Vampire Diaries: Blood Brothers

“You vampires are so emotional.”

In addition to the seventeen zillion plot threads that VD is currently weaving into a climatic season finale, this episode was filled with sexy young things: shirtless Damon and Jeremy, not to mention Katherine looking stunning as always in those corsets. Oh, yeah: and flashbacks galore—I was shocked by how Damon and Stefan became vampires, and I was also shocked by their differing reactions to it.

Damon may come off as fun-loving and thrill-seeking, but he’s really just lonely. He only became a vampire for Katherine, and he continues to hunt her down mostly because he doesn’t have any one else to hunt. He said to Elena that he didn’t have any friends, which is a pretty dark way of looking at the situation: Elena has proved more than once that she cares about Damon, and their easy way with one another definitely screams Friends! to me. But Damon’s too stuck in his own martyr stuff to see it.

On the flip side, that random tomb-vampire-guy thinks John Gilbert is his friend—and that’s where we get our Theme of the Week: friendship. John Gilbert is just using him to get what he wants, the same way that Pearl is using John (and he is using her) and Jeremy is using Anna (ditto, I think).

On a show with so much nebulous evil—vampires that we like, but fear, and other vampires that we don’t like, even though we’ve never seen them kill anyone—the lines get blurry. But what it boils down to are the sides we take and the choices we make: whom to protect, whom to look out for, and to whom we tell our secrets. John Gilbert is evil because he doesn’t seem to be protecting anyone. But Alaric and Damon are on their way to a grudging buddy-cop friendship just as much as Elena and Damon were in the first few episodes, which makes me like Alaric more than I did before. (Damon, of course, I adore.)

But can Damon realize that he has friends, and that friends are what matter? He feels like there’s no world besides Katherine, even though he has a whole life (well, an un-life) right in Mystic Falls. Oh…no…I can feel it coming! I’m going to quote John Lennon: Un-life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. There, I did it. As though liking this show weren’t embarrassing enough.

Stefan did realize it, although too late to save his father and his soul, at least as he sees it. He starves himself to atone, and so that he can’t switch the guilt off. Damon started off wanting to make Stefan miserable to punish him for his sins, but now he just makes him miserable for feeling guilty in ways that Damon doesn’t—or at least isn’t willing to admit that he does. The brothers are basically projecting all their own issues onto each other, and that blinds them to their own bromantic connection. That kind of psychological complexity made the flashbacks, which I haven’t really been a fan of before, really seem relevant and touching this episode. Their conversation at the end? These boys need couples therapy.

Bites (vampire pun!):

• Damon: “I’m not going with you! You tried to kill me.”
Alaric: “You did kill me.”

• Elena: “Your joking doesn’t help.”
Damon: “It helps me.”

• Damon: “Stefan likes puppy blood. Little golden retriever blood with cute floppy ears. That’s his favorite.”

• Uncle John: “What do you think your mother would say, if she knew you were dating a vampire?”
Elena: “Which mother?” Oooh, snap!

• Alaric: “Can we not kill anyone tonight, please?”
Damon: “You just brought me along for my company?”

• Vampire Guy: “John’s my only real friend. He really showed me the ropes—how to use a microwave, separate my whites.”

• Damon: “Really, after only two years? That’s actually…moderately healthy?”
Alaric: “What are you going on? 146?”
Damon: “Well, I figure the 200 mark is a good stopping point.”

• Damon: “You got what you wanted. You and me for all eternity.”

• Damon: “You’re back on Bambi blood and I’m the big bad brother all over again. Everything is right in the world.”

• Damon: “Witches. Judgey little things.”

And Pieces:

• Stefan drinking his father’s blood reminded me of the discussion of vampires killing their parents in Angel “Lineage.”

• Damon lifting Elena’s feet, and sitting with her on the couch: they’re so interesting together.

• This is my first Vampire Diaries review, and I’m finding it difficult to slip into the reviewing process so close to the end of the season. I’m not sure what I expect you to do with that information, but there it is.

• Goodbye, Pearl. Hello, Isobel.


Four out of four golden retriever puppies with cute floppy ears. Awww.

Return to series index


(Season One, Episode 20)

(Thanks to vampire-diaries.net for the screencap!)
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Fringe: Brown Betty

“His ending wasn’t very good. It was sad. But I fixed it for him.”

I suppose you’ll call this a confession when you read it, Ms. Doux. When you assigned me to the Bishop case, I thought it was open-and-shut: find the missing plot, and whatever cold broad or broken-nosed mick had taken it, and steal it back. But I’ve gone soft—maybe it’s the booze or the broads or just the weight of the years, pressing down on my chest like an Acme safe of despair. I’ve gone soft, Ms. Doux, but I’ve not gone guilty. I’ll confess to what I’ve done, but I won’t say that I’ve done wrong.

It seemed so simple at first. Then again, it always does. We knew the plot was building, and we knew there were just four episodes left. Seems so long ago, that hope, doesn’t it? I hate hope now, hate it like kittens and babies and all the other goodies that men like Dr. Bishop manufacture using commie technology. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The assignment was simple: guard the plot, make sure it wrapped up safely before the season finale. What we didn’t count on was the emotion, the pure need-driven fear and love that Dr. Bishop had for his son.

Love is a stone-cold bitch, there’s no denying it. She wraps her icy fingers around your heart and she squeezes ‘til you can’t think or breathe or move. She wrapped up Dr. Bishop—wrapped him up good. His love for his son just took him over, forced him to create some fantasy of fedoras and gumshoes and Tears for Fears. When you see a man with that kind of need, that real Tears for Fears need, you know he’s head over heels and that he’s dragging us all down with him.

Dr. Bishop got us all to play along, that’s for sure. I’m not even sure we realized we what we were playing at—or if we did, if we would even care. Because I lost sight of that plot the minute I laid eyes on the dame. With curves everywhere you want ‘em and nowhere you don’t, Miss Olivia Dunham done me in like she done to so many others. She was a tough cookie, that’s for sure: she spoke like she knew all the rules and how to break ‘em, but I could tell she was nothin’ but scared and alone underneath.

She had a case of her own: find Peter Bishop. She was put onto the case by a scheming broad, went by the name of Rachel before she went by the name of dead. Miss Dunham didn’t let that put her nose out of whack, though. She followed him ‘til she got him, and when he fell into that black night of death she pulled him back down to earth. His heart—or Dr. Bishop’s heart…well, I never quite wrapped my head around that, but I know it’s somethin’ special and I know he matters to her, so it matters to me.

Broyles will fill you in on the rest, I’m sure. Just make sure he knows that he still owes me five bills, but that I’m not collecting. He saw it all like he always does, and he knows I failed this case for us, and if I weren’t dying now I’d worry you’d sack me. The plot’s gone, for this week at least. But I found what really matters: a classy broad with a heart of gold, and her straight-up man with the broken heart that only she can fix.

My own heart? It’s lost somewhere in the land that Dr. Bishop’s commie devices come from. You always told me to never lose heart, Ms. Doux. What you left out was that sometimes we gotta choose to leave it, to let the icy fingers of Love just squeeze it until we ain’t got no breath left, and then sit and wait for the next episode to come. I said earlier that I hated hope. I lied. We didn’t get what we expected, but we got three more episodes left. If that ain’t hope, I don’t know what is.

The Good:

• Walter with the label-maker.

• Ella: “That’s not how it goes. That can’t be it.”
Walter: “Why not?”
Astrid: “Probably because it’s her mother.”

• That check was for the whopping sum of $200. A lot, for the 1940s. But the cell phones with the old-fashioned rings and the 1980s computers: what a fabulous re-imagining of reality.

• Walter: “And my latest project: singing corpses!”

• Walter: “But first, she’d need to re-hire her assistant: Ester Ficklesworth.”

• The Observer: “I’m a man who doesn’t let his feelings get him into trouble.”

• Astrid: “You’re always looking for something that doesn’t exist.”

• The patent guy was the Massive Dynamics lab guy.

• The Observers are the Watchers in this story-verse, and instead of being named after the months, they’re named after astrological signs. Oh, yeah: and they definitely are much scarier.

• The broken taillight is a Chinatown reference.

• Was there some Astrid/Olivia sparkage in the scene where Astrid fixed the laser wound?

• Did Walter invent elephants? Is that what Peter was implying?

• The Walter Bishop of our Walter’s fantasy is basically the Fisher King: injured in an impossible-to-repair way, missing the most important part of his body, but also the creator of all wonderful things (the Fisher King, of course, got access to all that awesome through the Grail). It’s also reminiscent of that other classic of world literature: Iron Man.

• Wow, this cast can sing. And they’re just beautiful people, aren’t they?


Four out of four magical hearts. Because it wasn’t real, but it was a good fairy tale.

(Season Two, Episode Twenty)
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Supernatural: The Devil You Know

Bobby: "You're Crowley."
Crowley: "In the flesh. Of a moderately successful literary agent out of New York."

We've come full circle. What happened to Jess in the pilot episode was a huge open plot thread, and it has just been sewn up. (Is that a mixed metaphor?) Poor Jess. Poor Brady, too, since he must have been alive in there and suffering for years, like Meg.

Mark Sheppard as Crowley was a joy to watch. He was so incredibly sincere and so incredibly slippery that I kept expecting him to double cross Dean and/or Sam at any moment -- but he didn't. Just at the point where I started to believe he was telling the truth about his motivations, he showed up at Bobby's and started talking him out of his soul. I absolutely do not believe Crowley was telling Bobby the whole truth. Although, oddly, I do believe that Crowley will be able to provide Death's coordinates in response to a wish, because it makes story sense.

Did Crowley lie about the Colt? Is he secretly working for Lucifer? What sort of demon is Crowley? Yes, I remember that he's the boss of the Crossroads Demons, but how can he vanish and reappear like an angel? You don't suppose he's one of those evil angels in disguise? No, couldn't be; he had his own very large hellhound. But it would be a fun twist.

