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!

The F Word and The R Word

If you have ever met me, even for the briefest of brief encounters, I have probably mentioned feminism, being a feminist or women's rights in some form. I make no bones about it. I'm a feminist and I'm proud of being a feminist.

I also think that everyone who doesn't actively oppose gender equality is a feminist. If you think that men and women are equal, then you're a feminist. Now, few terms are more loaded than "feminist" and few single words have had so much written about what exactly they mean, so I'll try and keep my two cents brief. As an English student, I tend to approach things from the point of view of what I can analyse in the way of semantics and phrasing because I feel that's where I'm best qualified to comment. It's also because I think the way we make our arguments and the words we use to express our views are hugely important and often indicative of the biases that shape them. For example, I try and discourage my sister from using the word "gay" as a derogatory term - I know she isn't homophobic, but the appropriation of the word as a negative descriptor certainly began that way. A better example might be David Cameron's repeated recent use of the hilarious* Michael Winner catchphrase "Calm down dear" to a female MP during PMQ. That the phrase is a well-known line from an advert is irrelevant (and it's not like Michael Winner is a poster boy for gender equality anyway) - it is a phrase that would not roll off the tongue of a man who sees an equal opponent, rather than a female opponent.

In fact, our current government seems to have something of a history of gaffes regarding public statement concerning women. We had the Minister of Universities and Science David Willetts' remarks that feminism was the primary cause of unemployment for working class males and lack of social mobility. I expressed some strongly-worded discomfiture over this and was told by several people that I was making a fuss over nothing and he wasn't being sexist, just stating a fact. I found it very telling that Willetts didn't cite 'a growing percentage of women in the workplace' or even 'greater opportunities for women'. Whilst hardly better, they would certainly be closer to 'stating a fact'; it would be untrue to say that a growing number of women in the workplace won't have consequences elsewhere (although I still disagreed with the point Willetts was making - social mobility is surely the responsibility of the education system, which is the responsibility of the government). Instead, Willetts specifically blamed 'feminism', implying a negative causal relationship between the women's rights movement and unemployment. The words you choose - they matter.

Then came the above David Cameron Winnergate Scandal. Believe it or not, I was not amongst those screaming in instant outrage for Cameron to step down, although I do think he should have apologised and next time I hope he thinks twice about how he addresses a fellow MP. It merely confirmed my suspicions that, in many respects, Cameron and his government are nowhere near as progressive as we are led to believe. Eton Boy who moves in mainly male circles addresses a woman in a patronising way. And the Titanic sunk. More at 11. But again - the words. They matter.

The most recent of such incidents is Ken Clarke (the Justice Minister) who, in a radio interview, committed (as I see it) two different faux pas. Firstly, he confused statutory rape with date rape, saying "That includes date rape, 17-year-olds having intercourse with 15-year-olds." To clarify: statutory rape is where one or both partners are under 16. Date rape is a much more nebulous term, where a woman is sexually assaulted by an acquaintance, although not always someone she's dating - a friend, a co-worker, a teacher. It is thought to be the most prevalent form of rape and also the most unreported, especially on college and university campuses. The vast majority of rapes (84%, according to recent statistics) are committed by someone the victim knows, putting them either in the 'date rape' category or the 'domestic rape' category (rape by a spouse or partner). Now, whilst one would expect the Justice Minister to know the difference, I also know that Ken Clarke was a serving QC so I expect he does, in fact, know and simply got confused. To err is human, etc. No need for anyone to resign here.

However, he then went on to make a much more serious implication with his choice of language, stating, "A serious rape, with violence and an unwilling woman, the tariff is much longer than that [of statutory rape]." Asked whether he thought "date rape" counted as "serious rape", he said, "Date rape can be as serious as the worst rapes, but date rapes, in my very old experience of being in trials, vary extraordinarily one from another and in the end the judge has to decide on the circumstances." Clarke is making a clear distinction between different forms of rape: some is "serious rape", therefore other forms of rape aren't. The very phrase is an oxymoron - we would never say "serious murder" because it's ingrained into us that the consequence of murder (death) is bad. So why don't we feel the same about rape? Perhaps because as a society we have not fully grasped that rape is not a crime of passion or lust - rape has nothing to do with sex at all, in fact - rape is crime of violence. It is about humiliating and degrading the victim and proving the attacker has power over them. I believe this is true of all rape, of all forced intercourse, all intercourse without the consent of either party. I don't think there are any date rape victims out there now who would thank Clarke for implying that their harrowing experience is lesser than someone else's harrowing experience because of where it took place and who did it. And when we consider that date rape is the most prevalent form of rape, that every day women are raped by people they know, these comments become even more unacceptable.

