forcing the Thals and the Kaleds to adopt firearms, akin to those used on twentieth century Earth, as a primary weapon of warfare. The survivors of the war lived in two giant domed cities. Only “mutos”, Kaleds and Thals whose genetic code had been damaged from radioactive and chemical fallout lived outside the cities.

Enter Davros.

Davros was the chief scientist of the Kaled “Elite”. The Elite was a scientific and military enclave housed in a bunker outside of the Kaled city. They existed beyond the direct control of the Kaled civilian authority, and while charged with producing research and technological developments that would end the war with the Thals, their purpose was usurped by Davros. In studying the Mutos, Davros came to understand that the humanoid inhabitants of Skaro had a further evolutionary form. Therein he created project Dalek, a combat and life support vehicle that would house the Kaleds once they had fully evolved into their “ultimate form.”  Davros, however, was unwilling to trust to evolution. He began experiments on healthy Kaleds, exposing them to radiation so that he might artificially evolve his race. Many of these experiments were monstrous failures, condemned to live out their tortured lives in the caves under the Kaled city. Ultimately, Davros’ twisted scientific genius proved successful in creating the “final evolution” of the Kaled/Thal race.

In that sense, the first ever Daleks were direct genetic inheritors of the humanoid inhabitants of Skaro. Encased in the travel machines, the mutated Kaleds were psychological unstable, but bound to obedience by invasive programming which limited their autonomy.

Davros would not stop his work there. He wanted to further improve on the Dalek race. He set about a series of genetic alterations that would remove remorse, pity, and conscience from the Dalek psyche. Their lone motivating force would be survival at any cost. When intervention from the Doctor introduced Davros to the knowledge that there was other intelligent life in the universe, he conceived of the Daleks as a twisted weapon of peace. In suppressing all others races known to creation, the Daleks would enforce peace through extermination.

Upon learning of Davros’ intention to augment the Daleks, many members of the Kaled Elite, as well as the Kaled civilian government moved to end the project. While even those who opposed Davros were resigned to the knowledge that the Kaled/Thal race would evolve into a form utterly inhuman, they insisted that their final evolutionary form retain the concepts of right and wrong. Despite their objections, Davros remained utterly committed to his vision of a Dalek future. He conspired with the Thals to have the Kaled city destroyed in a missile attack. In the immediate aftermath of that strike, Davros turned his first batch of twenty augmented Daleks against the Thal city. Only a handful of survivors managed to escape extermination at the hands of the Daleks.

Davros’ only miscalculation was assuming that the Daleks would remain loyal to him. As Davros moved to consolidate power, the Daleks refused to acknowledge his dominion as their rightful leader. During this insurrection, the Doctor destroyed the hatchery that housed the twisted infant Daleks. However the automated production facilities for breeding more Daleks, as well as their shells, remained intact. Despite Thal survivors entombing the Daleks within the Kaled Elite’s bunker, the Daleks possessed all the knowledge and manufacturing capacity to perpetuate themselves and eventually leave the confines of Skaro. Their reproductive blueprint would be Davros’ augmented and evolved Kaled, their mandate: extermination.

While subsequent Daleks, prior to the end of the Last Great Time War, would share a genetic heritage to the Thals and Kaleds of Skaro, they are first and foremost a product of Davros’ genetic manipulation and warped psychology. Though the Kaleds were a militaristic nation, the pure hatred that embodies the Dalek subspecies was not a trait shared by all Kaleds. Indeed, the Kaleds who died in the first Dalek purge stand as proof that there was a redemptive quality to the Kaled people. Therefore, the origins of the Dalek race must begin and end at Davros. While the Kaleds and Thals were both genetically bound to evolve into a squid-like form of life, it is only through Davros’ genetic manipulation that they became the enemy of all life within the Doctor Who universe.


Tags: , , , , , , ,
2

Television Review: Asylum of the Daleks

By
Adam Shaftoe
– September 3, 2012Posted in: TV Reviews

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the last seven years of Doctor Who, the first two seasons of Torchwood, as well as one big spoiler for anybody who hasn’t seen the second series of Sherlock. It’s also long, really long. About triple the length of one of my average posts. You’ve been warned.

First off, it’s good. It’s not great, it’s far from perfect, but compared to Victory of the Daleks, Asylum is a fine story so long as you don’t pay too much attention to the Ponds’ emotional drama and Amy’s subsequent descent into Dalek induced madness. There are also Dalek zombies, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about them.

Now for the details.