I kept expecting Sam to lose it. Jared kept making his angry face, which looks a lot like constipated face. In fact, nearly anyone would have lost it under these circumstances -- much less Sam, the devil's true vessel with rage issues. So at several points and especially at the end, I was thinking, good for Sam. He actually justified Dean's faith in him.

But when Sam started talking about walking Lucifer into the trap, I thought NOOOO! Sam was possessed before and had no control over his own body. What makes him think he could wrest control away from Lucifer himself? And if he did manage to do it, which I totally doubt, what would happen to Sam? Trapped in a box, possessed for eternity? At least this gives us a positive explanation for Sam saying yes to Lucifer in Detroit, though.

How did Bobby overcome that demon, by the way? I just assumed it was his massive coolness, or possibly strength of will against an enemy he knew and understood. Maybe not.

This was a dense episode, even though a lot of it was set-up. I'm so glad I avoid spoilers, because I have no idea what's coming. Except Death, of course. Someone's going to die; the entire season has felt like build-up to losing somebody. And it sure looks like it'll be Bobby. (If you know, please don't tell me!)

Bits and pieces:

-- The line of salt in the alley felt symbolic. Sam did indeed cross the line, but Dean laid it down for him in the first place, and in the end, Sam came back to Dean. Brady was wrong.

-- The wall mural in the alley behind Brady was fascinating, and almost certainly had to be created specifically for this episode. It showed a man wearing a ring, sitting in a barber chair being shaved with a straight razor.

-- Crowley said that War and Famine are now withered husks.

-- Niveus Pharmaceuticals. I'd never heard the word "niveus" before. It means "snow white."

-- Brady kicked Dean repeatedly. How come Dean didn't have internal injuries? Not that it matters, since Heaven would just toss him back.

-- Did Crowley call Brady "Uncle" or was I imagining it?

-- There was a long, creepy ad for next week's episode, and they showed it twice.

-- Gold acting stars for Mark Sheppard, of course. And for Eric Johnson (Brady), who seems to have gotten acting lessons since I saw him last in Smallville. Or maybe, like Jensen Ackles, Smallville just wasn't an adequate arena for his acting talents.

-- (Come to think of it, Eric Johnson and Jensen Ackles both played Lana Lang's boyfriends for one season, too. We've come a long way, baby.)

Quotes:

Dean: (in a sterile face mask) "Check it out. I look like the king of pop."

Crowley: "They burnt down my house! They ate my tailor!"

Crowley: "Where's your moose?"
Dean: "He's cooling off."
Crowley also called Sam Dean's dog, while he called Dean "tiger" and "mate." I think he's playing favorites.

Crowley: "Might have given said toad the impression that you left your post last night because you and I are -- wait for it -- lovers in league against Satan. Hello, darling."

Crowley: "Stay!"
Dean: "You can control them?"
Crowley: "Not that one. Brought my own. Mine's bigger."

Crowley: "Let's just say when they're getting their Grammys, they shouldn't all be thanking God."

It's hard for me to rate arc episodes that end in a cliffhanger, but I still think this one was excellent. Four out of four really big hellhounds,

Billie

All of my Supernatural reviews are archived here.
(Season 5, episode 20)

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Happy Town: In This Home on Ice (Pilot)

“People call it Happy Town. Because they know. They know.”

ABC’s latest attempt at replacing Lost made its first appearance last night. Part David Lynch, part Neil Gaiman, part Shirley Jackson, part Stephen King…the list could go on. This show has lots of moving parts, lots of characters, lots of mystery, lots of symbolism (this list could go on, too). The bigger question, though, is whether or not it's worth our time. At this point, all I can say is that it has potential, but it also has lots of flaws. This review doesn’t ruin any major surprises, but it does get into the episode in a lot of detail. Caveat lector.
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Haplin, Minnesota is a small town with a dark past: twelve years ago, people started disappearing—one a year for seven years. The last to disappear was the young daughter of the Haplin clan, who give their name to the town and its county. Town lore dubbed the abductor the Magic Man, and no one knows what became of him or his victims.

This town is full of quirky character types, from the “full-service realtor” who also runs a boarding house filled with sex-starved, well-coifed, perky widows, to one mysterious Merritt Grieves, played by Sam Neill (neat!). The boarding house has a mysterious third floor that is off-limits to all of the residents, including newbie Henley, whose origins and motives are just as mysterious.

The Haplin family is doyenne Peggy (Frances Conroy, from Six Feet Under), son John (Steven Weber), his wife who is still mourning their missing daughter. There’s also a Haplin son (I think maybe John’s son, or a much younger brother). They run the Our Daily Bread factory that overlooks Happy Town just like that creepy house in ‘Salem’s Lot, or like the mill in Twin Peaks, or like the shotgun on the mantle in a Chekov play. Their pervasive influence is symbolized by the fact that the whole town smells like bread, and everyone claims to be covered in flour (invisible flour, I guess). Why a small town would need so much bread—one more mystery.

The Conroy family is papa Griffin (Mr. Friendly from Lost), son Tommy, his wife Rachel (Amy Acker! Amy Acker!), and the daughter that they haven’t lost. Dad and son represent law and order, and Sheriff Griffin’s desire to just keep the darn peace often comes in conflict with the Haplins’ desire to run the town their way. The two families are, um, mirror images of each other, which is, like, symbolic of the way the town is, uh, pulled in two directions or something.

There’s also the family Stiviletto, who look so inbred that they must be evil. Plus, they yell at their angry dogs. And I think they live in a tar-paper shack, which has got to be tough during those Minnesota winters. Oh, and there’s a high schooler who baby sits for the Conroys, whose father is a meth dealer, and whose boyfriend is that Haplin son whose parentage I can’t figure out. (The Romeo and Juliet connection is worked into the dialogue, in case we couldn’t figure it out on our own.)

With the exception of Peggy Haplin, we meet every single one of these people, as well as a few supporting players, in the one-hour pilot. That means we get a lot of exposition in the dialogue. Really a lot. On top of the Magic Man backstory, there’s a current mystery: the opening scene is a man being tortured, interrogated, and killed in a rather interesting way in an ice shack on one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. Who killed him? Why? What does it mean for this bucolic icy town?

That’s the obvious mystery. Sam Neill’s character is the more interesting one, though: he lives in the boarding house with the super-creepy tyrannical real estate agent, he has only been in town for three months, and he’s opening a movie memorabilia shop. As if that weren’t weird enough, he has a strange effect on the people around him: not only does he throw Mr. Friendly completely off his game, his interactions with the other characters seem to shift everyone into Old Fashioned Speech. Seriously: the real estate agent offers him “bicarbonate of soda” for an upset stomach, and in talking to him, Henley uses “one” instead of “you,” which no American has done since at least the Truman administration. Is his character really so magnetic that he shifts everyone around him into slightly off-kilter versions of themselves? Is he Haplin’s Leland Gaunt? What does he know, and why isn’t he telling? Neill manages to play this character with his tongue just a little bit in his cheek, which is exactly what’s called for at this point.

So those are the characters, and that’s the plot. What about the execution? So far, it’s only so-so. It really does seem to be pulling inspiration from every delightfully addictive book or TV show that I can think of. And we can add to the kitchen sink some wacky iconography (the Magic Man is associated with a question mark topped by a halo), some religious symbolism (bread, bread, everywhere: sacrifice is death, but through death is life, etc.), and that same glossy sheen that all of ABC’s shows have now that the network is succeeding. And while the lack of Minnesota accents is a black mark in the verisimilitude book, it’s a good thing for those of us who find them both hilarious and unbearable.

Creators Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg all worked together on Life on Mars, the American version. I only watched one episode of that show, but I’m under the impression that it was short-lived for a reason: it didn’t live up to the mythological potential, and the character interactions weren’t enough to make up for the weak attempts at mystery. Maybe they’ve learned from their mistakes, maybe not. The cast is all-star, though.

Amazingly, there’s actually a lot more that I could say, and lots of awkward quotes I could list for you. I was tempted to name-check all the references the show makes to other shows, movies, and books, but ran out of energy before I even began. (And I didn’t even mention the bird!) There was just so much stuff in this episode. This pilot probably should have been an hour and a half, so that the writers could have had more room to actually develop characters instead of just telling us about them. Or maybe we didn’t need to meet everyone right away, or get every single mystery handed to us on a silver platter. I’m worried that this show is, despite its wacky references, too by-the-book and heavy-handed: wacky ensemble cast plus mystery plus peril equals Ratings! Ratings! Ratings! But I plan to tune in next week to see if it gets better or worse.

SPOILER WARNING: We're using the comments thread to talk about episodes beyond the first one. The first eight comments are safe; after that, information on later episodes are fair game!


Two out of 10,000 lakes.

(Season One, Episode One)
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Doctor Who: The Time of Angels (1)

Amy: “She's Mrs Doctor from the future, isn't she? Is she gonna be your wife one day?”

What a difference seven days makes. Not to mention a change of writer. Tonight's story was a marked improvement over last week's. They gave us mysteries galore, dialogue to die for, and the characters actually felt real again. In short, nothing jarred, and all the main leads sparkled. After the blip that was “Victory of the Daleks”, Doctor Who feels well and truly back on track.

Resurrecting old foes/characters is a risky business, particularly when they're from stories generally considered to be fan favourites. “Blink” was the dark horse of season three, with its creepy angels and intriguing female lead (sympathetically played by the Oscar nominated Carey Mulligan). Similarly, “Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead” had much to recommend them. Great storylines. Magnificent suspense. And, significantly, they introduced us to the mysterious River Song (the Doctor's wife/girlfriend/fellow Time Lord... delete as you see fit). So there was definitely scope for follow up stories -- unfinished business, if ye will. But sandwiching them together and following them up simultaneously was a veritable master-stroke on Moffat's part. It helped that it worked, too.

