No, the problem I'm having in trying to talk about it is that it went almost EXACTLY as I expected.
The problem here is of course it's very hard to talk about the good stuff without either sounding like a smug, self-satisfied douchebag or appending the phrases "As it was written" or "In accordance with the prophecy" as a prefix or suffix to every sentence.
As in most situations, it also helps to be Yul Brynner.
So, yes. As it was written, we DID get an episode cutting between past and future settings. This then built towards the big reveal that nobody saw coming, namely that in accordance with the prophecy it was the Doctor in the box all along.
To be fair there were plenty of things I didn't see coming. Obviously the Doctor was going to blow the dam to stop the alien big bad, but somehow I didn't quite connect that to the missing power cell. And of course Prentis is totally dressed up as a Victorian Undertaker. Although to be fair I do mostly hang out with goths, so that's pretty much my definition of normal.
For instance, this is actually my Milkman.
There was of course one big surprise, in that O'Donnell turned out to be a fangirl. And then died. And that's as good a point as any to start nitpicking so let's get into a few things shall we?
Anyone else remember how, towards the end of the 11th Doctors time he was making a concerted effort to erase his rather high profile public persona? Yeah, that didn't last very long did it? To be fair it didn't last 3 episodes into the following season so it does seem a little churlish to bring it up now. But it's the sort of thing that I personally consider to be emblematic of the disturbingly self congratulatory attitude the series seems to be taking these days. I'm just saying the last time we got such an obvious fan insert character was in Greatest Show In The Galaxy. A fun story to be sure, but Whizzkid was hardly the highlight.
No review should ever feature the phrase "Bring back Adric" is what I'm saying.
This may be forgiven in light of the apparent need to shoehorn in a bit of obvious foreshadowing. Although to be honest I kinda hope they throw in a different bit of obvious foreshadowing in every stroy and then follow up on none of it just to fuck with everyone. But the death bit isn't handled as well as it could be, and the bugs me because it could have been really cool.
As it stands she dies in the past, then suddenly the ghost shows up in the future. Which is somewhat unsatisfying as the ghost should logically have been there all along. Really the future half should have discovered her ghost was the one who'd been messing with the base systems just as we think that she'd escaped from danger in the past. After all, since her ghost wasn't actually seen before we have every reason to expect she'll actually be fine. So that might have been a nice rug pulling moment.
Still, never mind eh? Maybe they had to cut for time or something?
The Fisher King is a curious element. A nice monster design, let down by terrible lighting. It's nice that they continue to acknowledge the Warriors Of The Deep influence in this way, but can anyone honestly say that the whole dam bursting sequence wouldn't have been 10 times cooler if set at dusk? All long shadows and creepy atmosphere, then getting a bit poetic as the dam bursts with the sun setting behind it?
Are you seriously telling me NOBODY is considering these things?
Then there's all the press preceding the airing of the episode advertising the fact they apparently got the singer from Slipknow to do some vocals for the monster. Now, this is yet another example of Steven Moffatt stealing ideas from my skull whilst I sleep. I think he must have a special straw or something. Whilst I was more thinking about various Black Metal bands than Slipknot in particular, I had often considered that if you wanted to get some proper alien scary howling going on then you should get some decent Metal vocalists in. Sounds like a good plan. So why then do you use it for a couple of random howls and nothing else? The Fisher Kings ACTUAL voice turns out to be the Mellifluous tones Of Peter Serafinowicz.
Who at this point must be developing a reputation for quitely voicing other peoples characters.
Just seems a bit odd. Do one or the other, but they don't really go together somehow. In fact it almost sounds like someone else entirely doing the roaring. Funny that.
Anyway, much as I would like to get into everything that's wrong with the concept of Sonic Sunglasses (can you believe we haven't had a chance to complain about THAT yet?) I'm getting tired and we've still got the main problem with the episode to talk about. And it's this that I think comes closest to derailing things entirely.
So, let's talk about Paradoxes.
The episode opens with a curious straight to camera monologue from the Doctor, explaining directly to the audience the details of a particular temporal paradox. This seems odd, but we're sure it will become relevant later. Then, at the end of the episode we have a further explanation that we have in fact just witnessed this paradox in action. And then the episode arches it's eyebrows and expects us to marvel at how incredibly clever it all is.
Well, it isn't.
The problem we have here is simply that the script idly tosses the notion of the paradox into the mix, but doesn't do anything with it. If you want us to think you're clever, then your story actually needs to DEAL with the paradox. The fact is that we have a lecture at the beginning of the episode explaining a concept that is, when all is said and done, barely relevant to the plot at all. It's not utilized in any interesting way, it's not resolved. It's just kinda there.
Either this is terrible writing or more clumsy foreshadowing. I'm hoping it's the latter and this is just something that's been thrown in to introduce the concept before we come back to it later in the series to hopefully do something interesting with. Because otherwise this is just sloppy. I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that count though.
So... yeah. Overall not bad. Not exactly Genesis Of The Daleks by any means, but then it's hardly Asylum Of The Daleks either. A reasonable conclusion to a fairly average story.
So, do you want to make the joke about damming with faint praise, or shall I?
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