I acknowledge that Clarke was making his suggestions about lesser sentences for rapists pleading guilty as a way of increasing conviction rates but it's a seriously skewed vision of how to do so. We badly need reform in the way rape trials are conducted, with the victim's sexual histories and wardrobe choices frequently dwelt upon. We need to create a climate in which rape is universally condemned, in which victims are entirely free from blame and feel safe to come forward and report their attackers, secure that they will be believed and the rapist rightfully punished. Rape is the only crime where it's acceptable to blame the victim, partially or wholly, for what has happened to them and if you think 'no-one thinks that any more', let me assure you, this attitude is still alive and well, often in the very law enforcement services that are supposed to protect the victims. So much of this starts with the language we use. Get rid of the term 'date rape'; it's vague and misleading and encourages the idea that the victim was somehow complicit with the attacker. Don't talk about "serious rape" as only one form of rape; this country doesn't take the most prevalent form of rape seriously enough already. The words. They matter. Obviously, this is a huge and complex issue and one I will attempt to cover in more depth soon, regarding the upcoming Oxford SlutWalk (hugely in favour, by the way).

To come full circle, I'd like to return to the word "feminist". As I stated initially, I believe that anyone who believes in gender equality (i.e. most people) is a feminist. For me, it's not a political position but a description of my beliefs. The word has fallen prey to identity politics and negative stereotyping - so many women disassociate themselves from the word because it brings to mind the image of the man-hating, bra-burning, strident, humourless cartoon feminist. I have to say, I've never met a feminist who even remotely resembles this description. I'm sure they exist, just as any group built around beliefs has its extremists. I'm pretty sure no-one reading this would subscribe to the old 'all Muslims are terrorists' line, or even 'all animal rights activists are violent', yet somehow feminism winds up as the movement being defined by its most unstable members. And I do use the word unstable advisedly: I have read the arguments of women unable to get past their hatred, who claim all male-instigated sex is rape or that all men should be raped to give them 'a taste of their own medicine' and it appalls me. Progress never came from hatred, and the vast majority of people understand this.

I usually try and consider my language very carefully when debating gender and other political issues. Nothing makes my heart sink quicker than a well-intentioned feminist/socialist/lefty knee-jerk reaction, ranting about how "omg men all just suck!" and "Typical bloody Tory demeaning women!" and (this one is real) how we should "put Dave Willetts up on a podium and throw rocks at him". At the end of the day, ranting might be fun but it doesn't help. In fact, it just makes it easier for people to dismiss you as an ignorant brat looking for an excuse to complain and believe me, I've learnt this the hard way. So in general, I try and keep a lid on my rage and use measured language and tight arguments that address all areas of the issue. Of course, a lot of the time I fail but I am only human, and a 20 year old human at that who studies English, not politics or gender studies or economics. And do I wish I could get mad? Sure. But that's a rant for another time.

I believe in a dialogue between the sexes. I believe that we'll start being proud of describing ourselves as feminists when it feels inclusive, when both genders start to examine what it means to be male or female in the 21st century. After all, if we're going to reconstruct our expectations of what it means to be a woman, we need to readjust our expectations of what it means to be a man accordingly. I don't think we can ever live in a truly gender-neutral society (gender differences are to be celebrated, variety being the spice of life an' all) but I do believe it is possible to rid ourselves of gender prejudices. My personal feminist philosophy is that there is room for both the thinkers and the doers. We can take direct action (try and get real social inequalities dealt with - such as the way rape trials are conducted) and we can work on educating ourselves and our children, trying to change attitudes (opening up dialogues and debate).

For me, saying "I'm a feminist" is like saying "I have brown hair". It's just a description, a shorthand. The movement has become divisive and factionalised over the years, as with any complicated or sensitive cause, and it's easy to forget the very essence of feminism: that women and men are equal, and deserve equal rights and opportunities. It's also about choice - wanting to live in a world where a man or a woman can choose to have a career, choose to raise a family, choose to walk on the moon and there's no societal pressure or stigma attached to their choice. If all the people who have ever said "well, I believe in equal rights but I'm not a feminist" stood up and proudly declared "I am a feminist", we could bring the movement back to these two basic tenets and restore the word's positive political power. "Feminism" not only describes my beliefs but the will to do something about them.

