Clanger of the Gods: Review of 'Thor'

So yeah, it came out months ago. My instincts were that I was never going to pay money to see this Kenneth Branagh-helmed festival of the overblown and ridiculous. Having now viewed it by other (entirely legal, I swear) means, I can say I was right. Warning: contains spoilers.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad film. Well, it is, but it's so stupid as to be really quite entertaining. It's big, dumb, spectacular-looking and really pretty funny. In fact, it's the comedic moments that probably work best, which is not a regular feature of comic book films (let none of us forget that whole lift scene fiasco in Spiderman 2). Branagh has a history of directing films that are so grandiose you forget that they're bad, bad movies. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prime example: Helena Bonham Carter's Elizabeth dies at the monster's hand (so far, so good) and then gets her head reattached to the body of her former maid, decides she doesn't like it and then sets herself on fire. Utterly ridiculous, completely overblown but so audacious you just sit there and go "Oh. Ok, then."

Thor is kind of like that. I mean, the whole concept is silly in the first place; I don't know who had the idea of making the Norse god of thunder into a comic hero but they sure as hell didn't help by slapping a red cape and a stupid helmet on him (though speaking of stupid helmets, nothing quite beats Loki's goat horns, or whatever the hell that is). This is one scenario in which Branagh's ridiculousness actually sort of works - we want to be distracted from the sheer insanity of what's going on in front of us by kabooms and silly hats and rainbow bridges. If you can swallow that, you can swallow anything this movie throws at you, even the idea of Natalie Portman as a respected academic. Oh, hush, she's a crazy bitch.

A basic run-down of the plot: the backstory goes that King of the Gods Antony Hopkins/Odin has a shiny kingdom called Asgard somewhere...in space? I'm not too sure. He fights the villains (ish) of the piece, the Frost Giants. No, I'm not kidding. He wins, he creates lasting peace, he ensures that his two sons, Thor (golden-haired trigger-happy thug-in-training played by Chris Hemsworth's abs) and Loki (small, pale, dark-haired, soulful - gee, wonder which turns out to be evil in a Hollywood film? - played by Tom Hiddleston) are in constant competition with each other by telling them only one can be king and it'll pretty much be Thor. Cut to some years later (Twenty? A thousand? They're not too clear on this either.) and Thor is being crowned king while Loki raises the first of many raised eyebrows. Unfortunately the ceremony is rudely interrupted by a few rogue Frost Giants breaking into Asgard to steal back the mystical source of their power, defeating the guards and then promptly dying. In retaliation, Thor (who, we must remember, is the good guy) decides to go and do a little avengin', rounding up a pack of...Norse gods? Higher beings? Other superheroes? (Again, not clear, but hey.) to help him. To cut a long story short, shit goes down and Odin decides Thor needs to take a little time out and banishes him to earth, where he's promptly run over by Natalie Portman in an SUV. Cue what is basically a fish-out-of-water comedy for the next hour, which is actually quite fun. Thor goes into a pet shop and demands a horse. That's funny, right? Come on, that's funny. From there, it ping-pongs back and forth between earth where Thor is learning humility and falling in love with Natalie Portman and Asgard where Loki is scheming away, lurking in more shadows, raising more eyebrows and managing to become king. There's also this whole scene where Hopkins/Odin makes a spectacularly unadvised move and tells Loki he's not really his son and he's actually a Frost Giant baby that he rescued or something. Anyway, apparently this is all that's needed to tip him over the edge from 'Misunderstood Anti-Hero' into 'Full-blown Psychopath' and he gets this worrying manic gleam in his eye. To be honest, after the first half hour, the plot isn't terribly memorable, but Loki sends a big metal robot thing to kill humanThor, humanThor dies and has his little Jesus moment by being resurrected as godThor, complete with giant hammer (two things: a) this hammer may be called Molly, I'm not quite sure, and b) giant hammer. lol.) GodThor snogs Natalie Portman goodbye, flies off to Asgard and much angsty 'I-don't-want-to-kill-you-but-I-will' battling with his brother ensues. At this point Loki decides the only thing that'll make Daddy love him now is genocide and he tries to kill all the Frost Giants (yes, despite being one), and Thor is all "absolutely not" (which is odd, considering it's the exact same thing he was advocating earlier but I guess that's character development, folks) and Thor stops him. Basically. It's kind of an underwhelming climax. Also, the bridge by which Thor gets to earth is broken, meaning he can't see Natalie Portman again, except he totally will because he's in The Avengers film, and Loki throws himself off the bridge in shame meaning he's dead, except he's totally not because he's also in the The Avengers film and the post-credits teaser sequence. And that's it, really. There's a ton of stuff I left out but none of it adds up anyway so let's not mourn too hard, eh?

Structurally, the beginning is better than the middle and the middle is better than the end, which isn't great storytelling. Nothing really happens at the climax and you don't even have the "woah" factor of seeing Asgard in all its camp, glittery glory for the first time. The middle section is, as I said, a fairly decent fish-out-of-water comedy but in terms of dramatic conflict, the stakes are surprisingly low. There's nothing threatening the earth, no nemesis that must be stopped (the Frost Giants are barely in it and they're more a threat to Asgard than earth): our main source of tension is whether this guy will get home or not. I'm pretty certain only one thing's ever managed to pull that off, and that was called The Odyssey. Actually, therein lies my personal problem with the film: Thor is no Odysseus. He's just so not my kind of superhero: he's brawny, he's dumb-but-charming, his aesthetic is poorly thought through...he's Superman, basically. He even has the whole Jesus allegory thing going on for him. And we all know how I feel about Superman. After being spoiled recently with a spate of classy, intelligent superhero flicks (and classy, intelligent superheroes), I can't really love Thor. At the end of the day, it's too dumb. I enjoyed the ride, but won't be buying the DVD.

The whole thing is much more palatable if you think of the Thor-Loki storyline as a really stupidly costumed version of King Lear. Thor is legitimate golden boy Edgar while sneaky, pale, loitering-in-the-shadows-smirking Loki is pure Edmund, right down to the unorthodox parentage. This was another problem for me actually: the first half hour of the film made Thor out to be such a douche that I couldn't help automatically siding with Loki and his wobbly-lipped rage. Well, up until he started advocating genocide instead of explaining to daddy why exactly it hurt him very much that he wasn't informed of his adoption earlier and that blatant favouritism is not a great way to rear children who have the power to kill each other, and then just hugging it out. In fact, I'm not convinced that Branagh didn't actually want to make a movie about Loki instead, what with the way his degree of evil was hopping all over the place. One minute it's 'bit of a trickster, just wants to be loved', next it's 'wait, this movie needs a villain, KILL EVERYONE'. And before you ask, yes, of course I fancied him a bit. Snarky, dark-haired, pale-skinned, big-eyed, Not-Evil-Just-Misunderstood anti-hero with daddy issues by the bucketload. It's predictable as Joss Whedon killing off a much-loved character in The Avengers.

