Medical Emergency: Doctor Who - 'The Wedding of River Song' and Series Review

What the hell?

Was that - but -

WHAT THE HELL?

Um.

What on earth did I just witness?

Such, gentle reader, were the thoughts sending my brain into Control-Alt-Delete style screen-freeze after watching 'The Wedding of River Song'. Repeating "what?" more times than the 10th Doctor after the Space Titanic crashes into his TARDIS, I have only now composed and ordered my thoughts that I may impart them to you.

That's a complete lie, I have no idea what to feel. Did I like it? Was it good? WHO KNOWS (oh god, no pun intended, especially not with the episode ending on those words). I'm not even sure I was supposed like it. I'm not even sure it was an episode. I'm not even sure that reality exists anymore, perhaps it's just disintegrating and CGI balloon-trains are going to came sailing past my window at any point now. Anything could happen, because apparently the universe is now ruled by insanity and deceptively simple narratives.

Oh Moffat, you must be cackling in your tower like the evil genius you are, and I don't blame you.

I've found it hard to be really excited about the second half of Series 6. The fact that I didn't get round to reviewing the last few episodes stand as testament to that. I did start writing reviews but found my interest in the episodes fizzled out a few minutes after they ended.* In other words, Doctor Who became like regular TV: no drive to analyse or theorise endlessly. Largely I think this was because there was simultaneously too much mystery and too little. Too much in the sense of the late Sherlock Holmes stories: the reader couldn't possibly guess at the solution because it all hinged around an overload of meaningless information that could only come into focus by Holmes revealing a previously unknown character or object or plot point. All the "Silence will fall when the question is asked" stuff was impenetrable (and still is, to some extent) - I highly doubt that even the most dedicated of Whovians heard that and gasped "But of course!" A mystery where there's absolutely no chance that the viewer/reader can solve it is no fun at all. Then there was too little mystery, in the sense that the whole plot seemed perfectly laid out before us: River was in the suit, she killed the Doctor, she went to prison for it. There was nothing for us to guess at, except maybe how the Doctor escaped (because clearly he must) and surely Moffat would have some left-field solution for that - which (in a sense) he did.

Because, hand on heart, I totally forgot about the Tesselecta, bringing to an end my run of plot-guessing good luck. I dismissed the Flesh!Doctor as an obvious red herring but failed to notice the other doppelganger-maker of the series because it seemed like such a daft idea. Well, kudos, to you Moffat and I take my hat off to you. It turns out you knew what you were doing all along. Rather like the Doctor, in fact, I thought you were walking resignedly towards disaster, when in fact you were just waiting to pull a rather audacious backhand: a beautifully simple solution to a very complex problem. Too simple? Or too complex? Perhaps. But my goodness, it makes lovely television. Leaving aside his trademark plot-wrangling, Moffat showcased another of his abilities: an eye for spectacle. Trains over London, pterodactyls in the park, Winston Churchill on a mammoth: why? Because why the hell not. As in 'A Good Man Goes to War', it is this audacity, coupled with a keenly self-mocking sense of humour, that saves Moffat's episodes from falling apart under their own weight.

Speaking of self-mockery, this may well be the most meta episode of Doctor Who there's ever been. Matt Smith all but turned and winked at the camera with his references to Who canon and that rather touching inclusion of Old Who's Brigadier, whose actor died earlier this year. Then there was the Silents acknowledging Rory as "the man who dies and dies again", River's deliciously tongue in cheek "There are so many theories about you and I - am I the woman who marries you or the woman who murders you?" and (my favourite) Dickens teaser trailering the Christmas special. Then, of course, there was The Question which - much like the revelation of River's parentage - I might have guessed at jokily if I'd actually been blogging these last few weeks. So "Doctor who?" is "the oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight" is it? Plain sight being the title of a long-running children's sci-fi show that has never quite made sense because the character is clearly called 'The Doctor', perhaps? It's so meta, I could cry tears of self-aware joy. It's also completely preposterous but I just don't think Moffat cares, so perhaps neither should we.

On a deeper level, the meta-fun extends to the whole structure of the series itself. Ever since 2005, the show-runners have faced the problem of how to keep bettering themselves, how to keep producing finales that are bigger and shinier and more portentous and doom-laden than ever before and it just isn't possible. Tennant's messianic gurning nearly capsized the boat and, I'll admit, I was worried that we'd been seeing re-runs of the Time-Lord-on-Death-Row routine for the last few weeks. But now, with the universe thinking the Doctor is dead (oh Moff, for our lack of faith in questioning why you set up that storyline when he clearly couldn't be really dead, we repent), the show can return to classic adventures, romps and skullduggery, weird planets and bizarre aliens, familiar foes and old friends, and still keep the ticking clock of this new the-question-will-be-asked story arc in the background. A ticking clock, no doubt, that will reach zero hour in time for Matt Smith's exit ("the fall of the Eleventh"?) neatly coinciding with the show's 50th anniversary in 2013. That really is extremely clever.