So own the word "feminist" and be proud of it whoever you are because, in the end, it's really only a by-word for the beliefs you likely already hold. I'd even go so far as to say that, in the end, feminism is only common sense. And if you're not ready to order your 'This is what a feminist looks like' t-shirt quite yet, then at least consider the mantra I've been repeating this whole time: the words you use when discussing gender, class, race, politics matter hugely. Choose them wisely.

*Sarcasm.

Two Countries Separated by a Common Language: Campus v. Community

America, I'm sorry. I take back every snide comment I ever made about how your sit coms are formulaic, predictable, unrealistic, stuffed with jokes that wouldn't make a particularly uncritical five-year old laugh and just generally inferior to British comedy. In particular, I would like to apologise to NBC, whose comedic teat I have suckling at over the last few months. In a previous life I eschewed American TV because a) there's so damn much of it and b) 90% of it sucks. I hear good things about some show called The Wire occasionally but eh, whatever. In particular I shunned American comedy, mainly because E4 is packed to the gills with drek like Friends and Scrubs. Of course, Friends and Scrubs didn't necessarily start out as drek but with every repeat each episode gets incrementally shitter and I go and pop on a DVD of Black Books or Spaced instead, which, as we all know, never ever age or get boring.

But in recent times, I've decided to give the Americans a bit more of a chance. I mean, we did used to own them. And for a country largely descended from the people who cancelled Christmas, they sure know how to deliver on the laughs. You see, I'd been hurt by American TV and its ruthless cancellation rate before. It seemed like everything I loved was headed for the bin - first Studio 60, then Firefly (goddamn you Fox, how much more proof of your evil do we need?). Then I decided to check out Glee, since it didn't seem likely to go the same way. While I started off enjoying it, I now watch it through fingers permanently clamped over my eyes, as it descends further and further down the plughole of "Dude, Not OK" while still waving the banner of Happy Racial/Sexual/Gender equality, to see how much worse it can get. I've also let myself become suckered into How I Met Your Mother, which I guess is Friends for the new generation, in that it's a group of well-off white people who live in New York and have sex with each other. I do enjoy HIMYM and will continue to watch it (at first for Neil Patrick Harris, now for Jason Segel). Although I do think Ted, the series protagonist, is one of the most obnoxious fictional creations ever to be conceived by man and I hope he finds the mother of his children soon so he can stop inflicting himself on the unfortunate (fictional) women of (fictional) New York.

Then, since I enjoyed both Studio 60 and the little I'd seen of Tina Fey, I decided to investigate 30 Rock, and hallelujah. Heroines gained = 1 (Tina Fey). Inappropriate crushes developed = 1 (Alec Baldwin). Downright weird crushes developed = 1 (Jack McBrayer, seriously, if anyone can explain this one to me, I will reward you with shiny gold). So 30 Rock was the turning point, basically, and I watched all five seasons of it pretty much back to back like the pop culture obsessed freak I am. 30 Rock is witty, self-aware and sports a great female lead in the shape of the socially-dysfunctional, junk-food-cramming, snorty-laughing, crazy-awesome Liz Lemon at the head of a team of writers for a fictional sketch show on primetime TV. If you don't know it, it's well worth a watch (Try saying that with a mouthful of marbles. Thanks, I'm here all week).

Then came Community. After hearing it recommended by all and sundry from many reputable sources, I warily gave in to peer pressure. I'm generally wary of things recommended to me by other people. I find other people's opinions are often wrong. And before you jump in with "It's an opinion! It can't be wrong!", let's just remind ourselves that Titanic was once the highest grossing film of all time so yes, it can. Thank the Lord of Television (Rupert Murdoch?), not so with Community. I'm going to look at it alongside another recent sitcom watch of mine, Channel 4's Campus.

So, what's the deal? Well, both Community and Campus are set in universities that are not so much third-rate as fifty-seventh-rate and have an array of unsympathetic protagonists and some twisted love polyhedrons but that's pretty much where the similarities end. Community is American, set in the fictional Greendale Community College and largely centres around Jeff Winger (the pointy-nosed Joel McHale), a debarred lawyer who faked his college degree and attends community college to get himself a real one, but focuses just as much on the other members of his age-and-nationality-diverse study group:

Britta, a self-righteous blonde hipster with deep-seated insecurities,

Pierce, an ageing, occasionally racist and homophobic, moist towlette magnate,

Shirley, an African American Christian housewife with rage issues,

Annie, a nervy overachiever who had a breakdown in high school due to a pill addiction,

Troy, who doubles as both the Token Black Guy and The Jock, but really makes stupidity into an art form and has a beautiful and strange relationship with

Abed, an asian boy with Asperger's who views the world as a TV show, will make you laugh so much you hurt and makes the show very meta in places.