To sum up: Thor is (mercifully) never going to win any awards. But it's fun. And some aspects are very well done: it looks great (even if Branagh does have a penchant for tilted camera angles), it's funny and the foreshadowing, like Loki's ability to create multiple versions of himself and make me think unladylike thoughts was relatively subtle (well, I didn't notice it anyway). At the end of the day, it's not clever enough for my liking - not the hero, not the story, not the dialogue, and I apologise for my superhero-snobbery. I'll tell you one thing though - I am so looking forward to The Avengers.

P.S. I think another reason I was so tickled by Tom Hiddleston's performance is that it means I can tick him off a list of actors who I spotted doing minor or obscure things and mentally noted down for future greatness. I saw him as Cassio in a production of Othello at the Donmar Warehouse a few years ago and, as I recall, despite starring Ewan McGregor as Iago, the conversation on the way home was all about that charming young man who played Cassio. Cassio? More like CassiYO.

I'll get my coat. Bye.

Middle Class Reality: The Great British Bake-Off

Quick note: the blog will be back regularly in the near future, I have two other posts that I'm sitting on and almost ready to release into the wild!

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Having spent most of my life denying in plummy tones that I am in any way upper-middle class (“Middle-middle, it makes all the difference”), I think I can deny it no longer. For you see, ladies and gentlemen, I have started watching – and hugely enjoying – The Great British Bake-Off. I know nothing about baking. Every cake I have ever made (bar one rather nice chocolate effort in Food Tech at school) has failed to rise more than a few inches. On the rare occasion that I do attempt a Victorian Sponge, I automatically make three so that at least I can sandwich them together in layers that will vaguely resemble something tall enough as not be risible. I don't actually even like cakes that much – my love for carbohydrates tend to manifest in noodles, chips and bread.

So it is with some surprise that I find myself an avid watcher of a programme that takes middle class judges, middle class presenters and middle class contestants and asks them to perform a (these days) middle class pursuit that I have little interest in. As far as I can tell, the appeal lies in the human ability to find drama in anything, even how light a touch someone has for pastry. There is also something brilliant in watching twelve-odd people going “BAKING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, YO” every week. Most of us have baked at home or at school and knocking out a batch of fairy cakes every now and then is still pretty par for the course in most kitchens, so to see people who have made home-baking into a real art form, who understand what it is they're doing as opposed to just going “oh so now we add more sugar” is something of a delight. Then again, it's always intriguing to watch someone do something mysterious and skilful and baking, with its weird mixture of science and artistry, is one of the most mysterious of all.

Of course, much of its success depends on the people involved, starting with the judges who don't quite manage to pull off the Masterchef trick of Little but Terrifying teamed with Friendly but Tough. Instead we have Mary Berry, author of much baking literature, who comes across as a kind of uber WI leader and quite as proficient in conveying crushing disappointment as any mother (or, in my case, Food Tech teacher) and professional baker Paul Hollywood, filling the Simon Cowell role and occasionally being tutted at by Mary. Then there are the presenters, the always delightful Sue Perkins, dragging along comedy partner Mel Giedroyc in her gurning wake. Sue is quite as funny, intelligent and informed as she is on Supersizers and every other BBC programme (at one point asking a contestant if she can perform an interpretive dance for her to help calm her nerves), while Mel is essentially a much less good version and everything she says makes me hope the poor baker being twittered at turns around at punches her in the head. But, of course, it would be nothing without a good selection of contestants and the ones we are faced with are anvil-thumpingly diverse in the range of ages, races, genders and sexualities on offer. But they're also great.

There's camp Ian (favourite line so far: “Pastry is a cruel mistress”) who spends most of his time smiling shyly and flustering self-consciously at the camera, but has been cruelly outed because of his overly-doughy bread. There's Jason, a black 19-year-old Croydon rude boy who is a delightfully arrogant foil to all the middle-class modesty going on (catch phrase: “I'm sure they'll like it”) and produced a truly excellent-looking salmon and pak choi quiche in the second week with little more than a shrug and a self-satisfied grin. There's lovely Holly, awarded the title of Star Baker in the first week, who is clearly just extremely talented and an early favourite to win, and seems genuinely wry and unassuming about the whole process. And then, of course, there's Rob, an extremely good-looking photographer and my latest pretend telly boyfriend. Rob is clearly not the best baker in this competition. Or rather, he probably could be but doesn't seem to be that bothered about anything other than looking appealingly at judges, presenters and the camera with his big green eyes. In the first week, he dropped his gooey chocolate cake on the floor with a resounding splatter and the nation leapt to their feet with a collective cry of heartbreak as he looked on, slightly bewildered that such a thing could have happened to someone with such thick, glossy hair. Rob schleps around the kitchen sort of haplessly, smiling naively while Mel pretends she's hugging him to comfort him after his latest disaster. He probably shouldn't last more than another few rounds but I'm clearly not the only one who wants him in the final just so they can keep looking at him. Rob and Jason in the final, Holly to win.

The only thing lacking in the competitor stakes so far is someone who desperately wants to win, so much so that they'll be lying in wait with an electric whisk as their fellow bakers make their way back to their Ford Fiestas at the end of each week. My money's on Ben who, has produced some very good efforts but also has a tendency to go white-lipped and sniffy at any hint of a criticism. This isn't to say I don't like him though – after a tense moment with some pastry that wouldn't emerge from its case, Mel remarks blithely, “That was tense!” “Especially with you standing there,” he replies darkly.

Anyway. Tonight is biscuits, and who doesn't love a biccy? I'll be watching, trying to ignore both my screaming class-conscious paranoia and my tummy rumbling. Om nom nom.

Making House Calls: Doctor Who - 'Let's Kill Hitler' and 'Night Terrors' Review

Oh mes enfants, it has been a while. I do apologise. But sure as autumn follows summer, sure as rain follows sun, the good Doctor is back on our screens and where he goes, the blog must follow. So, to kick things off again, a two-part review of the series opener 'Let's Kill Hitler' (Stephen Moffat) and this week's 'Night Terrors' (Mark Gatiss).

I was initially a little wary about reviewing them together; the task of trying to shoe-horn the revelations and plot-furthering of the main story arc of the former with the stand alone simplicity of the latter into one review was not an enticing one. In the event, I needn't have worried because what has emerged is something really rather interesting: Moffat, patron saint of the understated gothic-light urban-fairytale NuWho has produced an episode that put me very much in mind of an RTD finale and Gatiss, who has never quite managed to produce an episode of Who that wasn't an RTD-style shiny plastic toy, delivered what was, essentially, a Stephen Moffat episode. I also preferred it and I'm pretty certain me preferring a Gatiss episode to a Moffat episode is one of the signs of a forthcoming apocalypse, so next week I'll be writing the blog from an underground bunker surrounded by tinned food and blankets. Better to be prepared.