If I have one major criticism of this episode (alongside all the other little things that just didn't make sense), it was that it didn't feel much like a series finale to me, more a bridge into the next series. In fact, the whole of Season 6 has felt like this to me, especially now we fully understand where it was going: the Doctor's death, River's role in things, these aren't really important in the long run. What's important is what comes after; it was all a set up for a sort of reboot of the reboot. I'm a little sad, because there's been some sterling work this year and to think of the whole thirteen episodes as simply paving the way for a bigger picture doesn't do justice to that. Then again, it's also sort of a relief: if the show is signalling a return to quieter episodes, more of the Doctor "in the shadows" then it means Moffat isn't actually the crazed megalomaniac we know and love. (Let's not hold out too much hope.)

So what have we learned from Series 6 of NuWho? Well, amongst other things, Moffat still has some very funny ideas about women. Both of the series' female protagonists started off as independent (fairly) well-drawn characters and ended up in story lines revolving around motherhood and the Love of Good Man. I can't quite fathom Amy and Rory's lack of crushing breakdown and depression when they realised they would never get to, y'know, hold their firstborn child in their arms and whilst their exit from the show was very well done, I won't miss them much. Not even Rory, who seems to have been forced to attend Masculinity 101 classes - when he wasn't involved in the sort of characterisation ping-pong game that had him still questioning Amy's love for him over the Doctor long after that should have been settled.

So maybe characters aren't Moffat's strong suit, but we've seen plenty of what is: namely, sheer cheek. His story lines may be ridiculous, but they're also immensely entertaining, and the minute we start clutching our pearls and shouting "unbelievable!" at the television about Doctor Who of all things is the minute we should probably step back and go "Guys. Let's calm the fuck down." Epic, extraordinary journeys to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and sparkling, witty dialogue are two things our revered showrunner has down. For next season, I'd like to see some more attention paid to what we might call the 'middle tier' of writing: the people actually doing the journeys to the Seventh Moon of Kallinda and speaking the funny gags about wi-fi. Presumably there'll be some new companions on the horizon and once I stop sobbing "It should have been me!" I'm sure I'll be very excited.

So. Series 7. Bring it, I say. Let there be Matt Smith, let there be Alex Kingston, let there be more lines like "as for the nights, they're between us" to send the old-school fanboys departing in waves of outrage howling "BUT HE'S ASEXUAL" and possibly even "LOOOOOOOOOOOMS" (google it) back to their basements. Let there be new companions who are smart and funny and who don't fall prey either to gender norms or the idea that they are the Single Most Important Entity Ever. Let there be silly weeks where they encounter the Trolls of Troy (I don't know), and let there be scary weeks where they encounter the Shadows of Broken Teeth (I really don't know), and let there be downright awesome weeks where the whole thing is pretty much Matt Smith standing atop the TARDIS yelling, "I AM DOCTOR, HEAR ME ROAR." And let Neil Gaiman back to write at least once per series until the end of time.

To sum up Series 6, it's been...odd. Some I've loved, some I've hated (Thompson), some just left me cold. And that is a sad thing. When Doctor Who fails to get a reaction from me, end times are surely nigh. We wave goodbye to Series 6 with fondness and a little relief, and look forward to Series 7 with high hopes. In the meantime, there's the Christmas special and I've already seen photos of Matt Smith in a 1920s motorcar and a charity shop version of Iron Man's suit. Can't. Wait.

So, the rankings are in and they're really, really unsurprising:

12) The Curse of the Black Spot

I imagine this may come as a shock to some of you, but I really hated this episode.

11) Let's Kill Hitler

Mels. Ugh.

10) Day of the Moon

A disappointing follow up to a storming series opener.

9) Closing Time

Sweet but insubstantial and crucially lacking in real villains.

8) Night Terrors

Heart-warming and atmospheric, but predictably resolved.

7)The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

A solidly good story, if a little preachy, and very entertaining. (Also not much to separate the two, so I lumped them together.)

6) The Wedding of River Song

It was funny, it was fast, it involved the Doctor and River actually getting married, which personally I find highly erotic. (Please know I am joking. Mostly.)