Its strengths come from the fact that, whilst it has a formula, it doesn't look like it has a formula. This is perhaps because a lot of episodes parody different movies or movie genres and the whole thing relies heavily on pop culture and meta tropes. By far the best episodes of its two season run have been the Mafia episode (with the group forming a Family to control the supply of chicken fingers from the canteen), the Zombie Apocalypse episode (when some budget 'taco meat' provided at a function turns out to be an army experiment that turns the college into...well, zombies) and the three paintballing episodes, Season 1 spoofing various war movies with a dash of 28 Days Later, then a two-parter in Season 2 that starts off as a Western and descends into Star Wars. Parodies (especially of Westerns and Star Wars) have been done until the cows come home, mooing "If I have to hear one more clever twist on 'Luke, I am your father', I'm going rabid" (yes, rabid cows), but what sets these ones apart is the combination of the characters acknowledging themselves playing out familiar tropes and taking it deadly seriously at the same time. My favourite performance of the series by far was Alison Brie's Annie taking on the roles of a hard-bitten loner cowgirl heroine ("She's kind of awesome today," comments Abed), then switching to Princess Leia in the second part of the Season 2 paintballing adventure with complete conviction.

I'm also impressed by the way they handle the soapy romantic entanglements that are a staple of any American sit com. In the Pilot, Jeff forms the study group to get close to the undeniably smokin' hot Britta (Gillian Jacobs) with Troy and Annie forming the show's Beta Couple (they went to the same school, he was popular, she had a pill addiction, you know the drill) but the show undeniably comes into its own halfway through the first season when these Will They Won't They couples start to drift apart and the group starts to have adventures as a whole. Expectations are nicely subverted: what at first appears to be a straight up case of Good-At-Heart-Sleezeball Jeff learning the error of his selfish ways while trying to seduce Smart-Rational-Guardian-Angel Britta is quickly exploded when we realise that Britta is just as selfish, very hypocritical and only just neurotically self-aware enough to get away with it. More importantly, Jeff and the other characters realise it too and constantly call her out on her behaviour. The show has got hold of a great thing, in that whenever a character is unsympathetic, it rarely goes unchallenged, making the illusion of reality much more convincing and locking out the possibility of bewildered head-shaking from fans trying to work out why He's still going after Her when She's clearly a Hideous Bitch. Plus, the possibility of some excitingly unconventional couples has started to emerge, keeping it all nice and fresh. I won't spoil it for you but suffice it to say that, unlike 30 Rock and HIMYM, I'm genuinely invested in it working out for these guys.

So what's wrong with it? Well, not much. The first time I watched it, I was just filled with complete joy. That particular brand of knee-trembling, hand-clapping glee that I associate with great television. There are no bad episodes - there are solid episodes and there are brilliant episodes - and, hallelujah praise be, it manages to avoid that morass of saccharine moralising that US sit coms feel obligated to plunge into at the end of every episode. Yes, it still gets sentimental, but it's never cloying. Take Dany Pudi's knockout performance as Abed. The show has a particular knack of wringing a tear out of Abed's experiments in connecting with his friends and his awareness that they worry about him (the stop motion Christmas special was a particular tear-jerker), but 90% of the time Abed is just happy and awesome and probably the best character on the show, if pushed to say. But really, they're all good. Not just the main seven but the formidable supporting cast, from deranged Chinese Spanish teacher Senor Chang, to Starburns (a guy whose sideburns are shaved into two large, hairy stars), to Dean Pelton, the college dean obsessed with a) making Greendale a 'real' university and b) increasingly, Jeff. The whole thing is a feast of witty self-awareness, insane comic creations, more TV and movie references than you can shake a USB stick at, perplexing emotional entanglements and satisfying pay-offs. And it's just really, really funny.

(Incidentally, it also manages to be something of an anti-Glee. In my opinion, the whole 'Acceptance and Diversity' message is done much more stylishly and effectively by Community, in which much of the humour revolves around race and gender relations but always comes back to the group holding fast together against the world because they're all intensely co-dependent. Unlike Glee, in which apparently regular characters are passed over for Fun Guest Stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and while it's Not Okay to bully Kurt because he's a delicate flower (surely it's doing more harm than good to present the show's main gay character as constantly crying about something), everyone can be mercilessly cruel to Rachel with no repercussions, even if she is awful.)