'Let's Kill Hitler' had all the ingredients of an episode I should have loved: River-centric, timey-wimey, snidey tongue-in-cheek about a famous dictator, great Rory lines, Matt Smith getting to be portentous and do Proper Acting, not too much Amy. But it just - well - gah. It just didn't work for me. Whereas the mid-series finale 'A Good Man Goes to War' was admittedly ridiculous, it was stylishly and entertainingly ridiculous, with its opening sequence of Rory's long overdue transformation into a badass, Victorian lesbian lizards and the Doctor's gleeful reveal from under the monk's hood, plus, of course, that preposterous piece of information about River Song's parentage. In contrast, I felt the pace of LKH smattered along somewhat awkwardly, lurching from banter to banter to heart-wringing death scenes all the while trying desperately to maintain the effortless cool of previous Moffat outings. Bute surely we can turn to that other staple of a grandiose Moffat episode, the resolution of a carefully plotted mystery?

Well, for an episode that was based around giving long-awaited answers, LKH seemed to be short on the actual revelations. I don't want to boast (well obviously I do) but either I'm getting smarter or the writers are getting lazy, because I saw every single twist in that episode coming from a mile off - I twigged that 'Mels' was River before she even opened her mouth because really, it's a series opener that's reunited Amy, Rory and the Doctor and a mysterious and exotic looking woman comes careering up in a fast car, plus we know River can regenerate. It's not exactly TARDIS rocket science. I guessed River would start trying to kill him. I guessed she would use up all her regenerations in saving him. I even guessed the lipstick was poisoned. (On a side note, I also totally guessed that Anton Lesser was the spy in The Hour.) Most likely is just that I've watched so much TV I can now smell clue-signposting a mile away. Or it could just be that there was nothing new in Let's Kill Hitler - it was simply a realisation of every piece of information that has been given away or hinted at so far. Let's review: at the end of last series we knew that Baby Melody had been stolen away to become programmed and trained as the incredibly strong six-year-old who busted out of the Astronaut suit in Day of the Moon and then promptly regenerated. We also knew that she would turn out to be ultimately good (and awesome) in the form of River Song. So - feel free to disagree - I feel a little cheated by an episode that does nothing more than say "Yes. That is correct. By the way, she was an annoying teenager for a bit in the middle as well." It was, I suppose, a necessary episode but I didn't think it was a particularly fun one.

However, despite my misgivings, Moffat has a particularly irrepressible genius and his talent at writing funny, sexy, sparkling Who shone through on several occasions: the whole Doctor/River battle of wits was beautifully executed (all that practice writing Sherlock is paying off, I see), and Rory just ran away with the best lines ("Get in the cupboard, Hitler.") Plus, I'm really starting to appreciate Rory and Amy's dynamic now that they're being allowed to function as a unit - Amy-and-Rory is much more fun than Just Amy. And Just Rory, come to think of it. I'd love to see more of that, and less of that self-aggrandising 'THIS IS EPIC' stuff. Although let's address one thing: Moffat has certainly beaten his record on the sheer amount amount of genderfail he managed to cram into 45 minutes. Off the top of my head, there was Mels' "I'm concentrating on a dress size", River running off to weigh herself as soon as she regenerated, the "I'm going shopping", the "plus, she's a woman", not to mention making River's whole career all about the Doctor. Not cool, and so very 90s sitcom.

So, Moffat, I'll cut you a deal. Let's just wrap up this whole Dead Doctor thing with whatever timey-wimey alternate-time-stream-River, Flesh avatar, Silence-involved solution you have up your sleeve, we'll all pat you on the back and say how clever you are and the whole thing can be better best forgotten, left to gather dust in the vaults of Who-lore. Then you'll go back to producing a series of finely-crafted individual gems of episodes with an intriguing but not overly intrusive series arc, and we'll say no more about it. Sound good? Great.

Gatiss' 'Night Terrors' was an altogether different beast and, as previously stated, far more enjoyable. Seeing as I'm now seriously behind with my Who homework, I'll be brief. I loved the theme of children's nightmares, plus all the opportunities for tongue-in-cheek, breaking-the-fourth-wall humour about the scariest place in the universe being a child's bedroom. Or, y'know, behind the sofa. Maybe after watching something on TV, say. For example, the adventures of a 900-year-old alien and his travelling companions. But that's just silly now.

Fine, so it didn't go that meta, but it was enough to tick my meta-lovin' boxes. With a little more hindsight, I can say that perhaps the episode wasn't stellar, merely solid, but I still got more viewing pleasure out of it that Moffat's. Viewing pleasure is something that Gatiss understands, a man self-confessedly raised by television: as a writer he's an expert on combining the creepy and the funny to create something blackly, rather than bleakly, comic. I hugely enjoyed his 'Crooked House' series (three horror stories set in the same house through time with an over-arching narrative in the present day to tie it all together), League of Gentlemen is unparalleled in its niche, and his episode of Sherlock was just about the best of the three. But famously he's never really written a good episode of Doctor Who. Until now, I say. (Actually, way back in Series 1 and 2 of NuWho, I quite liked 'The Unquiet Dead' and 'The Idiot's Lantern' but shh, don't tell anyone.) 'Night Terrors' was a sweet little vignette in Who-lore and a welcome break in the ongoing tsunami of the whole Dead Doctor saga. It won't win any awards but it was funny, genuinely touching (I admit, I shed a little tear) and just creepy enough to keep it in the territory of the Who we know and love.

So yeah, it did sort of seem to be crafted out of the leftover bits from 'The Empty Child', 'Fear Her' and every RTD-era story set in yet another council block but hey, Moffat's been borrowing from his own story lines so much that the whole structural integrity of the show has been compromised, so I'll overlook this. And like I said, a good episode, not a great one but with enough real heart to it that I enjoyed it more than Moffat's showing off.

If it sounds like I've done a 180 degree turn on Moffat, I really haven't. I still think he's a fundamentally better writer than Russell T Davies and his ideas for the show are more exciting and genuinely ambitious. But he's also fallen prey to his own ego. There's a danger in being the kid that watched the show when he was seven and said "I'm going to run that when I grow up": on some level, he's still the child playing with his action figures in his bedroom. Sadly, action figures aren't believable, engaging characters and the convoluted sagas that seven year olds spin to amuse themselves are not gripping plots. It's not the end of the world for the show and it certainly isn't OMG RUINED FOREVER, but the skeptical reserve I expressed way back at the start of the series is still skeptical and reserved. I've got four more episodes to be impressed in and I really want to be.