5) The Impossible Astronaut

Oh look, I just really, really, really enjoyed it.

4) The Girl Who Waited

Even if I didn't have much of a connection to Amy, the episode was beautifully shot and written - a proper piece of grown-up telly.

3) The God Complex

Toby Whithouse at his best, all tea and philosophical debates about the fundamental nature of man. Funny and poignant and a great send-off for the Ponds.

2) A Good Man Goes to War

Utterly brilliant telly from beginning to end - audacious, high-spirited, packed to the gills with lesbian Silurians (no pun intended), blue man troupe ex-members, and Matt Smith with a grin so broad it was practically a northern accent.

1) The Doctor's Wife

Clearly the jewel in the crown of Series 6. To my mind, it was the only episode that really nailed what makes a classic episode: a strong, simple concept that causes emotional as well as narrative complexities, quotable dialogue, a beautiful and weird aesthetic, stellar performances and the most haunting use of the word "hello" I've ever heard. BAFTA, please.

And there we have it. Have a nice hibernation, Doctor. You have a lot of work to do in the spring.

*I'd actually like to finish and post those reviews, so we'll see if I get round to it. If you want a mini-rundown, I thought 'The God Complex' was great, if a little incongruously silly, and 'Closing Time' was a sweet, funny episode that never quite got as poignant as it wanted to be. So now you don't have to read them, even if I do post them. Possibly haven't quite got the hang of this blogging thing yet.

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In other telly news, Doctor Who got a little shout-out on Community in its Season 3 opener 'Biology 101' with Abed drowning his sorrows at the impending demise of Cougartown with "Inspector Spacetime". "This is the best show I've ever seen," he says immediately. We're glad you feel that way.

I was also glad to see Community back up to speed again this week with 'Geography of Global Conflict' after an opener that was surprisingly low on laughs and high on mid-life crisis (crises?). This week the laughs came flooding back in - but then both of the previous seasons were (ahem) growers and the real gold came mid-season. Excitingly, Annie/Jeff now seems to be being touted as a real possibility - either that or it was blown out the water completely. I'm not sure which, it was kind of hard to tell.

And, best of all, Merlin is back without me even realising it for I have not seen a single trailer for it. For those of you who don't know, Merlin is set in a kind of alternate universe Camelot where Uther Pendragon is king, Prince Arthur is a prissy little bitch, Guinevere is a servant, Merlin has to keep his magic secret because it's banned (or something) and Morgana is a really terrible actress. It's in its fourth series now and, despite the "dark and edgy" makeover, occasionally goes "oh shit, this is supposed to be a kid's show, let's throw in a couple of fart jokes". It's silly and preposterous and if anyone wants to join me for wine and cake while it's on, a right good time will be had by all.

God and the Doctor: Doctor Who - 'The God Complex' Review

Yes, I know it's not a pun. But it is from a poem by Robert Owens:

God and the Doctor we alike adore
But only when in danger, not before;
The danger o'er, both are alike requited,
God is forgotten, and the Doctor slighted.

Before we proceed any further with our space-time revelry, let me just acknowledge how remiss I have been with this blog lately. My excuse is twofold: firstly, I am trying to be a proper adult, which is exciting and boring by turns and leaves very little time for over-analysing the adventures of a 900-year-old Gallifreyan. Secondly, I'm going to blame some of this on the series itself. Whilst none of the episodes of the second half have yet been bad (per se), I find myself somewhat lacking in momentum to review them. Whereas at the beginning of the series, there were compelling mysteries to be unravelled, now I'm not so sure that there's a twist coming that's big enough to justify all this grandiose kerfuffling - if it's coming at all.

Mais, je divague. What did I think of The God Complex? Quite a lot, as it happens. It continued the series vogue for 'grown-up sci-fi', which I think we must now accept as the norm. I'm thrilled but the question must be asked: are the kiddies still following all this pseudo-philosophical angsting? Well, probably. Children are both very discerning and very accepting about their television/books/films - much like the rest of us, in fact.

Coming from the pen of Toby "Being Human" Whithouse, I had high(ish) hopes (let's say Empire State Building, not Hubble Telescope). His previous episodes have been crowd-pleasers, namely Tennant-and-Rose outing 'School Reunion' and last year's 'The Vampires of Venice'. Like in his signature show, Being Human, his Who episodes have veered between silly, homely, tea-based humour and Epic-Dark-Heart-End-of-Days-Fundamental-Statement-About-the-Human-Condition things. 'School Reunion' was a very touching reintroduction to Old Who legend Sarah-Jane Smith and set us up for the tearful impending departure of Billie Piper, while 'The Vampires of Venice' was a silly, light-hearted romp from beginning to end involving Matt Smith delivering a line about buxom fish, so that was alright with me. Imagine, then, my (pleasant) surprise on settling down to watch this classy, sweet, poignant episode that certainly stands amongst the better episodes of a patchy season.

