The Girl who waited and waited

This was a good character story, but not much in the way of plot. I think this was supposed to be an Amy episode but Rory came out well. Karen Gillan as well as playing contemporary Amy also played an older embittered version. She did this well but it did leave me wanting to ask one question: Where did she get the hair dye? There was not one grey hair on the older version’s head!!

Arthur Darvill did exceptionally well and this episode is quite the showcase for Rory. Instead of being in the background, he is the one your watching as the conflicting interests of the two Amys unfold.

Spoilers ahead!

I didn’t think the slow motion stuff was any good. It just left me thinking that they had run out of story and were trying to pad out the episode. Rather like the Matrix films – which as everyone knows was almost entirely filmed in slowmo towards the end. Slow motion does have it’s place but in this case case I think it was misused.

I liked older Amy’s argument that she did not want to help rescue her younger self because then she would cease to exist. Even though she described her life as ‘Hell’, and even though she had spent 36 years alone with just some homicidally kind robots for company. The counter argument being that if you could escape those 36 years wouldn’t you take it? Well…Older Amy doesn’t want to die and if she allows Rory and the Doctor to rescue her younger self she will occupy a redundant time stream and cease to exist, which she sees as a form of dying. I can accept this argument. I can also accept why the scene at the Tardis changed her mind.

There is one problem with this episode and with the previous episode that I just can’t get over. Melody Pond, Amy and Rory’s daughter. I just don’t see them thinking “Oh she’s going to grow up to be River Song so everything alright.” There is still the fact that Melody grows up being brainwashed by eye patch woman and I can’t see them accepting that if there is a remote possibility of changing that. Okay, this is probably going to be dealt with in the last episode, my point is we have had two episode where Amy and Rory don’t seem to show any concern for their daughter at all. I don’t think so.

The garden was very good. I have been to the place where they filmed it though I can’t remember where it is! The garden is divided into sections and I remember being particularly taken with the Roman part.

So all in all probably a 6 out of 10. Not a bad episode, but I wouldn’t actively seek to watch it again!

It’s in the cupboard and it’s coming for you….

Children will be looking at their wardrobes and saying ‘but there are monsters in the cupboard…’
A great episode from Mark Gatis. The plot kept me interested. The unfolding story made sense. The beauty of this story is it’s simplicity.

Spoilers ahoy!

Just to prove the ‘Doctor Who’ is ‘with’ the masses this story is set in an apartment block. The family is average too – struggling to make ends meet, missing the rent and having trouble with the landlord. A struggling sweet family unit you can’t help but have sympathy for. You’ve met all the other characters too. No matter where you live these people are in some way instantly recognisable. The ‘little old lady’, ‘Tough guy’ who of course would not been complete without the ‘tough guy dog’), ‘chav’ ( who got pregnant almost immediately after secondary secondary school). My point it you know these characters and know their backgrounds without the need of adding a back-story. They are stereotypes which means the plot can go on with the tedious business of squeezing in a their stories.

An eerie yellow light shines through Georges bedroom window. Misshapen shadows lengthen and dance strangely in the torchlight that George shines around his room. Amy and Rory find themselves in a house which seems normal one first glance but as they look closer are out of place and strange: a wooden frying pan and a clock with painted hands.

The theme is no stranger to science fiction. It is the ‘changeling’ or cuckoo idea. It has been explored by ‘star trek’ (on numerous occasions) and ‘the tomorrow people’ to name two. This is done so well, you do not suspect anything of the innocent little child.

The psychic paper hasn’t been lost either, in case you were wondering where it had gone since David Tennant’s tenure. Since Steven Moffat is leading River Song’s character inexorably towards the encounter in the library he can’t afford to throw it away, even though it lack of use in the series seems to suggest that it use in previous series got to Doctor too easily out of trouble. Reminiscent of the reason the sonic screwdriver was murdered in Peter Davidson era possibly.

There are some great moments in this. The Doctor saying that he has to invent a setting for wood on the sonic screwdriver because ‘it’s getting embarrassing’. I don’t rate the ‘peg dolls’, maybe they wood come across as creepy if I were seven.

The ending is great, very emotionally charged – and I doubt that can be beaten in future episodes.

So in conclusion this gets about a 6 out of 10. It is a lot better than ‘Lets Kill Hitler’ but that wouldn’t be hard.

Intelligent reviews for responsible people can be found here.

Lets Kill Hitler… Actually lets not

What the heck – spoilers from start!

So we have River Song who is not quite River Song but will begin to be River Song by the end of the episode. There, now you don’t need to see the episode.

‘Lets Kill Hitler’, set in 1938 Berlin. Hitler is chancellor of Germany, he is not yet at war with Great Britain but war is not far off. Europe is in turmoil. The Doctor arrives with three companions who must have studied the second world war in school. Could he prevent the war? Should he prevent the war? Millions die. There is plenty of material there for moral dilemmas, choices for the greater good and teaching a little about the war. What happens? Hitler gets decked by Rory, shoved in a cupboard, and isn’t seen for the rest of the episode. The story is taken over by River Song. I suspect the backdrop of Nazi Germany was specifically chosen for it’s familiarity, but to be honest any period in history would have served just as well. The deux-ex-machina for this story is the justice department vehicle or Teselecta, which is basically a robot that can morph into anyone and has a crew of miniaturised humans. It purpose is to find all the great criminals in history and take them out of their timeline towards the end of their lives and ‘give them hell’.

