It's funny because it's actually set in a freezer shop.
So I'm actually starting to worry a bit. Because I'm finding that I have a lot tolerance for the new series than I used to. Am I just getting old? Is this what losing ones faith feels like? Or maybe is the series just not being made for people like me any more?
The problem here is that it's the last of those options that's actually the most worrying. Because if the The Girl Who Died proves only one thing, it's that whoever the show is being made for these days has REALLY fucking low standards.
It's not even that it's offensively bad. It's just a below par, mediocre adventure that clearly needed another pass or two to get the script to come together a bit more tightly and thus bring it up to passably average. There's nothing wrong with average. It's how me measure everything else after all.
To be fair, I've no idea what this film is actually like.
But again we have a ANOTHER story that thinks it's somehow being elevated above it's deficiencies, simply by dint of it's own existence. The opening 2 parter went with the assumption that as long as you throw enough enough popular villains at the screen it doesn't matter if you don't actually do anything with them. This was followed up the next set of stories assuming that as long as you explained that you in fact totally HAD read at least some of the wikipedia page on temporal paradoxes it didn't matter that you didn't actually bother to use that information in any way. And here we are confronted with the idea that the only thing that really matters is that this weeks guest star is apparently famous.
Because as we all know, stunt casting in an episode of Doctor Who has never backfired.
As a fan of 80's Doctor Who I'm no stranger to celebrity stunt casting. And I'm not saying it's even necessarily a BAD thing. Just look at The Curse Of Fenric. Who'd have though Nicholas Parsons could act? But you know what else stories like Earthshock or The Mysterious Planet or Delta And The Bannermen had in addition to a bit of egregious stunt casting?
ALL KINDS OF THINGS.
They had stories, robots, and other characters. They had stuff going on. The entire point of this weeks episode simply seems to be that it has some girl from Game Of Thrones in it. And this alone is supposed to be enough to impress us. I've never even SEEN Game Of Thrones. I think it's about a really long game of musical chairs, only everyone's a wizard? And naked for some reason? I could be wrong, but it doesn't really change the fact that I find it difficult to excited just because an actor has had more than one job ever.
Now, I'm not saying that the girl is a terrible actress or anything. Honestly I have no idea. She does what she can with the material provided, but let's be honest, it's not like she's given much to work with. Much like Clara we're supposed to think the character is some shade of super special awesome, but given no particular justification outside of the actresses billing. Clara is special because she come second in the credits, right after the Doctor. Binty McWizard-Viking is special because she's third.
But I don't really want to get derailed in Clara bashing. I ran out of energy last week before I really managed to address all the points I wanted to, so I don't want to waste any time here. Besides, what more is there to say? Still a bit of a nonentity, still being clumsily foreshadowed as DOOMED since she's finally leaving, the occasional flashes of actual character are too little too late as we stopped caring a long time ago, and no, nobody knows why the Doctor seems so hung up on her. Aside from the obvious bonus pathos when she finally exits. Although that's not going to work since we'll all be cheering louder than when Adric died, so frankly they may as well give up now.
Hell, Adric would have been a lot more useful in this episode anyway. I mean, The Mire are looking for big manly warrior types to put in their juicer, right? Never mind a village, you could hide the entirety of Norway behind Adric and they'd never detect anything behind his aura of abject uselessness. I know I keep saying this, but it's a bit of a sign when you're failing on the Adric scale of helpfulness.
Now, it's not like the episode is completely devoid of good stuff. After all, it opens quite well by having the Sonic Sunglasses destroyed. These have never struck me as being a particular good idea. By which I mean I think they're cocking stupid. But I must admit to certain degree of ambivalence. Because if they're throwing in something as daft as that to fuck with me, just think how much more offended the merchandising department is going to be. A big part of what makes them so silly is that they're just a pair of cheap, generic sunglasses. No buttons, no emitters, nothing that actually gives any sign of being a bit of advanced technology. Which is kind of the point I know, but even James Bonds shit has a button on it somewhere. So whilst I can't help but dislike them on the principle of being rubbish, I have to admire them for being a prop that any child can pick up in a pound store. They don't have to be any fancy brand, they don't have to be officially licensed. Literally any pair of cheap and shitty sunglasses will do if you want to play Doctor Who. That's actually pretty cool. The fact that this also means the licensing department of BBC enterprises can't really make any money off it is just an added level of hilarity. You can bet SOMEBODY started frothing at the mouth when they learned the Doctor would be getting a new sonic device, but they wouldn't be able to sell copies.