The Problem with Dalek stories

One of the key problems in telling a good Dalek story is that the stakes often become a little too high. Any good Whovian knows that even a handful of Daleks could conquer an entire planet. A Dalek warship, stuffed to the gunwales with ten thousand hate filled Daleks, is a threat to an entire galaxy. Ten thousand ships filled with as many Daleks is enough to jeopardize all of creation. And even when the Daleks get cast into (insert hand wavey, timey wimey, spacey wasey McGuffin of choice) one Dalek always manages to survive to start things all over again; it is the Dalek circle of life. So when Mark Gatiss let one Dalek survive in Victory of the Daleks, which then went on to resurrected a team of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Daleks, who then escaped the Doctor, I was sceptical. Not wary so much of Gatiss and Moffat per se, but because of the legacy of the latter’s predecessor.

When Russell T. Davies was showrunner he had a tendency to try and increase the stakes with each season. Steven Moffat did the same thing at the end of series five, though not with half the emotional intensity and panache of RTD; reboot the universe, my ass. If ever there was a “Holy shit I’ve written myself into a corner, and I have no exit strategy” moment, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang was it.

Prior to screening Asylum, my fear was that a reborn Dalek race under Moffat, whose track record as a writer is much stronger on Sherlock than it is on Doctor Who, would yield absurdly high stakes story telling requiring complex and ultimately unsatisfying gimmickry as a means of solving narrative problems. To put it another way, the last time we had a non-God Emperor of Dune style (transitional story telling soft on plot heavy on exposition) Dalek episode, the Daleks nearly undid all creation. If Moffat played along similar lines he’d have to reboot the universe, again.

For now, this fear has proven unfounded. However, I reserve the right to bring the issue up again if, as I suspect, the Daleks emerge at the end of the season to threaten all life everywhere with some nefarious plot. So while Asylum has its faults, it does offer a third way when it comes to telling Dalek stories without going whole hog on the “universe hangs in the balance” narratives.

How Moffat fixed the Daleks

Rather than focusing on the cosmic consequences of a fully realized Dalek race, complete with a new Emperor (cool), a functioning parliament (wait, what?) and borg-like assimilation technology (I could call derivative bullshit here, but I guess eye-stalks out the forehead are better than pig slaves), Asylum gives the doctor a task. Much like when the Time Lords sent the fourth Doctor to paradox the Daleks out of existence by messing with their Kaled progenitors, the Daleks teleport Eleven to a colony where they house the insane of their kind. What begins as the Daleks pitting their greatest foe (who is now called The Predator in lieu of The Oncoming Storm) against the worst of their own quickly turns into a damsel in distress story.

 

The key to the narrative, aside from not asking questions about how Daleks reproduce in such great numbers (the answer of course can be found in the most kinky Hentai ever made), build ships, and other such plot holes, is similar to the Wellesian silver bullet found in the series one episode, Dalek. Namely, the quality of being human is what defeats the Daleks. Asylum asks and answers what it means to be, Human, Time Lord, and even Dalek. Though now squid like in natural appearance, the Daleks were once a humanoid species, indistinguishable (largely for budget reasons) from humanity. Thus the Daleks have human emotions and motivations.

Generally, Dalek psychology is driven by two things: belief in the Dalek race as superior to all others and an unabashed hatred for anything that isn’t Dalek. Clearly though, the Daleks are softening on the definition of what it is to be a Dalek. Why else would an automated Dalek sanatorium give Oswin a full Dalek conversion? After all, these are not cybermen seeking to upgrade the cosmos. As evidenced in Dalek, Evolution of the Daleks, and even Victory of the Daleks, to be less than 100% Dalek is to be worthy of extermination. But its best not to dwell too much on that point or else things start to fall apart.

 

Though Dalek in body Oswin manages to hold on to her humanity, as witnessed in her letters to mom and penchant for baking. Thus she is able to turn the Daleks against themselves.

The Doctor-Dalek paradigm

What of the Doctor, though? When the Dalek parliament sends Rory, Amy, and the Doctor to the Dalek asylum, they give the intrepid trio wrist bands to prevent their assimilation into, foreshadowing alert, Dalek drones. Naturally, Amy loses her thing that keeps the Screamers away anti-Dalekification device during an attack from zombie Dalek drones. I hope whoever came up with that idea in the writer’s room took a victory lap or two.

