Any to be fair, it wasn't. But the problem I find myself facing is that it wasn't even bad in any particularly interesting ways. So now when I come to write the traditional review I'm left wondering what it is I can talk about without descending into petty personal insults and ad hominem strawman attacks.
And even that used to be better back in the old days.
See, if there's one thing I really don't like in a review it's a lack of intelligent criticism. It's not enough just to say say a thing was shit. I want to know WHY it was shit. What did it do wrong? What could it have done better? If a review is well written enough you can get a sense of if the thing in question is appealing to you, even if the review itself is scathingly negative.
For example, the review for this album went "something something Frank Zappa this is shit" and I was all like "HELL YEAH THIS FUN!"
At the very least we can always have a good bit of fun in overanalyzing the resulting trainwreck. I mean, say what you like about the prequel trilogy. No, really, go ahead. EVERYONE does. There's probably more analysis written about The Phantom Menace than Citizen Kane. Even if most of it is "something something Jar Jar Binks this is shit".
But here? Well... I'm not sure there's much new that can be said. Because I alreadt said most of it last time. The whole hook of the episode is the Doctor randomly meeting up with a person he made immortal and realizing maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Which is what any gibbering simpleton could have told him at the end of last weeks episode.
I know, because I AM a gibbering simpleton, and I was banging on about it for hours.
This otherwise shocking revelation is then further hampered by the somewhat unavoidable fact that Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ simply isn't very good in the role. I hate to say it, but she just isn't. To be fair, it's tricky for anyone to sell that sort of ancient weariness sort of thing, especially when you're very young looking. Matt Smith did it, but it did take him a little while to grow into it. She just can't pull it off. I'm sure there may be some tricks with the makeup you could do to make her look older and colder. But there's no effort made on that front, so she just looks exactly the same. I.E. possibly a little young to be most famous for a show who's main selling point is apparently the amount of nudity on display. Really, the only thing that keeps her every utterance from descending into full on teenage petulance is the flatness of delivery.
So... yeah. Not impressed. Sorry.
I should also take this opportunity to talk about Sam Swifts facial hair.
Seriously, just LOOK at this bullshit.
This is a beard so unconvincing it actually makes the guy look like a young woman pretending to be a man. The fact that this is taking place in a story where we actually DO have a young woman pretending to be a man who then goes on to fight the man who looks like a woman pretending to be a man is either a piece of meta narrative genius or some sort of war crime against the makeup department.
It doesn't help things is what I'm saying.
Anyway, let's get on to talking about the plot. Such as it is.
So, the Doctor is off looking for alien jewelry, because apparently even he's now making up excuses to get rid of Clara.
Oh yeah. She's not in this episode. Given my irrational hatred of the character you'd think this would give bonus points to the story. I wish this was the case.
So, anyway. Doc bumps into Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ who, oh shock horror hold the front page, has succumbed to all the psychological problems associated with immortality that have been discussed ad nauseum throughout the entire history of the show and has now teamed up with evil space Aslan in order to hitch a ride off world.
Okay, so maybe we didn't quite see evil space Aslan coming, but the rest of it is exactly as you'd think. Which is the main problem here. We're spending a whole episode dealing with the fallout from an obviously stupid and massively out of character decision forced into the last 10 minutes of the previous episode for no readily apparent reason. And thus it's kinda hard to engage with the episode on any level beyond "well, what did you THINK was going to happen?".
The diaries are a nice idea. But the history is presented in brief flashbacks mostly consisting of a costume change and a smug look. As mentioned Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ isn't exactly great at selling the character anyway, but she's not really given much to work with.
Anyway, there's fannying around, the Mcguffin is retrieved, and then once again any pretence at Science Fiction is dropped as the evil wizard uses the magic amulet and a human sacrifice to summon a special effect.
This is always a problem for me. I know that Doctor Who isn't exactly what you'd call hard Sci-Fi. But it's not bloody Dungeons & Dragons either. There needs to be at least some effort at making a narratively plausible explanation for whatever it is that's kicking off.
But now apparently death is a magical thing. Because reasons. Death isn't a special, mystical occurrence. If it all it takes is something dying to open up an alien portal then just go out into the woods and wait 10 minutes. There'll be some insects or bacteria expiring around you. Need something bigger? Trap a rabbit. Hunt a deer. Chop down a tree.
Or just come up with a better reason for opening up an interdimensional portal than a bit of cheap goth poetry.
So yeah, the problem we're faced with is that the cheap bullshit last week was forced in simply to set up the cheap bullshit here. I'm really not sure what the point is. I mean, as alien invasions go it wasn't very well though out. Perhaps rather than bombarding ONE SOLITARY VILLAGE SQUARE you could have actually... I don't know... done something useful? Such as anything OTHER than sitting on the wrong side of the portal with your thumb in your arse?
Probably the most obvious problem here is the death of space Aslan himself. WHY exactly is it he dies? Why would the invading army assassinate their advance agent in such a random and arbitrary fashion? Especially when all he has to do is grab the magic amulet and drop it on an ant or whatever in order to start again? Hell, even if their feeling particularly vindictive, why don't they just load magic amulets into a big cannon and shoot him with that, thus creating more portals?
Because fuck you, that's why. This bit's over, and that loose end needs to be expunged. Even if the manner in which it is done makes no sense. Alien invasion is over now, please exit via the nearest available death ray. He's not defeated. He's outsmarted or trapped or brought low by hubris or anything else that would actually require any thought being applied to the plot. He's just removed because when the evil ritual is thwarted the evil wizard has to go down too.
Eurgh. I don't mind a good bit of space themed fantasy. But this ISN'T good. It's just... there. I've no idea what it was they were going for here. Given the horrifically arbitrary nature of the narrative it's obvious that SOMEONE thought this had to happen for some reason. I just can't see why. What is it adding to anything? What important points about the characters are being made? What significant themes are being constructed? What was the point of dragging us through that car wreck of a narrative?
Well, the only thing I can say at this point is to note that so far all the stories have been centred around themes of death and the afterlife. Davros attempting to cheat death and the Daleks fate of turning into sentient liquid poo. Then people being turned into ghost transmitters despite that not actually making any sense by an alien warlord risen from his own grave. Last week a fake Valhalla that turned out to be a juicer followed by an arbitrary death and even more arbitrary resurrection. Now we have an attempt at the weariness of immortals vs the brief vitality of a natural span and death iteslf opening portals to other realms. All of which might be interesting if any of them did it well and it wasn't for the fact that we already did this last series. Only then it WAS being done well.
Given the way things are going I'm afraid this is all building up to something involving the death of Clara. Which you'd think would cheer me up. But I just have this terrible feeling that when it goes down it's going to be accompanied by something that's REALLY going to bug the shit out of me.
Still, next week we should be having a nice fun romp with the Zygons. It's not like any of this poorly constructed thematic baggage will be coming back to haunt us in the shape of popular character who had been previously killed off or anything, right?
Well, shit.
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