In my opinion, then, the series resumes a little lost and a little misogynistic. My diagnosis: there's still light at the end of the time vortex.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Review

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

The Haymarket, 11th July 2011

First, a confession - or perhaps just common knowledge: I love Tom Stoppard. Not romantically, that would be weird, but he is, without doubt, my favourite playwright of the 20th century, perhaps my favourite of all time after that little so-and-so from Stratford who manages to sneak in and steal the top spot. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead comes second only to Arcadia in my list of Stoppard favourites and, in many ways, seems to be a play tailor made for me: it's full of erudite, self-satisfied, undergraduate humour, contains long philosophical tennis matches on death, free will, determinism and storytelling, and, best of all, it does clever things with my actual favourite play of all time, Hamlet. (I'm aware, by the away, that all these are highly unoriginal favourites but, what are you going to do? Cliches are just truths people are tired of hearing.) Add in the fact that this is the first time I'd actually seen the play onstage and the whole production seemed to have been created entirely for my viewing pleasure (Directed by Trevor Nunn? Great. Tim Curry as the Player? Outstanding - even if he then dropped out due to a chest infection. Two History Boys as Ros and Guil? Yes. Please.) and I was almost bound to be disappointed - or at least incapable of reviewing it fairly and objectively. So please, if I get little excited at times, bear with me.

The play even opened with one of my favourite theatrical devices: precision lighting. In a lovely piece of foreshadowing, the disembodied heads of Rosencrantz (Samuel Barnett) and Guildenstern (Jamie Parker) seemed to hang suspended for a moment before the lighting spread slowly over their bodies and then the stage in general, revealing a very Beckettian tree in front of which the two hapless travellers are seated. Cue a sophisticated ripple of laughter from the audience. After all, how often do you get to laugh at a reference to a reference? Thankfully, however, Nunn's production handles the self-referential side of things with welcome restraint and the production is gloriously funny as a result, gently inviting us to laugh at the philosophical knots the characters tie themselves in, as well as with them. A word about the set here, actually, which is constructed of lines that vanish towards infinity and archways that seem to lead nowhere, perfectly evoking the idea that somewhere Hamlet is happening, only we can't quite find it but are stuck in its landscape anyway. The staging, too, is similarly simple yet inventive, making great use of two large leather satchels that Ros and Guil constantly sit on, use as pillows, pick up, sling round their chests, pull cloaks out of and put them back in, always travelling, never arriving. There was a nice touch also that took me a while to notice: Barnett and Parker's Renaissance courtier costumes turn out to be, on closer inspection, contemporary boots, jeans and jackets, leading to a lovely moment when they are faced with actor-versions of themselves, dressed this time in period costume that is familiar enough to give them pause, strange enough to make them uneasy.

Another confession, this one a real one: despite having been directed by Sir Tom himself and starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in the respective title roles, I don't really like the film. I find Oldman's Rosencrantz too obfuscatingly stupid and Roth's Guildenstern too prickly and defensive to be enjoyable and their chemistry sadly lacking. So it was a joy to see a kind of role-reversal enacted here: Barnett's Rosencrantz was childish and petulant but also highly strung and panicky, whilst Parker's Guildenstern had an air of stoicism, almost lugubriousness, that covered an altogether different kind of anxiety, a constant and wearying uneasiness about who they were and what they were doing and why he seemed to be responsible for it all. If forced to choose at gunpoint, I'd say that Barnett's Rosencrantz is more successful than Parker's Guildenstern by a hair, and I lay this more at the feet of the direction than the acting: a few too many of Guildenstern's lines that could be shocking or poignant or thoughtful are played for laughs.

In the event, this was my only disappointment about the production as a whole: in his note in the programme, Nunn calls the play " a masterpiece". It is a masterpiece, but Nunn doesn't direct it like one, or if he does, it is a comic masterpiece. The real, devastating impact of some of the contemplations of mortality are subsumed under the humour of the inept philosophers delivering them: Guildenstern's struggle to articulate the sheer negativity of death ("Death is nothing...death is not...it is the endless time of not coming back") seem oddly glossed over and the climactic moment in which he believes he has killed the Player was not climactic or shocking, with a fairly unconvincing death from the Player and little to no reaction from Guildenstern. Guildenstern accuses the players of cheapening death through performing it over and over again, arguing that it does not bring the experience of death home to anybody; it seems to me that the young Stoppard - as obsessed with mortality as anyone in their 20s - was trying to accomplish exactly this with the way Rosencrantz and Guildenstern simply vanish at the play's end. It is strange then, to see the actors march offstage, all the mechanics of theatre on show; one might have expected some of the fantastic pieces of lighting trickery exhibited elsewhere. Of course, much of this is just personal preference but I can't help but think the production would have been aided by a little more faith in the play's ability to do exactly what the travelling players fail to - "catch them unawares and start the whisper in their skulls that says - 'One day you are going to die.'"

But this does not significantly detract from all the wonderful things Nunn does do with play, and I was pleasantly surprised at some aspects of it that I had forgotten or just never occurred to me in the reading of it. The play's relationship with Hamlet, for once thing, with Nunn staging the extracts from Shakespeare almost as parodies, exaggerated versions of images we all know with the actors' lines echoing and reverberating through the corridors of Elsinore. I had also never appreciated Stoppard's sheer audacity: the moment in which Rosencrantz threatens to interrupt the 'To be or not to be' soliloquy in order to clap Hamlet on the shoulder and ask him "man to man" what's wrong is gleefully wicked, as is the Player's claim that he "extracts significance from melodrama, a significance that it does not in fact possess", in the middle of a rehearsal for a play that bears a suspicious resemblance to The Greatest Play In the English Language.

On the page, the constant sparring between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be quick and dry, on the stage, Nunn, Barnett and Parker bring it gloriously - and believably - to life. Individually, Barnett and Parker put in fine performances but together they are wonderful to watch. The best moments of the play occur when the two are alone onstage together, simply reacting to each other's absurdities. The relationship is fierce, tiring, desperate, immensely affectionate and by far the best aspect of the show; after a tiff, Guildenstern comments, "The only beginning is birth and the only end is death - if you can't count on that, what can you count on?" and the two spontaneously (well, 'spontaneously') embrace, eliciting an actual "aaw" from the same audience that had tittered so politely at the Beckett joke. An odd mix of brothers and lovers, Nunn's greatest achievement is in locating the emotional heart of the play in a relationship so co-dependent they can't even keep track of which is which. The charge often levelled at Stoppard is that his plays are too intellectual, that they are plays about ideas, not people - in some way soulless. I never found this to be the case and it seems neither does he: in a very interesting interview between Nunn and Stoppard, printed in the programme, Stoppard states that the Ideas-with-a-capital-I follow the story, not the other way around - that for all the treatises on death and determinism, he was really only writing the story of two courtiers in Elsinore out of their depth. This production embraces the idea that we are simply following the narrative of two men who have no idea what to do and its most moving moments are where it acknowledges the state we are all in: clinging together for comfort against the coming dark.

It is not a perfect production and, as I said, more could have been made of the play's serious moments but it is dazzlingly funny and sweet, and Parker and Barnett make a wonderful double act. A well-deserved four stars then, and I look forwards to my next Ros and Guil with some apprehension. Above all, it achieved the thing that is the mark of great art: it made me want to go and make my own. Here's hoping that next time Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is revived in the West End, I have a hand in it somewhere.