Shortly after their Romero-esque escape, the Doctor rescues Amy from a descent into conversion induced madness. Knowing its only a matter of time before Amy is fully converted, the Doctor tells Amy to hold on to her fear and her love, human qualities that the Dalek nano-probes will try to purge from her mind before converting her body. Rory, suspecting he loves his wife more than she loves him, offers to give Amy his wrist band, assuming he can retain his humanity longer than she can. Only after the Ponds share a moment of maudlin heart break followed by honesty, wherein we learn that Amy is barren and Rory wants more children, do we find out the Doctor snuck his wrist band on to Amy. So why didn’t the Doctor transform?

Because in some ways the Doctor is already a Dalek. As my friend J.M. Frey so often says, the Doctor is not a hero in the traditional sense; he is Chiron, the trainer of heroes. While the classical allusion certainly holds, we must not forget that the Doctor is also The Oncoming Storm. In that, he is Shiva, the destroyer and transformer. We know from The End of Time, that when the Doctor used “the moment” – the ultimate weapon of mass destruction – he affected not only the Daleks and Time Lords, but a myriad of other races as well. Yet these races were not simply killed, but condemned to eternally repeat the nightmarish hellscape of events that constituted the Time War in a “Time Locked” portion of space-time. Since then, Nine, Ten and Eleven have all demonstrated the capacity to be driven by hate, the Dalek hallmark.

In the year 200,100, Nine was so raw with hatred that he was willing to use another weapon of mass destruction and accept the Earth as collateral damage when the Daleks invaded Satellite Five. Turn Left shows us an alternate reality of Ten whose hate would have led to his death during the Racnoss invasion. Eleven is less so motivated by raw hate but similarly Dalek in his own way. Where Nine and Ten had passion, Eleven is colder and more calculating than the other two. He lies, deceives, and manipulates his best friends to suit his own ends. The Cult of Skaro, the Daleks made to think like their enemies, mirror Eleven despite being introduced at the end of series two. But no matter the incarnation the Daleks can always see themselves in the Doctor. The mad Dalek Emperor, Dalek Sec, Davros, they all knew the post Time War Doctor’s capacity for hate and capriciousness because it was reflected in themselves.

Thus do we return to humanity. Because this Dalek side to the Doctor, also known as “the Time Lord victorious”, isn’t what saves the day in Asylum of the Daleks. It is Oswin’s refusal to be Dalek, her ability to be better than the Doctor. Barricaded in the sanctuary of her mind, she records letters to her mother, bakes failed soufflés, and escapes into the refuge of classical music to drown out the Dalek part of her brain that screams, “Let us in”. What is her reward for this fortitude? Oswin becomes another person willing to go to their death in order to save the Doctor. It is in Oswin’s “death” that Asylum shows the Doctor’s true power: not his TARDIS, nor Time Lord physiology, but his ability inspire/manipulate others into self-sacrifice. How many people have died to give the Doctor his nine hundred and some years? Just like the Daleks, others die and he keeps living. One Time Lord survives. Now, as a warped parting gift, Oswin has made it so the Doctor’s worst foes no longer recognize him.

Stop and consider this for a moment. The Daleks are now beholden to nobody. They do not fear The Oncoming Storm. What horrors could a restored Dalek empire perpetrate without having to factor for a blue box? Moreover, the Doctor may have been all laughs and smiles as he made his escape from the Dalek Parliment, but now he is alone in a way that the series has never before presented. He is anonymous. The lonely god who goes to museums to keep score is a stranger to the species that forced him to condemn every other Time Lord and countless others to an eternity of hell within the Time War. Nine once asked the broken Dalek of Dalek “What is the point of you?” Now we can ask what is the point of the Doctor if his foes don’t know to fear him. Is he still a god? Or is humanity more than just a one off for this episode?

 

Motherhood and tantrums

One of last seasons’ recurring themes connected to the strength of motherhood. Nowhere was this idea more overwrought and tired than in 2011’s Christmas special The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe. I’ll gladly accept any allegations of cynicism that people would care to toss my way, but the idea that a mother’s love can guide something through the time vortex, while successfully re-writing her own history, was just too damn much for me. Asylum walks a very narrow tightrope in its themes of motherhood. On the one hand, part of Oswin’s effort to maintain her humanity comes through letters to her mother. In so much as I’m willing to suspend my disbelief to assume the Daleks would bother assimilating a human (EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE) I’m fine with this mother motif in play. Where things get a little too hammy is with the Ponds and their reproductive challenges. Silence induced sterility? Really? Of all the things that could have happened between part four and five of Pond Life that’s where Moffat went? Never mind the fact that the Ponds already have a daughter. Apparently Rory wanted another child so badly he prompted Amy to do the hardest thing in her life and “give Rory up.” When did the Ponds turn into Gwen and Rhys? No, cancel that. Rhys and Gwen had real people problems. Granted the girl who waited and the lonely centurion have always had a tumultuous relationship, but setting a very good Dalek story against the schmaltz of two characters whose days are numbered on the series seemed a waste of effort.