All the TV rags this week were talking about the “surprise return” of River Song. A surprise for the Doctor maybe. But not for us lot. She was in last weeks trailer, and this week, her picture's been splashed across all manner of media. So for the viewing public it was a complete non-surpise. But having Alex Kingston back on our screens is always good news (both for the show and for me). I've always had a soft spot for Dr. Corday. And they played upon Song's ambiguous relationship with the Doctor magnificently tonight. The nature of their "friendship" has been the subject of much speculation these past few years. And nobody can deny they act like an old married couple; with the non stop bickering and the unrelenting put downs. Even the constantly attempted one-upmanship felt freakishly familiar.

Yet we're still no further forwards in uncovering Song's true identity. Amy, to her credit, asked the Doctor outright "is Song your future wife?" And, at first, the Doctor seemed to answer in the affirmative. Except, of course, he was answering a completely different question, and thus answered sod all. Does the Doctor know who Song really is? He must have an inkling. At the very least, he knows what calibre of person he'd reveal his true name to. But his reluctance to get drawn into Song's life (spoilers) conveniently prevents him from being able to ask her outright (or, seemingly, to even ponder the question himself).

Amy, ostensibly, had more success. She did get some answers. They just didn't mean anything. At first Song seemed to imply that she wasn't the Doctor's wife (“could it be anything that simple?") and then, conversely, seemed to hint that she was (“Oh, you're good”). So the answer so far seems to be yes, no, no and yes. Which leaves us back where we started -- with a big fat “I don't know”.

What we do know is that Song's a criminal of sorts (or has certainly spent time behind bars). That's new. But why would the knowledge of who she is stop the Doctor from helping her? Is she up to something the Doctor wouldn't approve of? Let's face it, those clerics felt decidedly dodgy. Or is she somehow playing the Doctor... making him think she's someone she's not, in order to secure his trust? And what was that injection she gave Amy? Was it really a viro-stabiliser? We know that Song turns out to be a good guy in the end, and eventually dies for the Doctor ("Forest of the Dead"), but who is she now?

Expanding the Angel's mythology, I though, worked nicely. I was initially worried about Moffat bringing back the Weeping Angels. “Blink” was such an unmitigated success, it was hard to imagine a sequel being anywhere near as good. Maybe the Angels were destined to be one hit wonders. The Ood were effective in “The Impossible Planet” but I got sick of them in subsequent stories. You can have too much of a good thing. But the Angels worked quite well as a returning foe. Having Amy locked up with one of them was as suspenseful as we could have hoped for. And once again Amy showed great ingenuity in extricating herself from certain, neck-snapping death. She hit the pause button during a break in the loop. Nice bit of deduction that. Which the Doctor did acknowledge, before delegating the job of the congratulatory/consoling hug to Song. That's one job I wouldn't mind getting my hands dirty doing.

So what's the story with Amy's eye? If eyes are not the windows to the soul, but doors, then what's she got herself into; or more correctly, what got into her? ? And why oh why, when Song asked whether she was okay, did Amy say “fine”? Stone dust has just come out of your eye, Amy! How can that possibly be fine? Particularly after being specifically warned not to look into the Angel's eyes. If I were her, I'd have come clean, and then crossed my fingers that someone would know what to do. Just in case... oh, I don't know, I started turning into stone or something. Which of course she eventually did. Except she didn't. But she did. Kind of. Did Song know Amy was lying? Did she know that Amy had somehow become infected/possessed and that was why she gave her the injection? All will be revealed next week, no doubt. Or it won't. It probably won't, will it? Bah!

Amy's hand turning into stone (or not) reminded me of Evelina's skin condition in “The Fires of Pompeii”. Great remedy from the Doctor though -- biting her hand with his “space teeth”. There were quite a few similarities between this week's episode and some of the older Who stories. Bob's disembodied voice was similar in concept to the "data ghosting" we first saw back in season four's “Silence in the Library”. The Angels were stronger in the dark, as were the Vasta Nerada. Plus, in both stories, it was a case of divide and conquer. People split up. People died (in traditional horror movie fashion). Still, if Moffat can't steal from his own stories, who can he steal from?

And well done Amy for trying to blink one eye at a time (although that's less blinking, more winking). I remember watching “Blink” for the first time and trying to do the exact same thing. It seemed like the most obvious solution to the problem. And it is possible. It's just horrendously unnatural. I liked Amy a lot this week. Last week she felt like a spare part, always stood in the background, never really doing anything. Tonight, all the main players shone. Amy was useful, intelligent and humorous. And Matt Smith was completely hilarious. His impression of the TARDIS was an absolute hoot! The way (mid-impression) he looked at Amy for support -- only to have her frown at him as though he'd gone completely mad. Beautifully written and perfectly acted.

A decent cliff hanger too. With the Doctor shooting out the gravity globe and plunging them all into complete darkness. A stupid move, indeed.

Bits and pieces:

-- I must confess, I spent ages trying to work how River Song had managed to come back from the dead. Then I remembered that, despite being in the Doctor's future, they were actually in Song's past. As the Doctor said, they keep meeting in the wrong order. D'oh!

-- Nice cameo from Mike Skinner (from The Streets). Dry your eyes, mate. Or maybe just wipe your mouth.

-- How does Song know Old High Gallifreyan? And how does she know how to fly the TARDIS? If she didn't learn from the Doctor, then who is this "the best" she's referring to?

-- We learnt all sorts of TARDIS nonsense tonight. It has brakes. It has a blue stabiliser button. It can create and maintain an air corridor -- which is presumably how Song managed to survive being blasted out into space.

-- No cracks in the the skin of the universe this week. Phew!

-- This was apparently the first episode of season five to be filmed. Which actually surprised me. I thought Matt and Karen were brilliant in it.

-- What was an animated Graham Norton doing screwing up the climax of the episode? Talk about gay agenda ;o)

Quotes:

Doctor: “There were days. There were many days, these words could burn stars, and raise up empires and topple Gods".
Amy: “What does it say?”
Doctor: “Hello Sweetie.”

Doctor: "Yeah, well its just boring now, isn't it. They're boring-ers. Just blue boring-ers."
Amy: "How comes you can fly the TARDIS?"
Doctor: "Oh, I had lessons from the very best."
Doctor: “Well. Yeah.”
Song: “It's a shame you were busy that day.”

Amy: “Oh Doctor. You soniced her!”

Doctor: “It's a long story and I don't know most of it.”

Amy: “Oh, you are Mr Grumpy Face today.”

Amy: "Is River Song your wife?”

River: “Incredible builders, the Aplans.”
Doctor: “I had dinner with their chief architects once. Two heads are better than one.”
Amy: “What? You mean you helped them?”
Doctor: “Er, no. I mean they had two heads.”

Doctor: “Wonderful species the Aplans. We should visit them sometimes.”
Amy: “I thought they were all dead.”
Doctor: “So is Virginia Wolfe. I'm on her bowling team.”

Doctor: “I don't need you to die for me Doctor. Do I look that clingy?”

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Chuck: Chuck versus the Honeymooners

“But you’re a spy, man!”

You can take the boy out of Burbank, but you can’t take the Intersect out of the boy. The previous episode’s game-changer really did change the game: the will-they-or-won’t-they is gone. Kaput. Finis. But what can replace it? Well, Chuck has turned into the story of the Charleses: not Nick and Nora, but close enough. The bigger question is: Is Chuck still Chuck, without the longing?

It’s still hard to tell. This episode played with the idea of Chuck’s (and Sarah’s) longing, by replacing it with our longing for them to return to the spy life, and the LA contingent’s longing for Chuck. I never worried that Chuck and Sarah would stick to their pact to quit the spy life, and I’m glad they didn’t drag it out for more than one episode.

Ellie’s sadness was harder to take: she felt abandoned by her brother, but at least they got a meaty thirty seconds together. On the flip side, Morgan said goodbye to Chuck with a surprising lack of tears: if he really though Chuck was leaving him forever, would he have been okay with it? Then again, maybe he knew that Chuck would never actually go on the run.

But as the ETA separatist said, no matter how far you run, you can never run from yourself. I knew it, Morgan knew it—I’ll bet even Chuck and Sarah knew it. And it doesn’t have to be a choice: they can be together and be spies, three seasons of obstacles to the contrary. Now we’ve got a show about two spies in love. I’m cool with that.

The first half of this episode was just frantic. Funny, but frantic. It’s pretty amazing how much plot they crammed into this episode, spy-wise: Interpol, Basque separatists, more Interpol, separatists pretending they’re Interpol, Morgan and Casey, waiters, money pouches, handcuffs, drunk Ellie. Wow.


MegaBytes:

• General Beckman: “The Intersect and Mr. Grimes have an oddly co-dependent relationship.”

• Awesome: “Babe. [Points to his own chest.] This didn’t happen by accident.”

• Morgan: “He hasn’t updated his facebook status in over a week!”

• Casey: “They’re having intercourse, idiot.”

• Chuck: “Yeah? Oui?” (At least, that’s how the close-captioning translated some of Chuck’s ramblings to the injured skier.)

• Morgan: “I’ve barely been south of Redondo Beach.”

• Morgan: “Trains and buses are hotbeds for gypsy activity.”

• Lester: “Prepare yourself to be wowed by a wall of sound…sound…sound.”

• Morgan: “Are you Canadian? Me too, eh.”

• Canadian: “Stay away from me, or I’ll cut you.”

• Casey: “Alright, let’s say I believe you now.”

• General Beckman: “Off the record, it’s about damn time.”


And Pieces:

• That opening was straight-up Alias. Until it wasn’t.

• Wow, that was a lot of southern accent.

• Jeffster’s turtlenecks are an improvement.

• That was Ray Charles at the end, right? Yet another Charles. What a strange sub-theme. [Edited to add: No. It was Nina Simone.]

• Ellie and Awesome aren’t gone for good, are they? I choose to believe that they’ll be back until I hear otherwise.


