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selenakAmazon Prime came through this week. Last week I did get to see the DW episode on Friday morning, but my schedule was and is so crowded that I couldn't write about. In general, I continue to enjoy this serial-like last season and am also continuing to suspect the miniseries format might suit Chibnall best.
Last episode first: you know, I take it back. The post Blink episodes with the Angels in the Moffat era made me feel that the Angels should have remained a one off and were rapidly suffering from Borg (i.e. overexposure, diminishing returns) syndrom. But lo! This time around, I'm into them again. As in, I find them scary and unpredictable once more, and am intrigued what the show is doing with them. Not to mention that the answer to what happens if someone is exposed to the Angel effect twice is chilling in a way the neck breaking (no, still not over that!) in s5 was not. As expected, Claire from the first episode shows up in this one again. Now it had been obvious she'd be sent back by an Angel, and that's how she'd meet the Doctor, but this whole "Angel hiding in her psyche" thing was new (and yet playing by the rules due to the "holding the image of an Angel" idea), and neatly set up the final shocker. I also am fascinated by this whole "Rogue Angel" idea.
This episode and the previous does well in endearing the non-regular cast (and the new regular, Dan) to me. I'm rooting for Vinder and his life partner now, I like Claire and am, as I said, intrigued by her psychic hitchhiker, and good lord but Professor (Eustacius) Jericho is the most endearing scientist the Doctor comes across since Professor Yana (before Yana became, well, you know). Like the Doctor, I love that he's so unabashedly fascinated and analysing all this crazy new stuff without (literally) turning his eyes from the main (survival) goal. (Given that scientists often end up being depicted risking everyone's lives for the benefit of their pet cause, that's refreshing.) And his line about having seen Belsen was delivered just right, so it came across as touching and dignified. I'm so rooting for you to make it out of this all alive, Professor, though as the oldest guest star not to die within the episode so far I know your chances aren't good.
(BTW: Jericho is played by Kevin McNally, whom I first saw as a young man in I, Claudius where he played Castor, aka the one offed by his wife so she can have more sex with Patrick Stewart, and then decades later encountered again in the Pirates of the Carribean movies, where he plays Mr. Gibbs.)
In both episodes, the Doctor does her best to save everyone but is also chasing after her lost memories, which to me looks like she'll end up having to choose between the universe and those memories at some future point, because that's how this type of story usually ends. I'm still not keen on the Timeless Child concept, but whatever she was up to when having to work for the Division does not necessarily have to do with that. Besides: the Doctor being forced to work for a secret service like institution and ending up ditching it has a fine long DW tradition.
Meanwhile, Yaz both seems to be reaching the end of her tether when being not told what's going on by the Doctor and to rediscover her inner police woman. I really liked her organizing the search for Peggy. (Even though Peggy was the one discovering our heroes, but time travel by Angel is cheating.) Speaking of Peggy, her reaction to the gruesome deaths, in particular "he was never nice to me" struck me as a neat dash of emotional reality sans "de mortuis nihil nisi bene" from a child's pov.
Lastly: the image of the Doctor getting Angel-fied is the best cliffhanger of that type since Jean-Luc became Locutus. Bring on the next week!
Last episode first: you know, I take it back. The post Blink episodes with the Angels in the Moffat era made me feel that the Angels should have remained a one off and were rapidly suffering from Borg (i.e. overexposure, diminishing returns) syndrom. But lo! This time around, I'm into them again. As in, I find them scary and unpredictable once more, and am intrigued what the show is doing with them. Not to mention that the answer to what happens if someone is exposed to the Angel effect twice is chilling in a way the neck breaking (no, still not over that!) in s5 was not. As expected, Claire from the first episode shows up in this one again. Now it had been obvious she'd be sent back by an Angel, and that's how she'd meet the Doctor, but this whole "Angel hiding in her psyche" thing was new (and yet playing by the rules due to the "holding the image of an Angel" idea), and neatly set up the final shocker. I also am fascinated by this whole "Rogue Angel" idea.
This episode and the previous does well in endearing the non-regular cast (and the new regular, Dan) to me. I'm rooting for Vinder and his life partner now, I like Claire and am, as I said, intrigued by her psychic hitchhiker, and good lord but Professor (Eustacius) Jericho is the most endearing scientist the Doctor comes across since Professor Yana (before Yana became, well, you know). Like the Doctor, I love that he's so unabashedly fascinated and analysing all this crazy new stuff without (literally) turning his eyes from the main (survival) goal. (Given that scientists often end up being depicted risking everyone's lives for the benefit of their pet cause, that's refreshing.) And his line about having seen Belsen was delivered just right, so it came across as touching and dignified. I'm so rooting for you to make it out of this all alive, Professor, though as the oldest guest star not to die within the episode so far I know your chances aren't good.
(BTW: Jericho is played by Kevin McNally, whom I first saw as a young man in I, Claudius where he played Castor, aka the one offed by his wife so she can have more sex with Patrick Stewart, and then decades later encountered again in the Pirates of the Carribean movies, where he plays Mr. Gibbs.)
In both episodes, the Doctor does her best to save everyone but is also chasing after her lost memories, which to me looks like she'll end up having to choose between the universe and those memories at some future point, because that's how this type of story usually ends. I'm still not keen on the Timeless Child concept, but whatever she was up to when having to work for the Division does not necessarily have to do with that. Besides: the Doctor being forced to work for a secret service like institution and ending up ditching it has a fine long DW tradition.
Meanwhile, Yaz both seems to be reaching the end of her tether when being not told what's going on by the Doctor and to rediscover her inner police woman. I really liked her organizing the search for Peggy. (Even though Peggy was the one discovering our heroes, but time travel by Angel is cheating.) Speaking of Peggy, her reaction to the gruesome deaths, in particular "he was never nice to me" struck me as a neat dash of emotional reality sans "de mortuis nihil nisi bene" from a child's pov.
Lastly: the image of the Doctor getting Angel-fied is the best cliffhanger of that type since Jean-Luc became Locutus. Bring on the next week!
no subject
Date: 2021-11-22 05:28 pm (UTC)The Angel episode was creepy and tense. It was co-written by Maxine Alderton, who did the Mary Shelly episode. I hope she gets to continue writing in the RTD2 era (Along with Charlene James of "Can You hear Me?" it was a bit messy but I loved the character stuff in that episode).
no subject
Date: 2021-11-23 03:56 pm (UTC)Since the Mary Shelley episode was my favorite of the previous season, I shall definitely cross my fingers for Maxine Alderton!
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Date: 2021-11-22 06:17 pm (UTC)I am delighted he's working! I almost certainly also saw him first in I, Claudius and have been fond of him wherever he's turned up since. He's wonderful in Turn: Washington's Spies (2014–17), which I recommend to anyone who can deal with its structural issues (in case I have not delivered this rant to you before, the show really doesn't find its footing until the first-season finale and then its last season is the super-stripped-down result of word-of-God network interference, so it is essentially two magnificent seasons of morally and narratively complex eighteenth-century espionage bracketed by two much simpler seasons, one of which seems to take forever to get its act together and the other of which goes by so fast you could get up for a drink and miss the Battle of Yorktown, but my formative experience of long-form TV was Babylon 5 and so I was frustrated but fine).
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Date: 2021-11-23 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-24 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-30 02:48 pm (UTC)