Maybe I am seeing this through an adult’s eyes. Maybe if I were a teenager I would be excited at the return of River Song. After 5 or so years (it may not be that long, it seems that long) of waiting for her story to be revealed I am getting quite tired of it. It was quite a novelty to see the complex interweaving of the Doctor’s and River Song’s timelines. My point is we know her by now so can we please get on with the reveal? River Song beginning takes over the story. The character of Mells, who is the hitherto unseen best buddy of Amy Pond, has her back-story crowbarred in so we know who she is. Then she regenerates into River, who then tries to kill the Doctor. Surprise surprise. It seemed obvious to me from the point we first learn she is in gaol for murder that the person she murders is the Doctor. Possibly I was supposed to gasp at this point, I failed. River then risks her life to save the Doctor – I am still waiting for the ‘surprise’.

Overall I wasn’t impressed with the episode. I suspect this was largely due to being fed up with the whole River Song question. It isn’t an episode I would actively seek out and watch again. On the whole scale of reactions I would rate this episode as ‘Meh out of 10′.

Intelligent reviews for responsible people can be found here.

Garden News

I know this may come as a shock to some people but usually we do get a summer of sorts in Scotland. This year ‘summer’ happened in April. We are now well into the season of ‘Hamble’ (for non-nerdy readers look up the radio series ‘Nebulous’). This has been both good and bad. As it has been raining a lot of the time it means that the only watering required has been in the greenhouse, the plants like it and have been growing vigorously sadly so has the grass which is now encroaching on the raised seed beds and because of the almost counting drizzle it has not been possible to mow.
We have three new raised bed in the garden in addition to the one massive seed bed towards the back of the garden. We put these new beds in the lawn, the thinking being, more home grown produce and less lawn to mown. It hasn’t worked out quite that way but it does mean we have more space to try interesting vegetables.

Whats growing?

The tomatoes haven’t been the success they were last year, mostly because they were not planted early enough.  The varieties I am growing are green sausage shaped tomatoes and white tomatoes. They are only just fruiting at the moment. Now I have a sparkly big green house the tomatoes should be back in abundance next year.
Courgettes – not your boring green ones but yellow ones! and round one! and round yellow ones! Some of the plants are fruiting at the moment. I had my first courgette a few days ago. What I have to get used to is the fact I don’t have to wait until the courgette is ‘supermarket’ size to eat them. It is possible to eat at whatever size I like. Something I will also try this year is courgette flowers. Ever since I found out you can eat courgette flowers I have wanted to try them – watch this space.
I have perpetual spinach this year! I tried growing it last year but for whatever reason it didn’t grow. This time I grew it in a seed tray and transplanted the seedlings and success!
One of my staples (things I shall grow every year), is speedy salad. It is not an interesting colour just quick it also saves on buying salad from the supermarket.
I have also discovered purple podded peas! The pea flowers are so pretty. Some of the peas are at ‘mange tout’ stage and taste very fresh straight from the garden. I must also mention the broad beans with their flesh coloured beans – ten times nicer than if you buy them from the supermarket!
Other things I have growing is cucumber…not green cucumber of course but yellow! Various varieties of aubergines – long stringy looking ones to round white ones. I am trying potatoes again this year. Trying to grow potatoes for Christmas last year didn’t work out. I have two varieties – salad blue and pink fir apple, both of which are in flower at the moment.
Other new things in the garden are the trees. Two family apple trees and two cherry trees. Family apple trees are trees (no kidding!) on to which different varieties are grafted. My two trees each have four varieties of apple on them! I also have an olive tree which is threatening to produce olives.
As I have mentioned in earlier posts I have discovered a wonderful new word this year – perennial. I found much to my dismay that my french tarragon after having been frozen by the cold winter’s snow, and despite the fact it is not supposed to be hardy, came back! The mint coming back was not a surprise, however only one of the two sages made it through the Scottish winter. This year all the herbs will go in to the greenhouse to sit out the winter.
I have discovered a few new perennials – a variety of rocket,  African basil and Vietnamese coriander were the most interesting. There were others that are more well-known, such as pot marjoram, lemon balm, parcel (not parsley, this stuff is supposed to taste like celery leaves), borage (which isn’t a perennial but it self seeds so it sort of counts), and my favourite wild garlic!
The challenge, and believe me it is a considerable one, is to eat it all!

Review: Doctor Who, The Impossible Astronaut

In brief: 7 out of 10

The episode starts of as a tribute to ‘Carry on don’t lose your head’. But once that’s over, and I breath a sigh of the relief, things really gets started (sorry, I can’t stand carry on films!).