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Apologies for the unintentional hiatus - the blog is officially back now! Expect posts about New York and lots of lists coming soon.

An Exercise in Awesome: Doctor Who - 'A Good Man Goes to War' Review

First, let me do this: OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT I WAS SO RIGHT NO-ONE HAS EVER BEEN MORE RIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD THAN I WAS ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. Einstein? Bite me.

I don't know whether to dance for joy or weep at the preposterousness of my rightness. After all, this means that the Lulzy Mega Theory that I came up with to jokingly tie together every strand of the plot was...well, it was right. Like, actual bona fide canon plot. Steven Moffat you crazy man, I am no person to be filching storylines from their subconscious. LOL WUT.

Initial astonishment done with (it is quite lucky that I am so taken with the fact that I totally called this one because otherwise it could have been very disappointing), I genuinely loved this episode. Haters to the left, 'cos this is going to get raw like sushi. Honestly, I get why people might be disappointed. It's not like I've loved every minute of this series, it's been distinctly uneven in quality and I have serious doubts about the wisdom of a mid-series break in the first place. It obviously works for American shows that have a gazillion episodes per season and can take a convenient break around Christmas but for Doctor Who's thirteen episodes it just feels arbitrary and another ploy for the American market. Plus, it's just bad storytelling. Moffat is clearly invested in his overarching storyline and splitting the series in two means he gets to spend more time on it: three out of four episodes are justifiably siphoned off into Series Arc territory. But it does a disservice to the individual episodes - it makes us feel like we're just waiting to get back to the Important Stuff, especially when individual episodes turn out to really be about the series arc all along (Rebel Flesh/Almost People), especially especially when they have devastating cliffhangers tacked on the end (Almost People). And it's a shame because episodes like Neil Gaiman's are proof that the individual episode has as much to offer as the serialised one. So yeah, I'm not with you on this one, Steven: either do a four-part serial like Who of Yore or stick to the thirteen-episode series. No halfway house.

Plus the timelines are totally fucked now. I actually paused iPlayer to try and work out how River could know what happened at Demon's Run when Law of Inverse Timelines states she shouldn't know - I mean, it's her own future, right? It hasn't happened to her yet. I guess the Doctor told her or something? Yeah, Moffat has really screwed himself into a corner on this one. Personally, I hope they just abandon the prospect of trying to make the Inverse Timelines thing work because a) it doesn't and b) it's stupid. Plus it occasions unprecedented levels of angsting in my favourite badass and makes me all "Hey, Moffat, you got some 10th Doctor in my River". And please god, finally, I hope it means we just get to see them having crazy adventures together. Please. That would be awesome. Andtotallyhot.

And yeah, there wasn't really a story per se, just a load of build up and then...not much, and yeah, it really doesn't qualify as "the Doctor being raised higher than ever and falling harder than ever", like AT ALL, and yeah, for the 'Battle of Demon's Run' or even the titular War, it wasn't much of either but I honestly don't care. It was one of those ones where Moffat's real talent shines through: being awesome. If I'm totally honest, he's sort of gone mad with power and completely overreached himself this series, what with River's timelines and too much overarching plot but boy, can he make me forget his shortcomings quickly. There was some comment on the Guardian blog to tune that if this episode had been produced by Russel T Davies we'd all be baying for his blood and maybe so, but I think that just goes to show how much of the payoff is in the delivery: under RTD, this could have been a mess of mawkishness, goofiness and David Tennant's face collapsing under the strain of gurning. Under Moffat it was dry, tongue-in-cheek and Just. Plain. Cool.

I love that the show was finally confronting its own mythology - specifically NuWho mythology, that is. When they took the decision to rid the Whoniverse of Gallifrey and those pesky Timelords with a convenient genocide back in 2005, they might have done a service to the storylines but they lumbered the main character with a metric fuckton of angst and a dark side bigger than the freaking moon's. And yet they were always at pains to point that It's Totally The Same Doctor and He Never Really Changes. So, in my humble opinion, River's little speech where she called him out on what he'd become/was becoming was timely and effective, thank you. And again, will hopefully pave the way for glorious silliness come the second half of the series.

So there. I've dealt with all your petty complaints. Now can my joy be unconfined?

Because I flailed. Literally. And I do not use that word mistakenly, ever. I flailed with glee, I flailed with joy, I flailed with sorrow and I flailed with Matt Smithness. My limbs were all over the place with the wanton abandon of my flailing.

A long, long overdue Badass Upgrade for Rory there. I mean just that pre-credits sequence alone was great, with the callback to the Amy-talking-about-the-Doctor-but-really-talking-about-Rory trick (and yes, I admit, Moffat, you got me a second time) and that blank rage of the delivery of "Would you like me to repeat the question?" In fact, pretty much all the Rorytime of that episode seemed to be underscored by a little voice going, "Oh, you thought you didn't fancy Rory, did you? WELL WE'LL SHOW YOU." Seriously. Rory with cool explosions behind him. Rory in a centurion's outfit. Rory with a sword. Rory with a baby. Rory taking charge. Rory calling Amy "Mrs Williams". Rory Rory Rory, I salute you. Snaps for Arthur Darvill. (In fact, I think Moffat's having a wee giggle at the expense of the female fans there - after many episodes playing up excitingDoctor v homebodyRory, he suddenly gives us Rory in armour holding a baby in one hand and a sword in the other. He's practically the Old Spice man.) Plus, while I didn't totally buy Karen Gillan as a mum (no-one looks that good after childbirth), Arthur Darvill nailed it as a dad. (Or maybe find a female companion who can actually, y'know, act. It's just getting awkward.)

Some cracking classic Moffat one-liners in there as well. Stevie Wonder under the bridge in 1814 (we must never tell him), Jack the Ripper was stringy but tasty, all of Nurse Sontaran's Health Tips ("Don't slump, it's bad for your spine"). And I'm so glad River has the same thoughts as I do (Two Doctors? "That was a whole different birthday"). In fact, the whole episode had a distinctly Coupling-esque vein of British naughtiness running through it, as is only right for a story pivoting around the exact logistics of where and when Amy and Rory did ther nasty (presumably while roleplaying as a policewoman and a centurion - perhaps that's why the Doctor got Rory to dress up). I think my personal favourite (besides the Two Doctors gag, of course) was Cockney Strumpet pouting over her Silurian Lady Friend's roving eye, answered by "I don't know why you put up with me". Cue incredibly long, flexible tongue and some smouldering eye contact. Oh Steven, you are naughty.