Three out of four fake Canadians/fausses Canadiennes

(Season 3.2, Episode 14)
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Stargate Universe: Human

I’m guessing reactions to ‘Human’ largely hinge on one’s enjoyment of Dr. Rush. Rush is one of my favorite characters (his devious nature notwithstanding), and I thought the idea of subjecting him to the Ancient chair was a fascinating way to explore his backstory while still advancing the plot (even a small amount). So at least half the episode worked really well for me.

I loved getting a peek into the inner workings of Rush’s mind and learning a little about the distant memories he’d most like to forget. In some ways, the most interesting aspect of these “flashbacks” is also the most problematic --- the semi-lucid trips down memory lane provide insight into the way Rush thinks, but present an extremely unreliable version of events. How much of what we saw reflects what actually happened in Rush’s past, and how much is shaded by the imperfection of memory and his conscious interaction with the waking dream? “You’re just a figment of my imagination. Reliving all of this is just a necessary evil. An unfortunate side effect of a process I can’t control. And it keeps getting in the bloody way of what I need to do.” Was Rush really such a workaholic ass in reality? Did he ignore his dying wife’s feelings so completely, treating her as a “distraction”? Or did his obsessive, indifferent behavior only reflect his current efforts to unlock control of Destiny? He was clearly breaking the “reality” of the past when interacting with his students and Daniel Jackson, but he also seemed to follow the basic flow of events to a certain extent. At one point, Gloria asks him why he’s at dinner and he says “because this is what happened.”

If Rush really was so distant in reality (which I suspect he was), it was likely just his way of coping. Protecting himself from the crushing grief of losing the love of his life. Everyone deals with impending death differently, and Gloria pretty much gave him permission to bury his head in his work, believing he had the chance to change things for the world at large, if not for her. “Don’t let that hold you back. When the time comes, I know you’ll be there.” So he forged ahead with the Icarus Project, trying to blind himself to Gloria's struggle and dull his own pain. But he wasn't there when the time came, and it is clearly his greatest regret.

Whether the bulk of the flashbacks reflect reality or not, Rush’s “confessionals” with Daniel and with a bedridden Gloria --- neither of which ever happened --- provided the best insight into his motivations and character. We learned that he devoted two and half years to unlocking the ninth chevron, while leaving his wife to “spend her dying days alone.” And it was all for nothing in the end, because Eli is the one that came along and solved the problem. Given that, is it any wonder that he’s so hell bent on discovering Destiny’s secrets? He didn’t come through for the person he loved most in the world when it mattered, but maybe, just maybe, if he can make a difference by unraveling the mysteries of Destiny, that choice will mean something. He’d rather die than fail again, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes.

I loved that the last scene between Rush and Gloria was essentially him being brutally honest with himself about his deeds of late. “What have you become Nicholas? The things you’ve done --- it’s not who you are. It’s not you.” He recognizes how terrible he’s become and that it’s disingenuous to lay the blame on his wife’s death by saying the man she loved died when she did. “I was never your conscience, Nicholas. You still have one of your own. You just need to listen to it.” He even admitted to himself (through Gloria) that he needs to make a change. “I know how much you loved me. Stop taking it out on everyone else.”

As usual, Robert Carlyle played all these scenes wonderfully. He completely sold the bitterness and resentment that Rush feels towards Eli (“he’s the genius I’ll never be”), as well as the heartbreak and regret for his actions towards Gloria. I loved that he only let true emotion show in a few subtle moments, and largely covered any signs of grief by being brusque and dismissive. It made those moments when he did give in to emotion all the more powerful, none more so than the final goodbye at the hospital. When Rush took Gloria's hand and said he’d never forget her I broke down crying because the moment so strongly evoked the pain of several personal losses I’ve experienced in recent years. Kudos to Mr. Carlyle for making the emotions of that moment ring true.

While I really enjoyed Rush’s part of the episode, I found the B-plot with Scott, Greer, Eli, and Chloe fairly uninteresting and borderline ridiculous. It is completely ludicrous that Eli and Chloe would be allowed to go on this away mission. Chloe simply has no place on an off-world exploration mission. She does not have the appropriate skills and is more likely than not to get into some kind of situation where she requires rescuing. And for this particular mission, Eli was too valuable to risk. With Rush out of commission, they may have needed Eli to save the ship if the chair experiment had gone awry. Moreover, aside from Greer staring down Eli after the “scared” remark (funny!) and the giant spider (shuddery!), the action down on the planet was rather tedious. Clearly the whole thing was intended to set up next week’s episode, but in the context of this week’s episode the doomed jaunt into ancient ruins just felt like a pointless distraction.

Other Thoughts

The episode had shades of A Beautiful Mind with the flashing code and wall after wall covered with formulas. Even the dreamlike nature of the flashbacks reminded me of that that movie.

It’s always wonderful to see Daniel Jackson. I kept wondering if his “interactive” behavior was a product of Rush’s thought process, or if he’d turn out to be some kind of Ancient guide (since, once upon a time, Daniel was an ascended being). The latter option wouldn’t really make a ton of sense, given the age of Destiny and Rush’s relative lack of connection to Daniel, but I was getting really strong flashbacks to a few SG-1 Season 6 episodes.

I appreciated the efforts to address the strain in Eli and Chloe’s friendship and Eli’s feelings of betrayal. The “mess hall” scene was nicely played by both actors, but I felt like they returned to their buddy-buddy dynamic far too quickly. He gives a half-hearted nod in response to her pleas for forgiveness (seemingly still very hurt), but within minutes he’s telling obvious fibs so that his best bud can come with him on an away mission. What?

No Wray this week, but Sgt. Riley was back! That was him checking the controls in the gate room. I’d almost forgotten what he looked like.

I was getting some serious Indiana Jones vibes from the B-plot. When Chloe was freaking about the spider webs I kept expecting her to accidently bump into something that got them into trouble (a la Willie in Temple of Doom). But instead they had her walk right into the path of a “sizable” spider with lots of hungry teeth. Ack. More “damsel in distress” garbage for that character. It was inevitable when she went on the mission, but still disappointing.

Louise Lombard looked way too good for a woman supposedly dying from cancer. Perhaps I can reason that Gloria's appearance was the product of Rush’s semi-lucid dream state. He wanted to remember her looking better than she did. Particularly since he wasn’t actually with her at her bedside when she died and wouldn’t have known how bad she looked.

Watching Gloria say goodbye to her violin student for the last time brought tears to my eyes. The extra long hug was heartbreaking.

The classical violin score for Rush’s flashbacks was the perfect accompaniment. It set the mood and tone for those scenes beautifully.

I thought it was very weird to hear people calling Rush by his first name.

Quotes

Eli (under his breath to Chloe): “Say something archaeological.”
Chloe: “Stratification.”
Sounds more geological to me.

Daniel (in response to Rush writing ‘46’ on his board): “Well, it’s not the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. That’s 42. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
I love that they gave this week’s geek reference to Daniel!

Daniel: “I’m sure you’ve heard of the ‘23’ enigma.”
Rush: “Yeah, it refers to some ridiculous notion that everything and anything is connected to the number 23.”
Apparently the Lost writers are fans of this notion.

Rush: “I was trying to be a bit more optimistic.”
Young: “That’s a little different for you.”

Final Analysis: I was both fascinated and moved by Rush’s story in ‘Human,’ but could have done without the away team’s misadventures as the B-plot. Even though that story seems to be setup for the next episode, its tone and style felt very jarring when juxtaposed with Rush’s much more intimate tale and took something away from the episode as a whole.

(Season 1, episode 14)
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Summer reviewing plans and future projects

Summer is the season where the hit rate on my site plummets to the basement, and we do retro reviews and play catch-up. Here are our summer plans, and some possibilities for next fall. I'm hoping for lots of comments, because some of these plans are tentative.

Vampire Diaries, Chuck
Josie Kafka is considering the possibility of taking on The Vampire Diaries, but is wary of committing if there's little interest. Would you be interested in seeing Vampire Diaries here on the site? Also -- the best laid plans and so on, but if there is time and opportunity, Josie may catch up with the first season and a half of Chuck.

Wonderfalls, X-Files, Farscape
Jess Lynde is planning to wrap up Wonderfalls and the first season of The X-Files this summer. She's thinking seriously about doing Farscape at some point, too -- do we have any Farscape fans out there (other than me, of course)? She's also planning to write season wrap-ups for Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary (not individual reviews, I hasten to add.)

The original V, Heroes
Dimitri A.C. Ly, who has been covering the new V for us, is going back to the eighties to review "V: The Original Mini-Series" and "V: The Last Stand". Whether he'll go on and review the rest of early V depends on the interest level, and whether or not the new V is renewed. If Heroes gets a fifth season, Dimitri might do more comprehensive reviews of the earlier episodes of season four... you know, the ones where basically all I did was meandering comments and massive complaining.

True Blood, Star Trek
I am definitely reviewing season three of True Blood as it airs this summer. And my annual retro project this summer is going to be the original Star Trek. Yes, I swore I'd never review Star Trek, but it sort of just happened; I blame J.J. Abrams and Zachary Quinto, because they got me watching the original series again. I've already finished a good bit of season one. And I'll be getting some help with commentary by the Original Purple Duck.

Please let us know what you think. We don't write in a vacuum, you know, especially since that tends to make it difficult to breathe.

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Glee: The Power of Madonna

Sue: "Somewhere on the English countryside, in a stately manor, Madonna is weeping."

And everywhere across the U.S., thousands of true Gleeks breathe a sigh of relief.

I tried not to get too excited about the much-hyped Madonna episode. I didn't want to see my beloved show fail to live up to expectations - mine or critics. But I was more than pleasantly surprised - I was actually quite blown away .

"The Power of Madonna" is easily the show's best episode yet. This, my friends, is Glee at it's full potential: laugh out loud one liners, inventive mash-ups/interpretations of the music, some pretty damn good performances, and just enough Rachel/Finn to make the heart sigh. Nothing as silly as a plot got in the way - which, frankly, is a good thing for us all, as I have to finally admit that plot and pacing is probably Glee's biggest weakness.