I liked the episode, but I thought it might be a bit too dark and dramatic for the beginning of the series. There was plenty of story to get your teeth into and you felt you had to pay attention in case you missed some clue as to what would happen in future episodes.

Matt Smith was excellent. He seems to have settled into the role of the Doctor very well. Amy Pond and Rory portray a believable married couple I believe! There is one moment at the diner where Rory says a line and my immediate response was “yep! Married man!”

River Song, ahhh what to say about River Song. Slightly over hyped. However this does not deter from Alex Kingston’s portrayal which is very good. As a character however I think she is a little stereotyped; as in “sassy single female maverick”. Okay, there are not many of these characters around but I would like more individuality.

As for the episode itself, Moffat strikes the right balance between story and character development. The story itself was jammed packed with details that you felt you could not miss. There was more story and plot in this episode than actual action which may disappoint RTD fans. But I felt it was a return to quality rather than the “oooh shiny!” feel of past series.

Here be spoilers!

The monster’s in the episode are good, if somewhat predictable. Just as you have to keep looking at a weeping angel, you have to keep looking at these guys or you’ll forget they’re there. Even when you had a demonstration as to “oooh how bad” they are, so far they have come across as less scary than the Weeping Angels. As my husband pointed out having to keep looking at something and not blinking or it will kill you is more scary than “now, what did I come up here for?”. I suppose from the point of view of the audience such aliens are scary, as you see a favourite character blithely wonder into danger and unable to remember there are big bad aliens around. Still we’ll see how these develop. My husband is convinced that their overall plan for world domination revolves around stealing keys, pens and all those other things you swore you had a second ago.

Time lines play a big part in the episode and, if I can make a slight prediction, will probably continue to do so throughout the series. At the end of the last series we saw Moffat sending the Doctor back in time several times for comic effect. The opening of this episode shows the doctor about two hundred years older than when Amy and Rory last saw him. Later they reunite with the Doctor, who is just one year older. The Doctor is making his way through River’s life backwards; the effect being, as she says ‘each time I see him he knows me less’. With such a mess of time lines about something has to give eventually or you’ll end up with a granny knot!

Questions

Instead of making predictions for future episodes or what Steven Moffat is planning (I’ll badger my friends with those!) I have decided to pose questions the answers of which will probably be turn up towards the end of the series.

First of all there are at least two questions (that I can think of the top of my head) that need to be answered from the previous series:

Why did the TARDIS blow up?

Why doesn’t Amy remember the Daleks? (The Churchill episode, anyone? The Doctor said she should know and she doesn’t…)

Apparently the question the Amy was going to ask at the beginning of the Red Nose day short is also ‘going to be addressed’. Thanks to more observant fans for this one as I had to watch the episode again to find out what they were going on about!

More questions

At the beginning of the episode, what book was Amy reading? (My guess: A spotter’s guide to Timelords farting about in history)

Why had Amy and Rory left the Doctor before the start of this series but after the events in Space and Time (Red Nose Day episodes)?

How did the Doctor manage to appear in the Laurel and Hardy film? Giving that Rory has clearly watched it a few times and ‘explained the jokes’ to Amy? Probably not a vital question, but I’d still like to know.

Why does River Song bother with the ‘Stormcage’ prison? Given that she treats the place like a hotel!

Stetson versus Fez. Why did the Doctor change his mind and decide ‘Stetson’s are cool’? (I’m asking this one because of a rumour I’ve read, and I think this might be linked to it. However since it is just a rumour and I don’t know if it is true I’ll ask it as a question instead.)

When did the Doctor get a duplicate River Song diary? Up ’til now he’s relied on his memory to sync with River Song.

With all the events at the lakeside, a guy to answer some of the companions questions, a can of gasoline and a handy boat didn’t one of the companions think “Hang on, isn’t this a little too stage managed?”

According to River, the Doctor mustn’t know of the encounter with his past self. Has she never seen ‘The Five Doctor’s', ‘The Three Doctor’s', ‘The Two Doctor’s and so on?

River knows killing a timelord during their regeneration cycle kills them. How? (I believe I know the answer to this. Since we already know that River kills: a good man, the best she’s ever know, a hero to many etc. Which leads me to my next question, Why hasn’t the Doctor hasn’t put two and two together yet? However since he didn’t figure out what was in the Pandorica, (i.e. what was every evil alien scared of) and this was actually fairly obvious, I shouldn’t be surprised!

According to River – the companions do as they are told. Pardon? Since when?!

How does a child fit into and adult space suit? Stilts, or on a dwarf’s shoulders?

Do the silence go to the same tailor as the tenth Doctor?

Venice 2011 at Carnivale

New Policy

I have tried to write about my travels and the aim eventually was to put words and pictures together and put them on the blog. This policy is now changing. As I am taking sooo long to put either up I have now decided it is going to be one or the other, luckily for you the pictures won. So from now on I shall be posting pictures of my wanderings, you’ll know where they are as I will put the destination in the title.