Yes, there was a certain amount of silliness. Why set it in a kitsch, tacky eighties hotel? Because it's kitsch, tacky and eighties. Why have a very fake-looking minotaur as the baddie? Because, oh, I dunno, it lives in a labyrinth or something, which is mythology, which is kind of religion, and we needed an allegory for faith. Why have David Walliams swathed in prosthetics borrowed from the Star Trek make-up department? Because...look, just because, okay? Stop asking stupid questions. It's a show about an alien in a blue box. And David Walliams was quite funny anyway (let's call it the Corden factor: making previously irritating comedians surprisingly palatable in the reflected aura of Matt Smith's greatness).

But silliness is forgivable - indeed, it is part of the show's great tradition. There's been a distinct lack of silliness lately, actually, and it's really bringing the mood down. In some ways, Toby Whithouse was the perfect person to write an episode for this point in the series run: with storm clouds gathering and Moffat's pen poised for an incomprehensible barnstormer of a series finale (we hope), Whithouse's signature mix of goofy wit and portentous sweeping statements about Love or Loss or Fear or Whatever was exactly what the Doctor ordered (there's your pun). I just sort of wish this had been the penultimate episode. No, there was nothing really bad about this episode except some minor nitpicks (not sure about the flickering typefaces during the possessions, or the heavy-handed social commentary surrounding Doomed Rita's faith), so thumbs up from me.

What we had was a nicely complex exploration of faith: no outright condemnations of it, nothing along the lines of Russell T Davies' staunchly atheist Whoniverse, but a thoughtful, funny and occasionally poignant episode with a distinctly Douglas Adams-style humanity to it.

Time Para-Docs: Doctor Who - 'The Girl Who Waited' Review

(Spoilers for Doctor Who and The Great British Bake-Off. No, seriously.)

First of all, sorry about kicking things off with such an awful pun. After I'm done, I'll get my coat.

So. The Girl Who Waited. Ah. Argh. There was so, so much that was good about this episode and I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, the payoff just wasn't quite there for me.

The concept is brilliant: through various sci-fi-esque contrivances (in this case, a kind of intergalactic hospice that traps sufferers in a time-expanding/compressing goldfish bowl so their loved ones can observe them) we get 'Rory's Choice: The Revenge'. In the best tradition of British sci-fi, it was surreal, hard-hitting, eccentric and beautifully conceived (aesthetically a cross between Alice in Wonderland and The Prisoner*). I also enjoyed being treated to some more inventive camera-work than we've had in a while (artsy lenswork being something of a feature of the Moffat era); I loved all the sliding fades and woozy split screen in a lovely bit of subtle foreshadowing, though didn't relish the over-reliance on lens flares. (Then again, my favourite piece of camerawork in Who history might well be that sunburst across the lens in 'The Eleventh Hour' at the exact moment the Doctor convinces Amy to trust him for the first time.)

It is becoming something of a truism that both the Doctor-lite and the budget-saving episodes of Who are amongst the best, forcing the writers to sharpen their quills and get back to that old chestnut, narrative. No high-speed chases, no CGI monsters, just a few characters and an inventive concept (hopefully). The Girl Who Waited managed to achieve that rare thing of being both narratively and conceptually satisfying, having the driving force behind the storyline be Amy and Rory's relationship, whilst ensuring that there actually is a decent storyline in the first place. It reminded me a little of the standout episode of Catherine Tate's tenure, Turn Left, which didn't feature the Doctor at all and by pulling back from all the Madcap Space Adventures proved that Tate is a fine actress when she wants to be, and quite capable of bringing a tear to the eye. In a similar way, Karen Gillan (whose acting ability I have cast a few aspersions on in the past) earned my respect with her finely differentiated Old and Young Amys, while Arthur Darvill continues to be rather excellent (and apparently quite a fox in those glasses, for the second time this series).