"Express Yourself"
Rating: 6 out of 10

The patently ridiculous premise - Glee girls are being mistreated by the guys, and Shue trying to empower them with Madonna - led to our first number of the night, which happens to be my personal favorite Madge song. The costumes were very cute (even though Quinn's baby bump was conspicuously missing), but overall, I didn't love "Express Yourself". Those of you who have been reading my reviews can guess why: it was just a straight up rehash of the song, even down to the costumes and the crotch grabbing choreography. Although I will concede that it would have been damn near impossible to reinvent such an iconic video, so maybe an homage was the best choice.

Also, I do love me some Lea Michele, but her voice was not very well suited for this number. Madonna may not have the greatest voice in the world, but her lower-pitched alto gives it the grittiness that it deserves. Lea has a beautiful, crisp soprano voice that soars in duets and on ballads - but on this one, she came across sounding like a high school girl trying to be all grown up.

But - brownie points for Kurt's excellent expression throughout the number, as well as Artie's misogynistic (but hilarious) demands if Tina wants to "get all up on this."

"Borderline / Open Your Heart"
Rating: 9 out of 10

At the heart of the episode was Rachel's dilemma: Jesse is pressuring her to sleep with him. Wait, how long have they been dating? Like a day and a half? I never have any sense of time in Gleeverse, so I can't even tell you if this makes any sense. (Not that a day and half of dating ever stopped any boys from wanting it.)

Regardless, the fact that Rachel is seriously considering it - and almost went through with it - is both realistic and telling. She may be beyond arrogant when it comes to her talent, but when it comes to boys, she's insecure, and doesn't want to lose her first real boyfriend. Plus, I mean, Jonathan Groff is completely adorable - and any boy who wants to talk through issues, or "at least sing about it" is a keeper in my book.

You know what else is completely realistic? The fact that Rachel can't keep her mouth shut ("She talked about him yesterday and practically sprayed the choir room"), even knowing that it'll alienate her the only friends she has. Finn, back in adorably dim-bulb form, confronts her, culminating in a juicy mash up of "Borderline" and "Open Your Heart".

Yes, some of the early transitions in the song were a little awkward, but overall, I really loved the number. The gratuitous use of the wind machine was offset by the random Madonna impersonators wandering the halls of McKinley (loved it!), and the chemistry between the two was the strongest I've ever felt - I could actually feel both of their yearning. Both songs actually are quite relevant to the Finn/Rachel relationship - she's trying to get over him, but can't quite let go; he was too scared to be emotionally honest with himself about how he feels. "Open Your Heart" was particularly appropos, since the video famously featured Madonna stripping for a 7 year old - which is just how old Brittany's new younger man is.

"Vogue"
Rating: 6 out of 10

More importantly, we FINALLY find out what Sue has against Will's hair ("Hey William, I thought I smelled cookies wafting from the ovens of the little elves who live in your hair"). Apparently Miz Sylvester damaged her hair trying to bleach it in her not-too-distant youth, so she can only wear it short - and she's jealous of Will's lustrous waves. Mercedes and Kurt, either terrified from her rampage or feeling bad for her, give her a black-and-white makeover - and, voila! - "Vogue"!

I gotta tell you, I would have given this a perfect 10 if Fox hadn't played the video in its entirety last week. I actually fast forwarded through it, I was so annoyed, but it was freaking hilarious the first time around, and its' not their fault that the programmers at Fox are boneheads. Plus, I thought Will's comebacks were actually pretty damn funny ("How's that Florence Henderson look working for you?"), and the look on Mercedes' and Kurt's faces in Sue's office were just priceless.

"Like a Virgin"
Rating: 10 out of 10

It's not often that Glee catches me completely off guard, but I just did not put 2 and 2 (and 2) together and see that virgin theme at all. Could Glee actually be learning subtlety? Or was I too busy scarfing down a chile relleno burrito to pay attention?

Either way. The "Like a Virgin" montage was very well done, tying together several plot lines, and showcased the talents of Santana and Emma. That it was completely a fantasy made it all the better. In contrast to the number, the starkness of Rachel/Finn/Emma in the bathroom stood out. I'm glad Emma didn't sleep with Will, and Rachel and Finn respectively lying about their experience was actually kind of sweet. I might need to eat my own words - maybe I can believe in the Emma/Will and Rachel/Finn pairings after all.

Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for the song, as Like a Virgin was the first album I ever owned, so maybe I'm just completely biased. (Me: "Mommy, what's a virgin?" Mom: "It's a girl's name, honey." Me: "Oooh, I want to be a Virgin!" Mom: "And you will be... for a very long time.")

"Like a Prayer"
Rating: 7/10

Uh huh. Jesse transferring to another high school for Rachel? Come on. This breaks my heart, because Jesse is so obviously playing Rachel, and I'm not looking forward to the fallout. What I want to know is: How does Shelby figure into this whole scheme? Are the Glee writers dangling obvious plot developments (Shelby being Rachel's birth mom, Jesse's betrayal) so that they can fake us out? Am I giving them too much credit?

What I also want to know is:Why did they make such a big deal about Jesse being another male lead, when he was hardly used on "Like a Prayer"?

I've read a lot of online reviews that are calling the "Like a Prayer" number one of Glee's best, but I have to disagree. Besides the complete absurdity of suddenly having a choir at their disposal, I didn't think that the performance was all that. Yes, it was big, and it was dramatic, and perhaps in any other episode I would have loved it. But it paled in comparison to "Borderline/Open Your Heart" and "Like a Virgin".

As I said, this was easily the best episode of Glee to date. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's a good thing. Based on the unevenness of last fall, I am fully expecting this coming week's to be a disappointment. And call me a cynic, but I'm just know that the success of the "Power of Madonna" will make Glee more and more gimmicky. In addition to the Lady Gaga episode (which I *am* excited about, b/c I loooooove Lady Gaga), they're already planning another Madonna themed episode, which I desperately hope they won't do, but I'm sure they will. Even Britney is tweeting about a potential Britney themed ep!

I feel like Buffy after she lost her virginity to Angel - after the moment of perfect bliss and happiness, I fear that Glee is going to turn into a soulless, money sucking, product placement machine.

Le sigh. Who knows? Angel came back from Hell, maybe Mr. King Of Shock Value (Ryan Murphy) will resist his natural urges. In the meantime, 5 out of 4 younger men.

The Tunes
There were a lot of other great numbers in "The Power of Madonna" which didn't tie into my review. Here are my ratings:

-- "Ray of Light". I know it's technically not a Glee Club number, but the Cheerios-On-Stilts routine was impressive. I love watching the Cheerios. 9 out of 10.

-- "4 Minutes". This is actually one of my favorite Madonna songs, so maybe I'm being overly critical, but I didn't love it. The staging with the marching band and the Cheerios was really awesome, but for whatever reason, Kurt and Mercedes' performances didn't do it for me. I'd say 10 out of 10 for the staging, and 7 out of 10 for the singing - so averages 8.5/10.

-- "What It Feels Like For A Girl". An oddly charming number. Plus it actually felt like a rehearsal, which apparently no one in Gleeverse needs to have. 7/10.

Bits 'n Pieces
-- Kurt: "Mercedes is black, I'm gay: We make culture."
This one wins quote of the night.

-- Jesse: "Just come out so we can talk. Or sing about it."
I know I already mentioned this one, but it was just so super awesome. I totally didn't buy into Jesse as a character until those words came out of his mouth.

-- Mercedes: "That would make you, like, 30."
Sue: "29."

-- Sue: "My parents were famous Nazi hunters, so they weren't around a lot."

-- Brittany: "When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist."

-- Sue: "What would Madonna do? Well, the answer to that question would normally be: date a younger man."

-- Jesse: "You tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll make sure I’m fastidiously groomed."

-- Sue: “The woman most responsible for my take-no-prisoners demeanor and my subconscious tendency to constantly be looking for someone named Susan.”

-- Puck: "Uh, Mr. Schue, I think we're gonna need a new baritone 'cause Finn would like to become Finnessa."

-- Rachel: "Can I ask you something private?"
Santana: "Yes, you should move to Israel."

-- Emma: "Foreplay begins promptly at 7:30"

-- Tina: "My eyes are up here! I am a person, with feelings! Get out of my grill! I am a powerful woman and my growing feminism will cut you in half like a righteous blade of equality!"

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Supernatural: Hammer of the Gods

Sam: "By the way, the next time I say let's keep driving, let's keep driving."
Dean: "Next time."

Oooh! We have quest objects! Four rings to rule them all, and they already have two. Two more rings and a quick trip to Maryland, remove Sam's rib sigils... no, I know it can't be that easy.

I'm so glad they finally addressed other religions and other gods, even if all they did was mostly go for the ancient, childish, bloodthirsty types. (If they'd gone for more serious, active religions, it certainly would have offended somebody. Not me, I hasten to add; I worship Bast.)

And if it had to be our final episode with Gabriel, at least we got to see him as Loki again. I was really sad to see Gabriel go; he's been around a long time, and was in some terrific episodes. I'm not sure I completely bought his turnabout love of humanity (he did some pretty nasty things to humanity in other episodes, after all) but I bet some of his motivation came from a genuine affection for the Winchesters, as well as Kali. (Dan and I were both rooting for Kali. Wouldn't she make a great ally, like Jesse the tiny Antichrist?)

Lucifer was actually pretty scary this time. He blasted through those gods like they were tissue paper, and killed his own brother. You'd think Lucifer would draw a line at killing his little brother, but no. And I am again hoping this isn't foreshadowing. We have a season six, people. Season six without one of the two brothers, it cannot happen.

The final few minutes that introduced Pestilence made my list of top five grossest scenes on Supernatural. I actually started to gag. It was even more disgusting than the couple that ate each other. Apparently, for me, snot trumps blood.

Bits and pieces:

-- Dean was pretty much himself again. Yay.