Another matter of motherly outrage connects to spoilers. Last year Steven Moffat put himself on the pop culture radar for a few choice rants directed against people who perpetrate spoilers. He called those who engage in such activities vandals, and in concept I agree with him. Going out of your way to ruin something for somebody is rather classless act. Yet Moffat himself is near unto a spoiler in his Doctor Who writing. Case in point, by the time we got to Let’s Kill Hitler in series six, it was painfully obvious how the long arc would resolve itself. Just like the anti-Dalek bracelets, a writer does not introduce a piece of technology if they don’t plan on using it for something later.

This season’s big to do came in the form of announcing Jenna Louise Coleman as the new mid-season companion, only to bring her into the first episode. To some it might seem anti-climatic. To my eyes, it appears that Mr. Moffat has Reichenbach’d himself in the most low stakes away imaginable. We know Oswin didn’t really sacrifice herself to save the Doctor and the Ponds, just as we know that Sherlock isn’t really dead. Now the only thing the audience has to look forward to figuring out the type of trickery Moffat and company will invoke to bring Oswin into the TARDIS in a plausible way i.e. she was controlling that Dalek shell from another location, or the Daleks made a clone of her per Dalek operating order 5532-13-A. I know, it’s not a spoiler when it comes from within the series itself. But when it comes to Doctor Who, Steven Moffat doesn’t exactly play his cards close to his chest – certainly not in the same way that he does with Sherlock. Nor is Moffat bound by the rules of reality in Doctor Who as he is in Sherlock. While figuring out how Sherlock survived the fall constitutes detective work on the part of the audience and the writer, rationalizing Oswin’s return is nothing more than a study in candy coated bullshit.

Then again, we must not forget rule #1 – The Doctor Lies (and by extension so does Steven Moffat).

It would be a shakeup of RTD proportions if Oswin actually stayed dead and Coleman’s role in the show was just a one off akin to Kylie Minogue’s in Voyage of the Damned. If so, Steven Moffat will have perpetrated the biggest sleight of hand casting maneuver in the history of Doctor Who, if not television itself. The man would go down in entertainment history with the likes of Orson Welles for making dupes of Whovians around the world. Alas, such a maneuver is probably not meant to be, so I shall say no more on this particular long shot bet.

While we’re talking about the new girl

Considering that Jenna Louise Coleman is, almost certainly, going to be joining the Doctor for the second half of this series, I think it fair to devote a few words to initial impressions of her character. The short version is that Oswin seems just a little too awesome.

By virtue of her Dalek conversion, Oswin is capable of doing things that the Doctor can not. Beyond a raw talent for clever computer hacking, she has the constitution to maintain her humanity despite Dalek conversion. Not to mix genres but even Captain Picard could not resist assimilation by the Borg. Who is this Oswin girl that she can stare down the enemy that brings the best of Doctor Who to despair?

 

Oswin also finds the time to have a flirt with Rory and the Doctor. Through a quick narrative info dump she manages to frame herself as a character with the sexual forthrightness and flexibility of Captain Jack Harkness. Nor should we forget that she demonstrates courage and self-sacrifice in the finest tradition of the heroic epic.

Don’t mistake my observations for criticisms; none of the things that make up Oswin’s character are ill traits. But where’s the catch? Also, didn’t we already a have an equally impossibly awesome character in the form of River Song? Hell, Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother is a better rounded character than what we know of River and what we’ve seen of Oswin.

Even within canon other characters demonstrate their obvious flaws. The Doctor is perpetually guilty, angry, and forever trying to find absolution for his past. Amy has her short temper. Rory is the little man called to do great things. The Master is vainglorious. Donna is Icarus; she flew higher than any human ever could, but in becoming the Doctor-Donna lost it all. Martha was a tedious fan girl. Rose was naive. Jack, well I’d need another three thousand words to properly inventory and categorize all of Captain Jack Harkness’ issues. I could start with his adopting a dead lover’s name and persona before another ex-lover buried him alive for a couple of millennia wherein he was constantly dying and resurrecting. How about this: Jack has problems connecting with people.