Bu this is where my criticisms begin, I'm afraid. Narratively and conceptually satisfying it might have been, but emotionally it was not. That last conversation through the TARDIS door between Rory and Old Amy was surely meant to evoke fannish memories of the Doctor and Rose's goodbye - a bold move and one that I'm not sure was wise. For me at least, it reminded me that no matter how much I later griped and whined about RTD's inability to leave Rose alone, I was devastated when she was given such a cruel exit and wept like a child, despite my cynical then-boyfriend muttering under his breath about Philip Pullman rip-offs. When Rose left I cried because - despite having spent the entire series complaining about how cutesy and irritating the whole thing was getting - her emotional payoff was earned. In the space of The Girl Who Waited, there was no way the same level of emotional investment could be demanded and I'm afraid I found the last few minutes of whispered self-sacrificing conversation tiring rather than tear-jerking. This could also be down to the fact that whilst I'm prepared to admit Gillan raised her game this week, she's still not got nearly enough depth or integrity to make me feel for her. Unlike Rose (and let's remember that Billie was never greatest actress either) she also doesn't have the help of two series of solid characterisation behind her.

Moffat's characters serve his plot lines, rather than vice versa. This is not an intrinsically bad thing and it has led to some stunning mindfucks along the way, but it does mean that when we get to emotional episodes like this one, I'm not nearly invested enough in his creations to care. Rory and Amy's relationship has gone all over the shop, seemingly on the whim of whoever was writing that week: first it's Mickey-and-Rose Mk 2, then it's "oh shit, guess I loved him all along", then it's the Greatest Love Story of All Time, then ordinary domestic bliss, then back to Epic Romance again. It's a shame, because I was just beginning to like Amy-and-Rory as a team and I feel this lack of consistency may be fatal to my enjoyment of them. Speaking of inconsistency, much of my praise for Arthur Darvill stems from the fact that the writers clearly can't decide the first thing about his character. First he's wimpy, then he's awesome, then he's snarky, then it all changes again. Forget Time Lord-shooting Astronauts, 'Who is Rory Williams?' is turning out to be the biggest mystery of the series. A prime example this week: the same Rory who did the 'I don't flinch in front of explosions' thing in front of Cybermen in A Good Man Goes to War is apparently not only less helpful than a 60-year-old woman in a fight with some slow-moving robots but actually resorts to smashing a painting over its head like something out of Scooby Doo. Writers: this man does not add up.

And speaking of things not adding up, my maths tells me that for a show called 'Doctor Who', the good Doctor isn't figuring nearly as much in the equation as he should. I know I've said this before so I won't dwell on it too much but Matt Smith is the best actor in the show. Use him. I'm not just talking about the strangely small amount of screen time he seems to be getting either - his presence in the actual story lines is negligible. He seems to be taking a back seat to the adventures of his human companions and I object: it's not the Amy-and-Rory Show, it's not even the River Song Show, as much as I would obviously watch that. My guess (and it's an optimistic one) is that the season finale is going to be so Doctor-and-River-centric (in the vein of last series' finale, which really was about the Doctor saving the day with his timey-wimey, story-spinning cleverness) that they're shifting the focus to Amy and Rory while they can. Well, I hope that's case anyway.

Complaints over. As I said, it was brilliant concept, beautifully shot with some very good acting but the payoff just wasn't quite there for me. However, I could just be developing into exactly the sort of crusty Whovian whose favourite thing is needless criticism rather than brown paper packages tied up with string theory, as it seemed like a lot of people really did enjoy this episode. Once again I have high hopes for next week's episode 'The God Complex'. I'm getting a very 'British Horror' vibe from the trailer, what with the M.C. Escher creepy hotel, the specially tailored Room 101 horrors and the return of the Weeping Angels. And David Walliams. And...a minotaur. Well, of course. Perhaps it's best to remember that it's written by Toby 'Being Human' Whithouse, the man who gave us 'School Reunion' and busty fish outing 'The Vampires of Venice', so maybe I won't hope for something too classy. Then again, perhaps a proper good romp (I still haven't forgiven you, Stephen Thompson) is exactly what the show needs right now.

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To add to my televisual disgruntlement (is that a word? well, it is now), the hallowed Paul and Mary have just made the disastrous decision to get rid of dreamy Rob and brilliant Jason on The Great British Bake-Off. Rob I can understand (although I'm sorry to see him go), as he really did contribute nothing to the world of baking other than hair that had enough product in it to defy gravity but Jason? Jason was great - not just at baking but at his weird pseudo-metaphysical commentary on himself: "Sometimes I think I've got what it takes, and other times I don't. But I hope I've got what it takes."

Ah well. Jason, Rob, we'll miss you. But not half as much as the producers will when they realise their viewing figures have halved without you.

*I have since found out that the episode was, in fact, directed by the same guy who did the unsuccessful 2009 reboot of The Prisoner. Oh, the cleverness of me.

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.