-- Loved the "Hello my name is" nametags. Priceless.

-- Happy casting dance for Matt Frewer as Pestilence. And another for Rekha Sharma from Battlestar Galactica as Kali.

-- The Elysian Fields Hotel was in Muncie, Indiana, the "tri-state area." According to the internet, there are several tri-state areas in the United States; I grew up in one that was not in Indiana.

-- Pestilence was in Las Vegas. He had Nevada tags that said, "SKN TRD".

-- There was a "commercial" for the new Ghostfacers webisodes on cwtv.com. I still haven't seen them; it's on my "to do" list.

-- There was also a clip of "Casa Erotica 13" that, of course, amused Dean and made Sam the prude uncomfortable. And see, I bet Gabriel knew they'd take it just like that.

-- Still no Castiel. Still no Adam.

Quotes:

Sam: (about Mercury at the front desk) "Creepy."
Dean: "Broke the needle."

Sam: "An elephant."
Dean: "Yeah."
Sam: "Like, an elephant."
Dean: "Like, full-on Babar."

Dean: "Please be tomato soup. Please be tomato soup."

Baldur: "No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath. Oh, and keep your hands off the local virgins. We're trying to keep a low profile here."
Sam: "We are so, so screwed."

Zao Shen: "Don't mock my world turtle."

Baldur: "Why are you here?"
Gabriel: "To talk about the elephant in the room. (to Ganesh) Not you."

Actually, I think Gabriel deserves a section of his own this time, since it's his last:

"Me and Kali had a thing. The chick was all hands."
"Screw this marble. Let's go check out Pandora."
"Okay, okay, so I got wings, like Kotex."
"Luci, I'm home."
"You're my brother and I love you, but you are a great big bag of dicks."

This was an amusing, interesting, scary and sad episode. Three out of four elephants,

Billie

All of my Supernatural reviews are archived here.
(Season 5, episode 19)

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Fringe: The Man from the Other Side

“I’m not from here, am I?”

Three episodes left, and things are finally coming together. Peter figured out what’s up, and Thomas Jerome Newton returned. I don’t know what it is about Newton, but I just can’t seem to connect with him, the shapeshifters, or whatever it is they are doing: whenever he appears in an episode, I find myself thanking the programming gods for the in-depth “previously on” montage. That aside, I’m happy we’re getting resolution, both mythology-wise and for the characters.

I’m not entirely sure about the Theme of the Week, but it has something to do with this series of statements: Time is a river. The bridge spanned the river. The river and bridge layout therefore symbolizes the divide between the two worlds, which are usually out of sync, except when they’re not (when the bridge is down, in other words).

That river, though—and the broken bridge that only some people can exist on, much less cross—also symbolizes the sudden divide between Peter and Walter. They’d gotten so close, and Peter actually called him “Dad” for the first time that we’ve seen. When he did that, I wanted to shout: “No! Don’t get close! You’ll only get hurt!” like it was some sort of parental-issues horror movie. And he did get hurt: he knows now that he is the man from the other side (how he figured it out is part of the vast mystery that is Peter’s brain). He knows he’s not Walter’s son. Alas!

It’s only going to get worse for Peter, of course. He left, so he doesn’t know yet that Olivia knew. Peter has been betrayed by the two people closest to him. All together now: Alas, poor Peter!

We got some science answers, too. The reason there were so many problems with moving stuff from alt-verse to our-verse is that alt-stuff kept trying to occupy the locations where there was already stuff. (But, stuff is more than just buildings, right? No matter where you put alt-stuff, there’s still matter, like oxygen, there. Inevitably, an explosion would occur.) So the trick is to replace one thing with another. The other trick is to use harmonics, triangulation, and water. I’d hoped that the shapeshifters would have gigantic tuning forks, but sadly they did not. Probably rather difficult to transport.

I’m still kind of iffy on the logic of this science (the science itself is way beyond me). The shapeshifters come from alt-verse, but energy displacement doesn’t seem to be an issue when they come over. Why not?

Fringe has been so great lately that I found myself a bit let down by this episode: it was definitely a transition from the emotional weight of the past three episodes—still good, but not magnificent. The fallout might not happen next week, either: judging from the previews, we might have to wait to see how this all matters for our heroes for a while yet.

The Good:

• Rush. Tom Sawyer. Need I say more?

• Walter: “It reminds me of a bean bag chair I once owned. 1974.”

• Walter’s a Trekkie. That makes his relationship with William Bell a little confusing.

• Walter: “Don’t be ridiculous! But if we intend to re-animate this creature, he will need an entity to shape-shift into.”
Peter: “’Cuz that’s not ridiculous at all.”


Yeah…Wow!:

• Astrid: “It almost sounds like a language.” Really? It sounds to me like those velociraptors from the Jurassic Park movies.

• The anonymous Massive Dynamic technician just happened to have two metronomes sitting right there. In case of piano-practice emergency, I guess.

• Man: “You’re three blocks south of Franklin. So go down this street, you’ll see a convenience store. Then make a left, and go two blocks west.” How on earth are those directions to Franklin street? At least one thing that he said cannot be true.

• Mr. Newton looks like Gordon Ramsey’s younger brother.


Three out of Four Roasted Reindeer.

(Season Two, Episode Nineteen)
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FlashForward: The Garden of the Forking Paths

“This wasn’t the way it was supposed to play out.”

“The Garden of the Forking Paths” is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s insanely complex, and I think it’s one of Borges’s subtlest meditations on information, perception, and time. This episode also included shout-outs to Saul Bellow (the female terrorist’s last name is Herzog), Shakespeare’s Caesar, and Oedipus: they’re all stories of men doomed to an unpleasant end due to forces beyond their control.

The twist? It’s Frost who was the great man doomed to death and ruin. Demitri lives to fight another day. Hooray!

In other news, Frost revealed that the future is not immutable: he and his 1980s compatriots saw countless possible futures, and have charting (in colored chalk!) the possible paths and known outcomes out each timeline as its path becomes clear. But the observer effect matters in time-travel: once glimpsed, each future becomes more probable. Frost has seen many possible outcomes for the Ides of March, and the tension of this episode was whether or not the single possible future that our heroes saw would become the future. It didn’t.

That’s hugely important. Frost’s explanation of the rules of consciousness-shifting completely changes the way that we relate to the characters’ flashes. It also made the question of information important: finally, for 30 brief minutes, someone knew something that not everyone else knew, and we knew more than some of the characters. I wish that we were left in the position of knowing more than the characters, in a way that mattered: even though Janis is the mole, and only we know it, that hasn’t really mattered since we found it out. That kind of thing is where this show is faltering: it’s too in-your-face, and not great with the follow-up.

This whole scenario gave some depth to Frost’s character: he was playing with our heroes in an attempt to save his own skin. Guess all that ambiguity didn’t work in your favor, huh, Mr. Smarmy Pants? Speaking of smarminess, Gaius Baltar made a surprise cameo at the end of the episode. Yet another Brit speaking with an English accent: I thought he did a great job. Although the geeky flustered genius is…how shall I say this?...not the most original of supporting characters.

This episode was fast-paced. The score was all action-y and intense. The dramatic volume was turned up to eleven. We got more mythos: there’s a whole cabal and a 30-year plot that deals with these flashes, as well as some sort of dire outcome in five years. The man with the answers is now dead, and his own Big Board erased by a Rube-Goldberg sprinkler system. Why? Because we can’t have our heroes knowing the future, no matter how enigmatic the chalk drawings were. Wait, why? Um, cause, otherwise, why would we keep watching? The exigencies of television writing still feel like they’re trumping natural character or plot development. Oh, well. At least Demitri is still alive.

Flashes:

• Has the candy striper looked familiar to you, too? I just realized that she’s on Mad Men.

• Mark’s code name was “King-maker”? Isn’t that the nickname of the Earl of Warwick from the Richard II/Henry IV era in English history? (I’m not super-clear on that patch of time, so let me know in the comments if I’m dead wrong. Or let me know if I’m right: I’ll feel smart.) (And, is this entire show one big Tudor in-joke?)

• The back of the Polaroid read 423. A Lost shout-out? Come to think of it, this episode was filled with numbers: the countdown clock, Building 7, Highway 57…

• Mark looking in the trunk for Demitri, while shouting his name, was our unintentionally hilarious moment of the week.

• Did Gabrielle Union attend court wearing leggings? No way is that appropriate.

• December 12th, 2016. The end. Well, so the producers hope.

• Why are all of these people relying on Big Boards to plot out their knowledge? Is any knowledge worth having really reduce-able to ScatterShot words and lines?


Quotes: (well, one quote)

• Demitri: “No! No Dr. Seuss!”


Two and a Half Red Fish out of Four Blue Fish.

(Season One, Episode Seventeen)
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Lost: The Last Recruit

Smokey: "Nice to have everyone back together again."

This episode felt like that big number near the end of West Side Story where the entire cast was tromping around singing in counterpoint. Everyone is coming together, and in both universes; there was so much going on that it felt choreographed (hence the West Side Story metaphor). Things are building toward a climax. It's about time, pun intended.

What I liked most about this episode was the way the story lines wove together. I think I'll have to do bullet points. (I'm tempted to make a graph, but that would be ridiculous.) (Maybe I'll make one later.)

-- Jack and Claire and Jack and Claire finally met or met again, but this time, finally, as brother and sister.

-- Kate acknowledged that she shouldn't have raised Aaron and apologized to Claire for taking him, just as alt-Claire was prevented from going to an adoption agency. (Seriously. If I were alt-Claire, I'd suspect Desmond was a stalker who was hot for pregnant blondes.)

-- Sun and Jin were finally reunited on the Island (although as they ran into each other's arms, I expected them to get fried by the sonic fence). Alt-Sun, still with alt-Jin, didn't die or lose her baby.

-- Alt-Jack was about to operate on Locke, exactly as Jack once operated on Ben.