I also love Moffat's PC vision of the ethnicity and gender diverse future (and the past) with the female president (speaking of which, it seems you really can't have a vision of the future without a bit of steampunk), the female pope, the thin fat gay married Anglican marines, the lesbian cross-species sword-wielding couple. Who are you, Russel T Davies? Seriously though, it was fun. And I know people say Moffat can't write character but honestly I shed a little tear over Lorna Bucket's death (what's the betting we get to see her encounter with the Doctor as a child in the second half of the series?), which is the second time I've cried over a character Moffat has introduced and killed off in the space of 45 minutes (thank you, Father Octavian). In fact, poor old Lorna Bucket. Let's take a minute to salute her. Yet another example of my favourite of the Doctor's qualities and its sharp edge: the ability to inspire people to be the best version of themselves, even if sometimes that just means dying. Anyway. Badass Silurian and her Sidekick of the Ridiculously Exaggerated Cockerney Accent were great. Blue Man Group Reject was amusing. Nurse Sontaran was Moffat at his most fun - he doesn't pull his punches on the show's more ridiculous aspects, does he?

But really, the star of all this was, of course, the Doctor. As I said, it was an episode that probed what the reboot had done to the character but celebrated it as well. It was a bold move not to have the main character in evidence for almost twenty minutes but for me it paid off; I was practically hopping with excitement by the time that ever-so-classy reveal of Matt Smith under the hood came around. And this, really, was why I loved this episode: it spoke to every adrenalin-junkie, explosions-and-one-liner-loving, lip-biting nerve of my inner seven-year-old. I bounced with excitement from start from finish; I didn't even mind the return of those goddamn Spitfires in Space. The whole thing was a feast of Woah Cybermen, Woah Explosions, Woah Cool Swords, etc etc. Steven Moffat is great at adrenalin. There's no other writer on television that manages to sustain quite that sense of snarky glee that I get from watching his stuff, and that's not just Doctor Who, that's Sherlock and Jekyll and countless others as well. And by the looks of it, it's not just me, I'm pretty sure that's the most fun Matt Smith's ever had, he seemed like he loved every minute of it.

Matt Smith who was, for the fourth week in a row, stellar. By the way. Not that I don't always think he's good, it's just that he hasn't been given much to do of late and I felt like the magic was lacking a little somewhere around the middle there. But what with Idris/Tardis and the Two Doctors and now this, he's fully cemented himself as My Doctor. I am seriously apprehensive about Doctor Twelve. I think Smith is at his best when he exploits that young-old appearance he's been gifted with, and this was a prime example - all that high energy glee when his plan went right, all that blushing prudery (somehow childish and old mannish at the same time) over the specifics of the conception. I also thought this was a tremendously endearing performance; I defy anyone watching not to feel at least a little affection for that space lunatic. Special mention to the Doctor imitating the Spitfires overhead, I was seconds away from doing the same myself. And the carousel of facial expressions as he realised that the first time Amy and Rory had been on the TARDIS together was their, ahem, wedding night. I am trying to be delicate.

And (because I've managed to avoid talking about The Reveal in detail so far) how great was that bit between the Doctor and River as he realised he was shortly to be hopping on the good foot and doing the bad thing with the daughter of his two best friends? It's a funny thing, that twist. I came up with my Mega Theory precisely because it would be preposterous for it to happen and now it has, it kind of is, but I've accepted it remarkably easily. So River Song is Melody Pond is the Regenerating Girl is Amy's Daughter. Yeah, I can get on board with that. Do we get to see her regenerate again? Will she join the TARDIS gang full time now? Will we have some Hilarious Shenanigans where Amy pauses mid-adventure to try and wipe her face? For the last, undoubtedly. For the others, we shall see. I hardly dare try and match my current Theory Predicting Success but the dots we're clearly supposed to join are that River kills Flesh Doctor and is sent to prison for it. I'm not sure though. With recent developments, perhaps she ends up killing Rory? 'Greatest man she ever knew'? It would be a neat way to end the They Keep Killing Rory arc and would continue Amy's trick of conflating descriptions of her two favourite men. Guess we'll find out. As to whether we'll find out this year, the jury's still out on that one; Death of the Doctor could be Moffat's way of linking this series to the next, just like the Silence linked us to the last. Anyway, so long as none of this affects River Being Awesome, I'm cool with it. (Also, remember when River said "he's not my Doctor yet"? I have a sneaking suspicion that now the Doctor's going to start being 'her Doctor'.) Plus, this sort of confirms something else I suggested a while back: River is completely justified in being a badass who tells everyone else what to do - she's a part timelord who's been specifically trained to be a badass. I can't even drive. I feel better about myself now.

Overall, a corking episode: wildly exciting, snarky-funny, tear-jerking, and with a reveal that most 9-year-olds probably saw coming a mile off because they have no concept that it just might be ridiculous. Not five star Doctor Who, but entertaining enough to be damn close.

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So. What's the verdict on Series 6 Part 1? Um. Not sure. First off, it's a story only half told, there's still lots to come that may well determine what we think of the whole. Secondly, I don't feel like there's been enough of it to judge. But I do know that I preferred Series 5. Why? Well, it was just more unified. I've been thinking a bit about 'themes' in Doctor Who and whether they have a place there or should remain the preserve of more 'adult' drama (by which I mean, specifically written for adults, thank you).

Russel T Davies, he didn't really have themes. He had character arcs and, for the most part, he did them well: Rose, Martha and Donna all learned the value of themselves in one way or another and in turn, they were the show's links to the audience, our representatives. Moffat's characters don't really do that; they're more ciphers that represent certain things. I still don't really know who Amy is, beyond the fact that she's Scottish and 'feisty', and I certainly don't feel like she's my representative. (In fact, I sort of feel like Rory is my representative as the only one who ever suggests running away from the Scary Thing instead of towards it, but he's objectively a much better written character than Amy - but then, I don't think Moffat can really write women very well at all, although there are notable exceptions.)

But Moffat does do themes. Oh boy, can he do themes. Series 5 was dominated visually by the fairytale motif but there was also a strong Peter Pan-esque 'don't grow up' element as well as a 'real life v. adventure' aspect and, of course, the ever-present timey-wimey stuff. Most of all though, it was a discussion of storytelling and the way that the stories we tell end up shaping the tellers as much as the tellers shape the tale. I love that. That ticks every single one of my boxes. And it held together the series, elevating even the more formulaic episodes so that they became part of one long chain of adventure, Amy's Reward for Waiting. Ironically, Moffat stated somewhere that he doesn't 'do' themes consciously, he just writes his ideas and sees what happens. This seems to work well for him and I'd advise him to give it another go: Series 5's fairytale/storytelling preoccupation seems something organic, something even the Doctor didn't notice until it was important. Series 6, on the other hand, has suffered from too many decision by committee: we keep being told it's 'darker', 'scarier', 'more mature', elements which have clearly been shoe-horned in even where they don't fit. The Curse of the Black Spot should have been a romp - a proper one.