Yes, Oswin will have half a season to develop as a character. And I’ll also concede it’s not fair to the writers to judge a character based on first impressions alone. However I will be watching very closely to see if Oswin becomes anything other than a younger version of River Song.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, Asylum of the Daleks, is a great episode as long as a viewer is willing to accede to the notion that the Doctor was so preoccupied with the Silence that he let the mortal enemies of all life everywhere develop to the point where they would move from the Dalek Emperor’s absolute monarchy into a what appears to be a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature. Square yourself with that bit of cognitive dissonance and the rest of the story, even with the Pond drama, unfolds as a very strong Dalek adventure. Further kudos to Steven Moffat for writing an episode that actually lets a critical viewer make some connections to the Dalek stories of the previous showrunner, even if indirectly. So much of Moffat’s writing has been working within a Fawlty Towers framework where he is almost pathological in not mentioning the war anything Russell T. Davies worked with.

Now we just need to get rid of the Ponds, who by all rights should have been written out during the Christmas special.


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Essential Genre Music Volume 2

By
Adam Shaftoe
– May 10, 2012Posted in: Movies, Music, Television, The Daily Shaft, Video Games

That’s right, it’s time for “Essential Genre Music Volume 2”.

I’ve pulled together fifteen (mostly instrumental) selections from television, movies, games, and anime for this ultra nerdy “what if” CD.

So without further ado, let’s get right into some tunes.

The title track – Icarus – Deus Ex Human Revolution Soundtrack – Michael McCann – 2011

McCann’s work on the Deus Ex: HR soundtrack earned him “best in music” nominations in the Canadian Video Game Awards and the BAFTA’s Video Game Awards. It’s a haunting and powerful piece of music that serves as the perfect complement to Eidos Montreal’s recent post-human masterpiece.

Track 2 – Terran Suite #2 – Starcraft soundtrack – Derek Duke and Glen Stafford – 1998

Why this particular piece? Because every time I set out to build something from Ikea, this is the tune that starts playing through my head. More than iconic, the Terran Suite is a touchstone to the very roots of Starcraft’s success as a piece of contemporary mythology.

Track 3 – Tank – The Seatbelts – 1998

If I had to guess, “Tank” is probably second to the Space Battleship Yamato anthem as the most remixed/covered song to emerge from an anime series. It’s also the benchmark for any saxophone players who want to prove their musical chops while simultaneously establishing their nerd cred.

Track 4 – Blade Runner’s End Theme – Vangelis – 1982

I don’t know why I didn’t think to put this on the first volume of essential genre music. In the thirty years since the song was first heard by human ears, it has become the godfather of music to all things cyberpunk.

Track 5 – Inner Universe – Origa – 2002

Perhaps not as iconic as “Making of a Cyborg”, the title track to 1995’s Ghost in the Shell, Inner Universe, from the 2002′s Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, has always stood out in my mind as a fascinating song. Setting aside the fact that the lyrics are in Russian, Latin, and English, I’m told the range required to hit all the notes is quite challenging.

Track 6 – Doomsday – Murray Gold – 2006

Yes yes, the actual Doctor Who theme song is awesome. But there’s more to the musical history of the recent series than various takes on a fifty year old tune. As performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, “Doomsday” is tied with “Vale Decem” as the musical high point of David Tennant’s time in the TARDIS.

Track 7 – Audi Famam Illius – Nobuo Uematsu – 2006

Famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu lent his talents to “Audi Famam Illius”, the theme song to Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Too bad the game is nowhere near as epic (it’s actually very pointless) as the music.

Track 8 – Prelude to War – Bear McCreary – 2005

The rebooted Battlestar Galactica reached its zenith with the second season cliff-hanger “Pegasus”. There, I said it, and I don’t care how much fan rage it gets me. After Admiral Cain died it was all downhill, albeit at a gentle gradient. This song, which built to an epic crescendo during Adama and Cain’s camera-pan face off, accompanies not only the best moment of the series, but arguably one the finest moments in television this side of the 20th century.

Track 9 – Enterprising Young Men – Michael Giacchino – 2009

Giacchino made a bold decision when he abandoned Alexander Courage’s influence in crafting a new Star Trek theme. Though Courage’s score would be remixed into the ending credits, “Enterprising Young Men” became the headline refrain for Trek’s alternate timeline. Like it or not, it’s here now.

Track 10 – S’il Vous Plait – Fantastic Plastic Machine – 1997

You may not recognize the name, but fans of the British series Spaced will know the song. It’s a song to be played in moments of pure, unrivaled joy. Such moments include getting around giving notice at a job by telling your boss that Babylon 5 is shit (not actually true) so that he fires you.