Of course, then this happened:
No, I'm Odin. And so is my wife.
And that may be where I started to to disconnect fro the episode a little. I mean, did you have to reference Monty Python quite SO directly? It's not exactly subtle. And of course it's around this point that we are also introduced to the marvelous specialness that is Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™. And with hindsight we can see the problems creeping in. Why, for example, does Clara not just grab the remaining bit of Sonic glasses and try to open he manacles herself? Why does she make Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ do it? Because Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is super special awesome! Why does Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ declare war on The Mire despite every other line of dialogue she has for the rest of the episode making it pretty clear she's not exactly the most aggressive individual? Because Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is hardcore! Why is Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ special and hardcore?
Because Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ IS FROM TV'S GAME OF THRONES™.
Then we fanny about with far too much talking baby for a while. I've never been a big fan of this idea. The thing is, if babies are trying to say anything it's not going to be of the level of poetic sophistication given here. I mean, what happens to all that when you start actually learning to talk? Or is everyone in the Doctor Who universe dropped on their heads when they're 2 or something? No, the only difference between the speech of a baby and of any other vocally capable animal is that the animals are talking about food and sex, whereas the baby is talking about food and pooping.
And then there's the Eels.
Now, I don't really know enough about electricity to say for sure if would be possible to actually electrocute anyone with a barrel-full of eels. Apparently electric eels can output electrical discharges for anything up to an hour, so maybe if you wired them up right you could do it. You want to know some other fun facts about electric eels I gleaned from a cursory perusal of the wikipedia page? Firstly, they're not actually eels, but rather a species of Knifefish. Secondly they are native to the Amazon and Orinoco river basins of South America.
Now, I'm pretty bad at geography, but I'm PRETTY sure that South America ISN'T in Norway. Never mind the horned helmets, that's a bit of an issue. And that's before we even get to the obvious questions of HOW they managed to catch that many, and what the hell they were actually saving them for? If you want to catch one you need to exhaust it first. Which is apparently a lot of work. And then... What? you have a big barrel of fish you can't eat because they'll electrocute your face off. Wouldn't it be easier to just catch some regular eels? At least you'd stand a chance of finding them in the same postcode.
But fine, whatever. The Vikings got some giant barrels of tropical fish off of ebay or something. Sure, why not? That'd explain where they got their helmets from as well, so let's run with it. I guess they go out pillaging peoples paypal accounts. Makes as much sense as anything else right now.
And then the next part of the masterplan is revealed. Chase the remaining Mire away using a pretend sea serpent. Okay.... Sure. Except....
If the Mire are a fearsome warrior race, all hopped up on freshly squeezed viking glands and the love of battle (you know, as we're EXPRESSLY TOLD THEY ARE), why are they running away? Firstly, they've got guns. They've got GUNS. THEY'VE GOT GUNS.
They've got guns, you better run.
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THE REFERENCE.
Secondly, what kind of warrior race runs away? Do you know what would happen if the Sontarans saw a giant deadly monster heading towards them?
They wouldn't even stop to tweet a selfy before throwing themselves at it. Because Sontaran guns come with a Twitter plugin as standard. Plus there's not much point in posting selfies when you're all clones. Anyway, point is they wouldn't shit themselves and leg it. And since the entire plan hinges on the Doctor NOT posting that on whatever it is races of intergalactic warmongers use instead of pintrest the Mire really don't come of as anything more than a bunch of posers. Not exactly threatening, ya know?
And then there's the nature in which this deception is executed. Because of course we can't go for more than five minutes without mentioning that Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is guest starring in tonight's episode.
Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is a super special snowflake. Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is different from the other people. We're told as much by Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ herself. And Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ wouldn't lie. What is it that makes Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ so amazing and special that she can make seasoned alien warriors crap their power armour and scream like little girls?
Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ has an imagination.
That's it. That's the sole reason given for her being such a marvellous person that everyone should totally love. That's what somehow let's her do whatever the hell it is she's supposed to be doing under that helmet. Hey, you know else has an imagination?
The entire cast of Sesame Street?
EVERYONE. Seriously, you might as well have the plot hinge around the fact that she's got legs. Okay, there might be one or two exceptions, but that's because of something unfortunate happening to the indivudual and we should probably try not to be a dick about it.
Just so we're CRYSTAL on this point. Having your otherwise unremarkable character being special simply because they like to think up stories is the WORST kind of egregious, self aggrandizing author insert Mary-Sue bullshit. It's this terrible "because we say so" attitude I keep banging on about writ large. It's worrying, and it's not really acceptable. Just making up stories does not make you special. Any child can do that. Writing stories that are GOOD may be another issue, but that's not a point that you're doing very well at right now.
How many times do we have to go through this? SHOW, DON'T TELL. At no point does this episode acknowledge this very basic principle.
Of course, we've still got one more major problem to cover. The title. The episode is, after all, called The Girl Who Died. It's clearly referencing Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™. But so far she hasn't even managed to be in danger. So how then does she die?
Randomly, after the fact.
It's here that we really start to see the whole thing fall apart. Because now we realize that the whole point of this episode is to kill off Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™, AND THEY COULDN'T EVEN ACTUALLY WORK THAT INTO THE STORY.
It's not fucking hard. 2 lines about how sitting quietly in a corner with a bucket on your head is actually really dangerous would explain both why she falls over AND why the Doctor is so cross about it that he's prepared to do something so utterly retarded that I can't actually think of a suitable metaphor for just how dumb it is.
Just.... What? Why would you do that?
Firstly, spending all that time referencing the fact that Peter Capaladi was in The Fires Of Pompeii and that somehow justifies what's about to go down is, at best, cringe inducing. It makes no sense, and is completely extraneous. Plus it sets a worrying precedent. I mean, if the Doctor can choose his face to send himself some sort of cryptic message what was it he was trying to say when the 5th Doctor regenerated into a copy of Commander Maxill? And more to the point, why doesn't he just write it down?
I guess we'll never know.
Anyway, attempting to get back to the point for a moment. How many stories have, over the years, dealt with the theme that immortality is a curse? That dying is an integral part of being human? That living forever is not something to be encouraged? Is it SEVERAL? Shall we add in all those thematic instances of how anyone playing god with the lives and deaths of other people is an incredibly BAD idea that will always backfire horribly, ESPECIALLY if the Doctor is involved?
For example, anyone else remember when this lady SHOT HERSELF IN THE HEAD JUST TO PROVE A POINT?
So, after 50+ years of this being a thematic point, it seems a little odd for the Doctor to just shrug his shoulders, say "Eh, fuck it. What's the worst that could happen?" and start making zombies.
Now, we know that this is because Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ is contracted for 2 episodes. But really, they could have just NOT killed her off if they wanted her to come back. I mean, if you're going to break the character of the Doctor in such a glaring and fundamental way you'd better have a really good reason. Whether or not they do remains to be seen.
Well, actually it doesn't. Because believe it or not we've already seen the sequel to this story. Just think for a moment. We have a character who has had some alien military technology implanted in them. Technology that will apparently never let them die. EVER. Is that ringing any bells? It really should you know.
Am I the only one to realize that the Doctor basically just created The Foretold from Mummy On The Orient Express? But then if we're going to ignore The Lazarus Experiment and The Waters Of Mars and that bit at the end of New Earth and all the other stuff along those lines I guess we may as well ignore this as well.
Let's just see if they ignore the fact that now you can just bring people back from the dead randomly there's no excuse for there ever being another casualty in another episode of Doctor Who as the Doctor can just carry a pocketful of magic pills to make them all better. Or maybe it only works if you've been in Game Of Thrones.
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