The current success of the show (and the Davies v. Moffat debate) really comes down to what you think Doctor Who should be. With Davies, it was a representation of our universe, in which there happened to exist this clever guy who talked too much and had a time machine and accordingly the Doctors were more humanised and the companions more woman-on-the-street. With Moffat, we hardly ever see our own earth; instead we're taken to mystical places with exotic names where fantastical events play out and consequently, the Doctor is extraordinarily alien and the companions are story archetypes. In a way, Moffat's era is just fleshing out all the planets Davies' Doctors name-dropped in Series 1-4: Davies showed us the familiar side of the universe with chips and council estates and daleks, now Moffat is showing us the unfamiliar side, where all it takes to bring back the Doctor is to remember him. I don't think either approach is necessarily better than the other but I prefer Moffat because a) my tastes run in that direction (beautiful escapism over hyper-realism every time) and b) I think he writes his approach better.

Series 6 has been a mixed bag. Jewels of episodes like The Doctor's Wife made up for clunkers like The Curse of the Black Spot. The scope and ambition has been impressive and the production values remain high, producing one very good-looking show. The series arc has been intriguing but overbearing and there are definite signs of Moffat overreaching himself. I prescribe cutting back on the timey-wimey, investing in a little more character development and continuing with the great line in wisecracks, scary monsters and awe-inspiring coolness. I may not be a Doctor, but I watch enough TV to know what's good for it.

My Dog's Got No Nose: Doctor Who - 'The Rebel Flesh' and 'The Almost People' DOUBLE REVIEW Part 2

RIGHT. Lightning fast Part 2, just in time for tonight's mid-season finale (and yes, I am very excited).

So. 'The Almost People'. It was good. A solid 4* two-parter, in my opinion. It was a little unsubtle compared to last week (that "Who are the real monsters?" line, for example - yes, I think we got that that was the moral dilemma of this episode, thanks) but more information needed to be conveyed quicker so it was forgivable. And of course, the problem with Big Reveals coming at the end of episodes is that they tend to overshadow the rest of it and I'll admit, fannish speculation is pretty much the only thing I concentrate on right now, especially after THAT ENDING. So let's deal with this as quickly as possible, yeah? Yeah.

Another excellent performance from Matt Smith - in fact, I think that was the best thing about the episode. Loved gangerDoctor's past regenerations burning through, that was a very nice touch, although I thought that the "we've moved on" comment after the 10th Doctor's voice resurfaced walked a fine line between funny and bitchy (although not unwarranted). On a side note, when gangerDoctor firmed up a bit and we essentially had two Matt Smiths, my reaction was basically that of Captain Jack Harkness's when faced with that ridiculous Doctor 2.0 cloning storyline with the two David Tennants which, as I recall, went something along the lines of "You don't even want to know what I'm thinking right now." The phone call with the little boy was great as well: simultaneously very touching and incredibly manipulative, which is sort of how the Doctor operates. Similarly, The Doctor telling Cleaves (who was much better written in this part) and gangerDixon (was that his name?) to go and speak well at the end was also lovely; I think the show is at its most inspiring (in a cornball kind of way) when the Doctor turns people into the best versions of themselves. Well that's when I tear up anyway, you can keep your Doctor/Rose goodbyes.

Once again Matt Smith also managed to pull off the trick of putting in two subtly differences performances of the same character. The obvious comparison here is with David Tennant's CloneDoctor in the Series 4 finale in more ways than Captain Jack and I needing to yank our minds firmly out of the gutter. Now, I'll admit I'm biased towards Smith because Eleven is My Doctor but I'll just say this: the difference between Clone10 and Regular10 had to be written into the script. Ganger11 and Regular11 were supposed to be completely the same person and Smith still managed to make them different. But not so different that the plot fell apart. Yeah, I pretty much want Matt Smith to be on Doctor Who forever.

I felt like Amy and Rory got a little shunted to the side, although this could be to prepare for the obvious centre stage roles they'll likely have in the mid-season finale. Rory is a massive dork, bless him ("I'll break out the big guns") and the writers really need to let him step up every now and then, I disliked how his (very Doctorlike actually) Righteous Anger about the Flesh was just swept aside and then turned into a big con anyway. Amy...I don't know what to say about this week, except that re-watching the episode knowing it was gangerAmy resenting gangerDoctor for being a ganger was nicely ironic and mindbendy.

In fact the episode was so layered with double meanings that there's a lot that actually doesn't make sense. For example, the Doctor pitching a spaz at Amy about the Real Human Pain of the Flesh after she tells him about seeing his death. Makes perfect sense if he was actually the gangerDoctor but as realDoctor, not so much. Maybe it was just to cover up his real reactions to that particular piece of information? That's assuming that that was gangerDoctor and they didn't switch after that point. And logically both Doctors must be tuned into the Flesh, not just gangerDoctor: if gangerDoctor and realDoctor switched then it was realDoctor saying all the stuff about how he could sense their plans and things – was he making it up? Did gangerDoctor tell him earlier so he could relay it back to everyone else? Doesn't really hold together but the premise that he was actually collecting data was cool. There was just a bit too much going on as it was; I would have cut Cleave's clot (I'm not sure that it added anything beyond letting Raquel Cassidy deliver that "them's the breaks" line) and Jen morphing into a standard CGI monster. Come on Doctor Who, when will you learn? Putting a human head on the body of a monster JUST. LOOKS. SILLY. Say it with me now: SILLY.

What's funny though is the amount of stuff I've unwittingly got right over the past few weeks" my observations about the Doctor feeling a bit enigmatic and cipher-y of late actually turn out to have some bearing on the plot (he's sorting the problem of the Disappearing Amy) and bolsters my hope that we'll get 'Real Doctor' back in the second half of the series. of course, the question we're all asking is whether gangerDoctor means a possible solution to his 'death' at the start of series. I'm pretty split on this one: Moffat doesn't tend to do left-field solutions, he's more a 'drop in hints so subtly no-one realises they're hints even after stuff happens' kind of guy and gangerDoctor as a solution feels both too obvious and plausible at the same time. Even if they don't use him as a get out, the door is still open for him to come back at some point with all the 'way back from being vapourised' stuff, just like the door was left open for Jenny the Doctor's Daughter and then mercifully slammed closed because she was a shit character.

So Amy-pregnancy questions of why and how and when and who by are being answered literally at this minute (and I do mean literally) so let's not dwell on them. I'll just say this: River Song. Amy's daughter. Regenerating little girl. Same person. If it doesn't turn out to be true then...I'll be quite happy because that would frankly be an appalling plot twist.

See you on the other side.

My Dog's Got No Nose: Doctor Who - 'The Rebel Flesh' and 'The Almost People' DOUBLE REVIEW

So after a two week finals-induced hiatus, the weekly Doctor Who reviews are back (although not for long as this Saturday sees the last one before the mid-season break). Plenty of other pop culture tidbits and nibbles to come over the next few weeks for your edification and delectation. Om nom nom.

A/N: Part 1 was written some weeks ago (on Rapture Day, in fact), Part 2 today. Enjoy.
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Part 1 - The Rebel Flesh

I'm not actually going to apologise for this review title because it comes from my mum's favourite joke ever in the world, which I reproduce now in full for your benefit:

-Doctor, doctor, my dog's got no nose!

-How does it smell?

-Terrible!