Track 11 – Bishop’s Countdown – Aliens Soundtrack – James Horner – 1986

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that one track on this album is superior to another. Consider that I haven’t watched Aliens in a couple of years, but I could tell you exactly what scene accompanies each piece of music on this CD. If that’s not the mark of a brilliant piece of musical accompaniment, I don’t know what is.

What’s that? You want me to name the scene where this track plays? Fah, child’s play.

This starts playing as Ripley emerges from the service elevator in LV 426’s fusion plant. With Newt in tow she yells out, “God damn you, Bishop,” suspecting that the synthetic has taken the Sulaco’s remaining dropship and fled. Ripley turns around to see the other service elevator, presumably containing the xenomorph queen, rising up. Low on ammo, she tells Newt to “Close your eyes, baby.” At the last second Bishop flies the dropship into the frame, allowing Ripley and Newt to escape. As the ship tries to break atmo, a computerized voice counts down to zero before the fusion plant explodes.

Track 12 – The Elder Scrolls Themes – Jeremy Soule – 2002, 2006, 2011

Since 2002, Jeremy Soule has been the composer on the hugely popular Elder Scrolls series of video games (Morrowwind, Oblivion, and Skyrim). I suppose I could have just used the Morrowwind theme since the other two are built upon its back, but listening to the evolution of ten years worth of work is just too fantastic to pass up. Also, the Skyrim bit makes me want to drink a lot of mead and pick a fight with somebody weaker than me, preferably in the East coast of England.

Track 13 – Still Alive – Jonathan Coulton – 2007

Unlike the cake, this song is not a lie.

Track 14 – Il dolce suono/The Diva Dance – Gaetano Donizetti, Salvadore Cammarano, and Eric Serra – 1997

Fun fact: The voice of Albanian opera-singer Inva Mula was dubbed over that of the actress playing the Diva in The Fifth Element. Luc Besson’s movies might not be the smartest thing out there, but it takes a certain kind of something to integrate opera into beating the piss out of aliens.

I know I promised a fifteenth track for this piece, but the chances are good that I’ve missed something that you think is absolutely essential. Therefore, track 15 is up to the readers. Leave a comment and telling the world what you think is absolutely essential genre listening.


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

The Daily Shaft: Travis Richey’s Inspector Spacetime Web Series Lands a Director

By
Adam Shaftoe
– March 15, 2012Posted in: Television, The Daily Shaft, Web Media

Nothing to see here, NBC, move along.

It’s onward, upward, and streets ahead for the web series formerly known as Inspector Spacetime.

Vince Talenti, the co-owner of Wayside Creations, has just singed on as the director of Travis Richey’s Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time. This announcement comes on the same day that Community, the series that saw the creation of Inspector Spacetime as a Doctor Who parody, returns to the airwaves.

Fans of post-apocalyptic role playing games may already be familiar with some of Talenti’s work. He’s the man behind the IAWTV award nominated series Fallout: Nuka Break.

Travis Richey had this to say about Talenti joining the UWSAASTWCATTT team,

“I am so thrilled to have Vince aboard to make this series.  He has a special skill for making a show look as good as possible, including great special effects and action, while still ensuring that the comedy shines through.  Which is exactly what The Inspector needs.”

Already a fan of Richey’s work, Talenti stated, “The sheer volume of content that he has created over the last few years on no budget is amazing.  I’m so excited that we have a chance to bring one of his projects to life with the budget it deserves.” Talenti went on to say, “I think that Travis is doing this for the right reason, because it’s a passion project, which I completely understand.  It’s the reason I did Fallout…”

With sixteen days to go in its kickstarter campaign, UWSAASTWCATTT is a little more than $4,000 shy of its $20,000 funding goal. To help push his fundraising drive over the top, Richey recently announced a series of new perks for contributors.

If you pledge $100 or more (but less than $1000), you will be entered into a drawing and 2 winners will receive the $1000 perk – A unique personalized poster designed by Jonny Eveson with YOU as the Inspector’s Associate!

If you pledge $50 or more (including everyone from the first drawing and pledges over $1000), you’ll be entered into a drawing and the first winner will receive the Inspector’s bowler hat, and the second will win his ascot! Both autographed! (previously the $1500 perk!)

And if you pledge $25 or more (but less than $100), you’ll be entered into a drawing and FIVE winners will receive the $100 perk – a hardcopy script of the series autographed by the writers and an 8.5″x11″ signed photo of Inspector Spacetime!

Production on the series is slated to commence in May of 2012, pending a successful end to the crowd sourced fundraising effort .