-- Ben murdered Locke, but alt-Ben was comforting alt-Locke in the ambulance.

-- Sayid was Ben's enforcer. And now he's Smokey's.

-- Alt-Kate has again insisted that she's innocent of murder. I wonder if that's why alt-Sawyer is a cop, so that he can prove her innocence? Sort of like Jack fixing Locke, it just feels like it's meant to be.

Anyway. Alt-Locke and alt-Sun being wheeled into St. Sebastian's together was hilarious. She recognized him. How? From flight 815? Or does she remember the Island now that she nearly died? Will both Suns start speaking English now that one of her does? It was nice that Jin and Sun reaffirmed their love in English (big honking symbolism again), but it's really too bad we couldn't have Jin translating for Sun. It would have been great symmetry.

Jack, no longer our man of science, has accepted his fate on the Island to the point of letting Sawyer literally dump him off Desmond's boat. Smokey thinks Jack belongs to him now, but you know, I don't think so. Claire was Smokey's for years, but now she's ready to leave the Island with Kate. Sayid was Smokey's, until Desmond talked him out of killing him. Okay, we didn't see it, but Desmond brought up the one thing that would influence Sayid: Nadia's disapproval.

I think Hurley's reference to Anakin Skywalker was a big hint that Claire and Sayid can be saved, and that Jack is in no danger of losing his soul. Maybe Smokey's magical vocal influence is a proximity thing. Three miles away and you're safe in international waters.

This episode began with a cliffhanger and ended with a cliffhanger. What's up with Widmore? Does he really think flinging mortars at Smokey will get Desmond back?

What have we learned?

-- Smokey confirmed that he appeared to Jack as Christian Shephard in "White Rabbit." But Smokey can't leave the Island so that doesn't explain Jack seeing Christian at St. Sebastian's. It seems unlikely that all of the Walking Dead are Smokey. I wish they'd freaking explain this.

-- Smokey also said Locke had to believe in the Island, had to die, and his body had to return in a box for Smokey to take on Locke's form. Pretty convoluted, if you ask me. Sort of a perfect storm.

Character bits:

-- Alt-Jack and his son David looked so great together, so sympatico. Walking the same way, David showing concern for Jack... ready to wait fourteen hours in the hallway while Jack performed a complex spinal operation...

-- Alt-Jack talked to his ex on the phone, and we still don't know who she is. What a tease.

-- Ilana may be dead, but she's still around in the alternate universe. And her last name is Verdansky. "Sweetzer and Verdansky, attorneys-at-law." Have we heard those names before?

-- Alt Sawyer offered an apple to Kate. This seemed like deliberate symbolism, but he's the cop and she's the criminal. Maybe Josh Holloway just needed something to do with his hands.

-- Alt Sawyer called Frank "Chesty." Chesty? Sawyer also called Hurley something early in the episode, but I couldn't make it out.

-- The official synopsis said this was a Jack-centered episode. I don't think it was anyone's episode. I think it was *everyone's* episode.

Bits and pieces:

-- The title of this episode was "The Last Recruit." Meaning whom? Jack?

-- The Western Pacific Adoption Agency was on the 15th floor.

-- In the irony department (which actually is pretty much all the time on Lost, but still), Locke's wheelchair just saved his life.

-- There's no new episode next week. That'll give me time to compile my "questions the Lost writers STILL haven't answered" list.

Quotes:

Smokey: "John Locke was not a believer. He was a sucker."
Gee. Nice way to talk about someone who gave you their body, Smokey.

Sawyer: "Sayid ain't invited. He's gone over to the Dark Side."
Hurley: "Yeah, but you can always bring people back from the Dark Side. I mean, Anakin."
Sawyer: "Who the hell's Anakin?"
Come on. Sawyer has referred to Star Wars way too many times to miss a reference like that.

Sawyer: "Of all the cars in Los Angeles, you smash into mine. Looks like someone's putting us together."
Kate: "Are you hitting on me?"
A little Casablanca there. And someone *is* putting them together. We just don't know who yet.

Claire: "What's going on?"
Hurley: "People are trying to kill us again."

Sawyer: "You, me, Jack, Hurley, Sun, and that pilot looks like he stepped off the set of a Burt Reynolds movie."
Was Jeff Fahey ever in a Burt Reynolds movie?

Jack: "I'm sorry that I got Juliet killed."

I really enjoyed this one. Then again, I've really enjoyed every episode this season. Three polar bears?

Billie

All of my Lost reviews are archived here.
(Season 6, episode 13)

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Smallville: Upgrade

I think the episode should have been titled 'Out of Control' or to keep with the Smallville standard of one named titles; 'Control'. This was about John Corbin (Metallo) and Clark losing their ability to control themselves, mostly because of Tess and, unfortunately, Chloe. Brian Austin Green is an interesting choice for Metallo, but he might be a touch too sympathetic. Maybe it's because they pulled a complete reversal from the previous episode and gave him back his center of morality. It is of course better than having a mindless monster rampaging about.

But ultimately this worked on a number of levels. The dynamic between Lois and John didn't feel forced and actually made Lois a stronger character. She was willing to overlook his monstrous side and see him as a person, without being naive about it. And she finally admitted out loud that Clark was the 'One' for her. I also felt sorry for John. It was difficult to watch his honest acknowledgment that he could almost live a normal life with her. I could even believe if it weren't for Clark (and the Blur) she could've gone with him.

What was really surprising is the Zod plot didn't lose me this time. Maybe it was the long overdue return of Red K, but I was having fun with watching Zod finally get the acceptance that he has been asking for since his introduction to Clark. I felt a strange sort of sympathy for him when he realized that Clark was never going to join his side. Thinking of it that way, I can understand why he waited to give powers to his followers, but I think it was the producers wanting to use the fortress set for dramatic effect.

I was disappointed that we didn't have a Zod and versus Zod... cough... Jor El conversation in the fortress. Maybe they couldn't get Terence Stamp to do the voice over. Also for once I sort of liked the Tess plot. But I didn't like Chloe sinking further and further towards whatever dark side they have in store for her. I feel echoes of Evil Willow surrounding Chloe lately and it really doesn't sit right with me.

But back to the issue of control, everyone in this episode was trying to exert control over something or someone. Tess was trying to control Chloe, both Tess and Chloe took control of Metallo, Lois was trying to get control of the situation, Clark let go of his control and gained a new form of it, and John was trying to gain control of himself. And yet, they named the episode Upgrade even though nothing was upgraded. To add insult, Metallo was really just a plot device, used to save Clark. I think the character and the actor deserves more than that.

Bits:

Lois gave John a Red K heart. How much do you wanna bet that is going to cause issues in the future.

The Superman symbol of the wall of Watchtower was kinda cool. I almost wanted them to keep it there.

Lois and Clark can't even kiss now? Do the actors not like each other?

It was nice to see Chloe use her intelligence for a change.

Tess was finally used effectively, in an ambiguous supporting role.

It was cool that they brought back Metallo, he is the one villain this season that has worked. Well, he did. You can't really count him as a villain anymore.

& Pieces:

Chloe: "I should have known that Clark took a walk down the ruby-red road. That's explains his lack of edit button."
Tess: "I thought Clark was only affected by green meteor. What's the red do?"
Chloe: "Basically it turns him to the bad boy every girl dreams of... in her nightmares."

Lois: "By the way, this is the least-secret secret lab I've ever been in... twice."

Chloe: "Clark Kent at the keyboard? Have I been downsized in the bureaucratic world of superheroes?"

Not as bad as last week's "Checkmate", but not quite up to the standards set by previous episodes.

2 out of 4 Red K Hearts.

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Fringe: White Tulip

“God is science.”

Our Theme of the Week is turning things on their heads, reversing what we think we know, playing with our sense of what is happening. The mad professor did it to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and Fringe did it to both the standard stand-alone and some of the show’s own mythology. The first third of this episode reminded me—a lot—of the series premiere: a train is now a plane, and instead of lying John Scott we have lying Olivia and Walter. And instead of hunting down mad professor Walter, we hunted mad Dr. Robocop. Like Lacan’s reading of Poe’s “Purloined Letter,” it’s all about a limited number of pieces occupying a limited number of spots on the board—you can shift the pieces around, but it’s always the same game.


Walter said that he and Peck had something in common, but it’s more than that: Walter has yet another double. Counting William Bell and Walternate, that’s now three doubles—it must be a new record for television. And, speaking of too many doubles, two plus two doesn’t always equal four, but it always should. When we move pieces beyond the scope of their board, like shifting Peter from one world to another, or Peck draining energy to travel through time so he can repeat and re-do the past, the consequences can be catastrophic.

Those catastrophic consequences aren’t always gigantic, though. Sometimes they’re just the despair and madness of one man, hoping for a sign that he might be forgiven by the universe and by his son. Walter’s conversation with Peck was beautifully written and beautifully acted. Yes, there was some character exposition, but it fit: Walter feels so alone in his despair that he needed to explain himself to someone, perhaps just to give himself a sense of what it is he’s hoping for.

Is God science, on this show? As the promos say, it’s all about the “endless impossibilities” of fringe science. But, for Walter, it’s all about the limited possibilities of maintaining a relationship with his son. Science may rule the universes on Fringe, but something more meaningful motivates the characters to use that science—no matter whether it’s God or love or something we shouldn’t put a name to. Walter got his white tulip. He got it through science. It meant so much more. Damn, this was good.

Well, I was actually pretty bored by the first third of this episode. I was plotting out what to say in my review, searching for decent screencaps, y’know: stuff. But the temporal-pocket-mini-time-travel thing popped me out of my stupor for the freak science stuff. (This is definitely an episode that bears re-watching to catch the small differences between the timelines.) The incredible—just downright incredible, I say!—acting in the last third really made this something special.

If I’m right about this episode mirroring the premiere, is this a sign that things are really about to change for the show? Only four episodes left to the end of the season: we’ll find out soon enough.