Never trust a joke with more than one exclamation mark in it.

Anyway, having resoundingly failed to get raptured up to heaven today (still have to take finals, damn) I settled down to watch Doctor Who with mixed expectations. On the one hand, two-parters are a tricky business, as the series' opener attested: always a danger of too much set-up and not enough pay-off. Plus, anything after last week was going to have a tough job. On the other hand, the premise looked pretty good and it was written by Matthew Graham, creator of Life on Mars, everyone's favourite time-travelling, coma-victim-starring 70s cop show (and featuring Marshall Lancaster, who will always, always, be LoM's Chris to me).

And I really enjoyed it. It wasn't scary per se, but definitely creepy, with the Gangers solidly hitting the middle of Uncanny Valley. Uncanny Valley, by the way, is a concept originated by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, basically stating that the more something looks like a human, the more we empathise with it, up to a point where the resemblance grows too strong and it's just really fucking creepy, like zombies or ventriloquists' dummies or pod people. Or Gangers. Anyway, there's a graph or something that goes steadily up, along the axes of 'Resemblance to Humans' and 'Acceptance by Humans', and then drops drastically. The drop is known as Uncanny Valley.

Back to the episode. It was basically very entertaining. A good premise, some recognisable stock characters, it showed off the talents of our regular cast nicely and, yeah, it was a little goofy in places but Doctor Who's supposed to be goofy. Just not really, really patronising, Stephen Thompson (yeah, I'm never going to let it go). A return to formula but if the formula works, you can't fault it. Also very impressive considering that Graham's last contribution to Doctor Who was the Series 2 clunker "Fear Her'. About the 2012 Olympics? The monster was a little girl with some crayons? Nope, me neither. I probably couldn't hear the plot over the sound of David Tennant's gurning anyway. (Sorry, David, finals are making me extra bitchy today.) In terms of two-parters, I'd rank it above the Dalek Episodes of Which We Do Not Speak and last year's slightly disappointing Silurian jaunt, somewhere on a par with the Series 2 Satan Pit/Impossible Planet, probably slightly above. (Nowhere near as good as The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances or Human Nature/Family of Blood, of course, but that goes without saying. I wouldn't want you to think I'm patronising you.)

I found it oddly comforting the number of boxes it ticked, actually. It fulfilled the Industrial People in Jumpsuits episode, the Man is Our Greatest Threat episode and the Near Future episode, all while riffing off that classic sci-fi theme of cloning. (And was anyone else getting Old School Who vibes off those acid suits? Very Zygon.) It always bemuses me when people watch sci-fi or fantasy or any genre really and complain about plots being unoriginal or 'borrowed', as though we haven't been recycling the same few story archetypes since the beginning of time. Especially when it comes to science fiction - episodes like this one go all the way back to Frankenstein so it seems short-sighted, to say the least, to complain about Bladerunner rip-offs. Anyway, the point is, some of the best episodes of Doctor Who are the ones that take familiar stories or villains and dust them off a bit, shake them down and say "Look, here's how we do this story in 2011".

For the most part, I think this one did it well. Nice choice of location (betting it saved a few quid on the budget as well, Wales being conveniently full of abandoned monasteries and assorted ruins) and used to good effect (it's not Doctor Who if there isn't a bit of running down corridors). Really liked Rory and Amy this week - it's weird how drastically they can change from week to week - especially Rory's interactions with "Jen". Something of the auton!Rory side coming through to empathise with the plight of the plastic folk? A round of applause here for Sarah Smart as well who is a greatly underrated actress and pops up on my TV screen every couple of years to generally outshine everyone else in whatever Agatha Christie she's in. Loved her "red welly boots" monologue, but I guess I'm just a sucker for a girl with a timey-wimey backstory (hi River). Rory's reactions to being hit on by a piece of sentient goop were pretty wonderful too, the right mix of oddly flattered and completely weirded out. And I'm so so so glad they didn't go down the 'jealousy' route for Amy, apart from a natural side-eye or two, because really, he waited for her for 2000 years, it would be pretty silly to start feeling insecure now. Some lovely couple-y moments too: liked her kissing his thumb better and her blank-faced "Yeah, well, what are you gonna do" as she stomped off to go and find her husband. In a dark, twisty monastery. Full of murderous doppelgangers. Flooding with acid.

Someone needs to start realising that Rory dies a little too often though. The Doctor almost seemed to forget he existed at all at one point, although he seems to be trying to shift Amy and Rory out of the TARDIS altogether - timey-wimey pregnancy? Actually, the Doctor seems to be keeping a lot of cards close to his chest at the moment: the landing-by-accident moment (a throwback to last week or something more?), aforementioned pregnancy, what exactly this Flesh stuff is anyway ("early technology"? What now?) . I'm not entirely sure I like it. There's a line between having the Doctor as a complex, mysterious being with a Dark Past and having him as a complete cipher. I think that's why I enjoyed last week so much, we actually got to see Our Eponymous Hero up close and personal. Anyway.

I though Matt Smith was actually particularly good this week - for a series of scripts that aren't giving him much to play with aside from some quirky references to bow ties and Dusty Springfield (great line actually - seriously, who doesn't like Dusty?), there's a palpable sense of weariness and concern underpinning his performances that suggests maybe his elusiveness is deliberate and temporary. I keep coming back to Amy's pregnancy but, of course, he also knows that the rest of the gang are withholding something pretty important from him. It's also always interesting to see the Doctor pitted against the human race, given how much time he spends trying to save them. I always enjoy the moments where the Doctor turns on them and we're reminded how different he really is and, for my money, Smith excels at these. He has that particularly alien oddness that makes it work. Like getting told off by a teacher who you were larking around with and you step over the line and suddenly it's all "Intelligence can only get you so far, Rafaella, it's no license to be rude, now stop being so attention-seeking and do some work". May have stumbled across an issue or two there. Sorry.

Sadly, the one thing that didn't work for me was Raquel Cassidy's character, the token Skeptical Moneymaker, Foreman Cleaves. A shame because Raquel Cassidy is great, putting in sterling work in, amongst other things, Teachers and Party Animals starring (drumroll) a young Matt Smith. Well, a younger Matt Smith. Foreman Cleaves was one of those characters who acts as the plot demands it - all vulnerable and "I left my team" after the storm so we can begin to empathise, then a snarling psychopath because something needs to push the Gangers into open rebellion. Nice stuff going on with her Ganger being the sardonic, laid-back one though and, noticeably, the most hesitant to kill the 'originals'. I hope this is plot-related, that the Gangers are the opposite personalities (or just other side of the existing personalities) of their original bodies and not just lazy writing. Gruff Northerner With Son (didn't catch his name) seemed pretty identical in both incarnations but Sarah Smart's timid Jen turned into a war machine, so we'll see I guess.

So all in all, a pretty good episode: good story, good acting, good execution. I'll just say one thing though: Plastic Doctor? Come on BBC. There's no way I want to tap that.

Part 2 to come!