Tags: , , , , ,
1

Podcast Episode 18: Travis Richey talks Inspector Spacetime

By
Adam Shaftoe
– February 27, 2012Posted in: Podcasts

Featuring the voices of Adam Shaftoe and Travis Richey.

Inspector Spacetime’s theme song is written and composed by Brian Giovanni.

Episode outline

Start to 6:00 – Cold opening and introduction to Inspector Spacetime

6:00 to 16:00 – Transitioning Inspector Spacetime from television to web series

16:00 to 23:00 – Fan culture: Inspector Spacetime and its fan written mythology

23:00 to 27:00 – I ask Travis why Community went the parody route with Doctor Who/Inspector Spacetime

27:00 to 37:00 – The wibbly-wobbly relationship between network television, new media, and fan culture. At about 35:00 or so Travis talks about why SOPA, and similar legislation, is bad for creativity.

37:00 to 42:00 – Travis’ introduction to Doctor Who

42:00 to the end – Inspector Spacetime’s kickstarter campaign, “What if you get sued?” and launch dates for the web series assuming nobody gets sued.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Right click and save here to download the MP3.

Head over to Travis’ youtube channel to see more of his work including the much talked about Robot, Ninja, and Gay Guy.

Click here to check out the Inspector Spacetime web series via their Kickstarer campaign.


Tags: , , , ,
0

Television Review: The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe

By
Adam Shaftoe
– January 2, 2012Posted in: TV Reviews

Summary Judgement: Slow to start with a payoff that will likely be satisfying for fans but bewildering for any viewers attempting to use this episode as an entry point into Doctor Who.

Here we are, 2012 and yet again the world did not explode.  Chalk up one more point for reason and sensibility in the face of apocalyptic crypto-prophecy.  Since everybody is still alive and eating cake, let’s talk about the Doctor Who Christmas episode.

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe doesn’t rate particularly high as a stand alone Doctor Who adventure or as a holiday special.  Steven Moffat set a very high watermark with last year’s A Christmas Carol. Even my mother, who couldn’t tell a Klingon from a Dalek, enjoyed that story.  After about fifteen minutes of this year’s special, my girlfriend turned to me and asked if the BBC had let an intern write the screenplay.

It’s a harsh criticism but one that rings true considering the abysmal pacing at hand.  The plot follows a sort of logarithmic curve that stays flat for most of the episode only to suddenly spike toward the end.  It’s also the sort of episode that requires a rather generous dose of disbelief suspension as the doctor bails out of an exploding starship in Earth orbit wearing nothing more than his usual duds.  Granted he manages to get into a space suit during his atmospheric entry, but only after sucking a couple minutes of hard vacuum.  Let’s call it a Festivus miracle and move on.

Much like the Narnia book from which the episode takes its name, the story uses a wartime retreat to the country as its setting.  At the home of a distant relative, the Arwell family, sans their father, a MIA RAF pilot, meet an eccentric caretaker who is intent on giving the two Arwell children the best Christmas ever. It’s all meant to be safe and fun until, like so many of The Doctor’s plans, things go a bit wibbly.  One of The Doctor’s presents sees the family teleported to a seemingly innocent planet where trees grow organic ornaments.  Too bad said baubles turn into tree monsters.

Devotees will readily understand that the Doctor’s over the top attempts to make the children happy are likely a response to his own emotional turmoil.  We know The Doctor lost his family, likely due to his use of “The Moment” during the Time War.  Yet, Smith’s actions seem more like the motions of a mad hatter than those of a father whose old wounds are slowly opening up before him.  At least give The Doctor a fez if he’s going to bounce off the walls like a twelve year old on a sugar binge.

Very gradually, the episode starts to even itself out.  The Doctor embraces his self appointed title of “Caretaker” as the three Arwells become stranded on the forest planet.  There are even some delightfully funny moments as Madge Arwell’s (Claire Skinner) quest to find her lost children leads to a confrontation with miners from Androzani Major, who are intent on burning the forest to the ground while working through some mommy issues.  The story also maintains last season’s tendency to explore family relationships and the nature of motherhood.  However, I’m not sure if I particularly like the story’s take away message that a mother’s love is somehow grander than that of a father’s.  At any rate, the main story, despite dragging through its first movements, resolves itself aptly enough.