The Good:

• Peter Weller, the Bad Professor, played RoboCop in the famous 1980s movie. I had a very brief conversation with him once. But I have never seen his films.

• Peter talking to Walter through the answering machine.

• Walter: “My initial theory of heart failure is probably incorrect.”

• Walter and Astrid, synced. Is that a sign they’d lived through this case multiple times?

• Walter: “Mr. Peck was dealing with tremendous energy to do…well, whatever it is he’s doing.” So there’s some stuff that Walter doesn’t know all about. Talk about turning things on their head.

• The train advertisement said: “Be there in no time.”

• Peter: “I read that déjà vu is fate’s way of telling you that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. That’s why you feel like you’ve been there before. You are right in line with your own destiny.” Oh, dramatic irony! Peter’s not anywhere near where he’s supposed to be.

• Olivia: “I happen to know someone who is fluent in gobbledy-gook.”

• Walter: “Maybe, it’s in the realm of possibility that my son possibly may be able to forgive me.” I really like the repetition of this line. It must have looked awful on the page, but the uncertainty is exactly what Walter is feeling.


Something’s Wrong Here:

• I got the feeling that Olivia was preying on the waitress’s lack of knowledge about much of anything when she finagled the credit card receipt out of her.

• “Arlette Turing” (the name of the person that Alistair Peck wants to save) is a shout out to Alan Turing, the inventor of the first “computer,” and a character in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

• Walter: “Wait! I am not a threat. I am an ambassador.” What?! So weird.

• What’s up with these places where two plus two doesn’t equal four? Are they on mystical islands in the South Pacific?

• I came up with the “Purloined Letter” comparison that I mentioned above before getting to the end of this episode, which is all about letters, who possesses them, and what power and awful responsibility that possession brings. Weird. If this episode weren’t so haunting and lovely, I’d bring out Doc Josie to explain the significance.

• I’ve been late with the past few reviews: work and family commitments have swallowed my life. But I’m out of the belly of the leviathan now, so please look for the rest of my reviews for the season on time.


Five out of Four Mystical Places Where Higher Math Lets Us Rate Episodes That Way

(Season Two, Episode Eighteen)

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NewsFlash: Torchwood not getting Foxed

According to my favorite news source, Fox has decided not to take on Torchwood. Since pretty much everyone was perturbed by the very idea of Fox screwing with Captain Jack Harkness, and quite possibly even (horrors) making him straight, this is sort of good news. Except for the fact that Torchwood is still in limbo. I don't want Torchwood in limbo! I want more Torchwood, and no one is giving it to me!

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Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

Doctor: "All right, it's a Jammy Dodger, but I was promised tea.”

Cliché prohibits me from saying "they're baaaack". But they are. The Daleks have been mercifully scarce of late. A brief cameo here. Some scrap parts turning up there. But no full appearance since “Journey's End”. So, did you miss them?

*Tumble-weed rolls by*

When I was young, the Daleks were awesome. Nobody was badder. I was too innocent then to recognise the Nazi overtones. I didn't even notice they wobbled as they moved. And most disturbing of all, I once met a Dalek outside a Doctor Who exhibition in London. I was about 5 at the time and it looked right at me. Naturally, I cried my eyes out. So for me, the Daleks have always been real! I've seen them for goodness sakes! So, no matter how badly a story stinks, no matter how terrible their wise cracking antics are, no matter how easily they're defeated... I know how scary they can be. So this was an episode I was both dreading and yet, curiously, looking forwards to. Since their return in 2005 they've had mixed reviews. Season one's "Dalek" was exceptional. Season three's "Evolution of the Daleks" was less successful. So I was understandably nervous about tonight's offering.

Now admittedly, a 5 year old's perception of the Daleks isn't the same as an adult's. So I may be being unrealistic in expecting the same reaction as a grown man. But I am an optimist. I do live in hope. And tonight's episode started out promisingly enough. Despite my recent indifference to the Daleks, I was immediately excited to see them again. They looked so cool in khaki. Less impressive was their “would you care for some tea” refrain. But at least Gatiss concentrated on the megalomaniacal aspect of their personalities, and left the wise-cracking silliness alone. So my initial impression of this episode was favourable. Yet, something about it just didn't work for me. It wasn't a terrible episode. I just didn't connect with it at all.

The Daleks were superbly creepy at the start, skulking around the cabinet war room, their eyes (or stalk) and ears (or....err...dunno) focused patiently on the Doctor, observing his every move. But whose idea was it to give the Daleks a makeover? And why make them look like Henry vacuum cleaners? With fat arses, no less. In Doctor Who Confidential everyone was praising their new look as the scariest ever (which, incidentally, is the same thing they say after every redesign). Really? Since when is a yellow Dalek scary? They don't even look metallic any more. And whose idea was it to call the old guys Ironsides? Surely not after detective Robert T. Ironside, the wheelchair bound TV detective? Please say it isn't so!

The story wasn't much to write home about, either. It seemed nothing more than an expedient way of bumping off the old Daleks and ushering in a new age of garishly coloured, fibre-glass replacements (or Robin Reliants, as I like to call them). Do we really need new Daleks? Was their old look such an issue? Shouldn't they be changing the things which don't work and leaving the things which do? The dire stories, for example. Their impotence in the face of just about everything. Their new found sense of humour. I've never heard anyone express frustration at the Daleks not being colourful enough. Have you?

I did, however, like the Supreme Dalek's deeper voice. It's just a shame the others weren't blessed with a similarly low register. I guess racial purity is synonymous with a squeaky voice. Which makes me glad that the Nazis failed. Otherwise the world would be full of Alan Carrs and Joe Pasquales.

To his credit, I though Matt did a decent job tonight. He was given some distinctly stodgy dialogue at times, but I did enjoy him throwing Bracewell the V sign (a gesture Churchill no doubt copied as the war progressed), and his Jammie Dodger ploy was particularly inspired (though whether that's because it made the Doctor look like a mad genius, or because it made the Daleks look like nincompoops, I'm not sure). I also enjoyed him raging at the Daleks (“you are my enemy, and I am yours”), not to mention him twatting that Dalek with an improbably heavy spanner. Great acting from Matt there. That spanner can't have weighed more than two ounces, yet he made it look....oh, at least four.

The Oblivion Continuum thingy, despite being a convenient way of stopping the Doctor wiping out the Daleks, turned out to be a bit of a dud. Did anyone really care how or why it worked? Was there any real logic behind it? Why should Bracewell being human (or at the very least thinking he was human) stop him from exploding? And although I overlooked Amy's intuitive blinder in “The Eleventh Hour”, her leap of logic this week came out of nowhere. Ever fancied someone you know you shouldn't? What possessed her to say such a thing? Forget the Doctor, this girl's a genius!

I was also unhappy with some of the dialogue. It felt too generic. Which made it nigh on impossible for any of the actors to contribute much in terms of characterisation. There just wasn't room. Most of the Doctor's dialogue sounded as though it had been written for Tennant. And Amy's dialogue was just bog standard companion fayre (although I did enjoy her catching Churchill trying to steal the TARDIS key). This episode felt like a prime example of a writer not quite connecting with his characters.

I did like the war room setting, however. Aesthetically, it was pretty much spot on. What let it down, in my opinion, was Ian McNeice's over the top portrayal of Churchill. I'm not saying it was a bad impersonation. It wasn't. But Churchill's talking voice sounded too much like his speeches. So he never really sounded like a real person. More a cliché ridden caricature. And why the attempted poignancy at the end? Did anyone really care that Miss Breen had lost her beau? Churchill seemed pretty much uninterested. Even Amy changed the subject almost immediately. Which makes you wonder why it was left in there. Its dramatic impact was virtually zero. Were they just trying to pad out an already lean episode?

I have to confess, I really enjoyed the space battle. I know the Spitfire's propellers wouldn't have worked outside the earth's atmosphere. I know I should be enraged at this lack of realism. But I'm a boy and us boys like planes and spaceships and space battles and stuff. And the special effects were top notch. I even enjoyed Murray Gold's music, which seemed to sit perfectly on top of the chaos and mayhem (for once). I just hope they didn't blow too much of the budget on CGI. If we get cardboard cut-out monsters in the later episodes, I guess we'll know why.

And of course the Daleks managed to escape at the end via a time shift. No wonder the Doctor was so pissed off. It happens almost every time. But at least Amy helped bring everything back into perspective. I enjoyed her little exchange with the Doctor. Sometimes it pays to have someone there to remind you that, despite the gloominess of the bigger picture, there are significant victories to be had in the details. He did just save the world, after all.

Which ain't too shabby.

Bits and pieces:

-- KBO? Keep buggering on? Not the best catchphrase out there.

-- The new Daleks bear the titles Soldier, Drone, Scientist, Strategist, and The Eternal.

-- Loved the Doctor wafting a hand at Churchill's cigar smoke.

-- The premise of this story bears more than a passing resemblance to the 1966 episode “The Power of the Daleks” (which similarly has Daleks pretending to be subservient to humankind).

-- Why does Amy have no recollection of the Daleks, I wonder?

-- Since the Daleks see in a bluish tinge, why the bright colours to differentiate between the various classes? Surely colour is virtually irrelevant to them.

-- A short episode at just over 40 minutes

-- How many soldiers does it take to put up a tiny flagpole? Five apparently. Maybe the army have been weakened by scurvy, or something.

Quotes:

Churchill: “Must I take it by force?”
Doctor: “I'd like to see you try”.
Doctor: “Sorry, it's a type 40 TARDIS. I'm just running her in.”

Doctor: “You know who I am! You always know.”

Dalek: "Would you care for some tea?"

Doctor: “You are my enemy! And I am yours!”

Doctor: "You are everything I despise. The worst thing in all of creation. I've defeated you time and time again, I've defeated you. I sent you back into the void. I saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor! You are the Daleks!”

Amy: “What was her name?”
Bracewell: “Dorabella.”
Doctor: “Dorabella? It's a lovely name. It's a beautiful name.”
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