The true salvation of the episode manifests in its last few minutes.  The Doctor’s unexpected arrival at Rory and Amy’s house allowed him the opportunity to genuinely connect with his emotions.  I can count on one hand the number of times that Matt Smith has had the chance to show The Doctor as anything other than a mad man with a blue box.  The Doctor abides; it is his nature to do so.  The Doctor brought to tears is a completely different man.  That is a man who, standing at the door of the Ponds’ house, the house of his mother and father in law, has found a new family. And that is very interesting, indeed.  While the Doctor remains humanity’s protector in the general sense, he now has a tangible connection to the Earth.

It remains to be seen what will come of this relationship, especially in light of Karen Gillan’s and Arthur Darvill’s imminent departure from the show.  Whatever happens, hopefully it means more writing that allows Matt Smith to deliver a depth to The Doctor that has been woefully understated for the last few years.  I’ll conclude with a question.  We know that The Doctor was willing to sacrifice Gallifrey, his family, and countless other worlds to end the Time War.  What situation could now move him to sacrifice his new found family?

Hits

+3.0 for writing that lets Matt Smith add depth to The Doctor

+1.0 for a few laughs

Misses

-1.5 for awful pacing

-1.0 for overplaying “Mom” power

Overall Score: +1.5


Tags: , ,
2

The Daily Shaft – Community’s Swan Song?

By
Adam Shaftoe
– December 9, 2011Posted in: The Daily Shaft, TV Reviews

Thursday’s “Regional Holiday Music” may have been the last episode of Community. If 30-Rock has taught me anything about television, it’s that the phrase “extended hiatus” is network executive code for cancelled.  If that’s the case, then Community went down swinging.  If not, then in the months to come it will rise from its own ashes having thoroughly bitten its thumb at television and television audiences.  Here’s why.

Abed and Troy’s Rap:  The significant portion comes in the concluding lines, “We have to be happy to get to the end; we have to save Christmas to save our friends.”  There’s not a lot of subtlety built into that refrain.  By Abed’s own admission at the start of the episode, the season has been dark.  Of course dark times at Greendale equals comedic gold for the audience.  But oh no, dark isn’t what people want from their comedy.  They want a laugh track that fires off every 3.14 seconds as Whitney breaks the balls of her beta delta epsilon male boyfriend.  From there the second part is pretty easy to decode; save the ratings at Christmas to save the show.  It’s about as close as a series can get to asking the audience to watch without committing a fourth wall violation.

Musical Television:  Abed admits to Mr. Radd that he thought glee club was just for Christmas.  Mr. Radd responds that “This is forever.  This is what we do now.” The line seemed innocent enough until I started thinking about just how much primetime television is dedicated to singing: Glee, X-Factor, American/Canadian/Martian Idol, those Andrew Lloyd Weber singing talent shows.  Is this what television does now?  Glorified Karaoke?  More importantly, is this what the audience wants?  Auto tuned actors prancing about stage when the reality is that most probably sound like Britta?  The issue cuts both ways as the show, in its own cloak and dagger way, asks, “What’s wrong with television, and what’s wrong the audience who thrives on this crap?”

Pop Culture: With Abed on a quest to bring his friends together for the holidays, the audience finally gets to figure out the pop culture references on their own. The setup to this nod to the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is possibly the best lead-in that anybody could have imagined.  It’s easy to dismiss the sci-fi flavoured gag as a throwaway bit, especially in the wake of Pierce using religion against Shirley.  But let’s take a moment to think about the reference.  Body Snatchers was about conformity, group think, and the death of individualism.  Sounds a lot like what happens within a choir.  Individuals, along with their vocal flaws, cease to exist within the lyrical Borg Collective that is group singing.  Sure it’s easy and inclusive, like singing/reality/dancing television, but it’s also ephemeral and transitory.

Doctor Who:  This one has me stumped.  Why is Community protecting/masking Doctor Who?  The show has never had a problem with squaring itself against other pop culture.  When Jeff began editing the Greendale newspaper Abed took to calling him Hawkeye.  Abed even went so far as to build Jeff a Gin mill in his office.  Yet for some reason Doctor Who is wrapped in its Inspector Spacetime cloak of pseudo anonymity.  And why was the long lost Inspector Spacetime Christmas special critically reviled?  The recent Doctor Who Christmas specials have become a fixture of the holiday season in the UK (and my house).  That said the horrors of Inspector Spacetime’s “Timeday” episode did bring the group together.

The final line: We’ll see you all after regionals.  Should those words give us hope?  Or has Community literally sung its swan song.  I honestly don’t know.  Smart shows die young.  It’s a fact of television.  All that is certain is that Community did not go quietly into the night.


Tags: , ,
Older Entries