Campus, on the other hand, is a much more mixed bag. Set in the fictional Kirke University, the main story line is about lack of funding and how it's probably going to be shut down because it's terrible or something, I don't really know. Plot isn't really the point of Campus. It comes from the makers of Green Wing and let me just say here and now, Green Wing was and continues to be my favourite show of all time, comes top of every list and is much missed. Like Green Wing, Campus' brief seems to be to write mostly sketch material within the framework of a single setting and group of characters. Where Green Wing succeeded marvellously was in being an ensemble piece: every single character was well-drawn and every single performance made me laugh until my abs hurt at some point. Campus, whilst striving for the same ensemble feel, is much more varied in the quality of its performances and the quality of its comic creations.

It's hard not to view Campus as Green Wing's inferior cousin but so many of the characters have essentially been exported from the first show into the second. There's the Sue White Clone physics teacher, lacking the essential quality of being Michelle Gomez, the main Gawky Female Choosing Between Nice Guy and Rake love triangle that comes straight out of the Guy/Caroline/Mac dynamic, the monstrous Vice Chancellor of the university who is part-Statham, part-Joanna and part-Sue White and the put upon accountant stuck in a joyless relationship is ganked straight from one of Martin's story lines. Not to mention the admin girl object of his affections who could fit quite nicely alongside Kim and Naughty Rachel in the hospital office.

When I watched the first episode of Campus, I was appalled. The characters were unsympathetic, any plot Green Wing may have had seemed to have flown out the window here and it just wasn't funny. But, I reasoned, it took me a few episodes to get into Green Wing, so I decided to give it another chance, and I'm sort of glad I did. Let's be clear about this: I still don't think it's funny. But what has emerged in spades is these writers' ability to create love stories that rip my heart out through my rib cage and leave it bleeding on the living room floor. This was demonstrated admirably in Green Wing with the ongoing Mac/Caroline/Guy saga and its heart-rending ending (again, I won't spoil it but I wept). I was invested. Team Mac, since you ask. And whilst I can blatantly see that when it came to Campus the writers went, "Well, she ended up with that guy last time, let's make it the other one now", they've managed to pull the same trick again and make me desperately concerned to see how everything works out for them. It's not just me either: at least two other (admittedly female) friends have confessed to watching the show purely for this particular romance. What is up with this? At least we can congratulate the show on being genre-defying. There aren't many 'comedies' I would persist in watching despite not finding them funny. I also state freely that becoming over-invested in story lines (especially love stories) of shows where plot isn't really the point is something of a habit of mine. Sorry.

But this is where Campus and Community cross over. For me, the winning feature of US sit coms is their plot lines. Sure, sometimes it can get overly soapy and ridiculous but this is the main benefit of series that run for seven seasons with 25 episodes per season. We have a chance to get to know these characters and become involved in their lives. A lot of British series exist in a status quo that never changes and there's nothing wrong with this - some of the funniest shows of all time have consisted of two seasons of six half hour episodes set in the same place with the same characterisation (Fawlty Towers springs to mind). But I like characters and storylines. I like getting invested in things. And that's probably why Green Wing was such a favourite: two series of nine episodes at 45 minutes each, which is a crazy random amount for a British comedy, and the sense that real value was being placed on seeing how these characters interacted, not just how many one-liners they could spout. Campus is halfway there with this, with some of the characters falling into Green Wing territory and some of them stepping over the line into being too monstrously unbelievable to care about. Interestingly, Green Wing (and thus, I presume, Campus) was written like an American show, with a team of writers rather than just one or two. Maybe we need more of this US/UK fusion: British dryness and surreal...ness (surreality?) mating with American-length series and a chance to see how the characters develop and interact over a longer period of time.

So. Verdict. Between the two, Community comes out miles ahead. It's just funnier. But I'd still take British over American comedy if pushed; if nothing else, it's less likely to get cancelled halfway through a season. Really though, it all comes down to love. British comedies tend to be these hand crafted jewels, conceived by one person sitting alone in their room and laboured on like Jane Austen's little piece of ivory until perfect. American comedies are, more often than not, over-exec'ed juggernauts than slap a moral on the end of every episode to satisfy the network. Community is wonderful because it has real heart but, I fear, it is the exception rather than the rule. Check out Campus if you're into sappy love stories in bizarre settings but the happy medium between these two is, and always shall be, Green Wing. What a show. I wasn't even going to mention it.

The Doctor Is In: Doctor Who - 'The Doctor's Wife' Review

*insert grovelling usual apologies for puntasticly titled review here*

HOW GOOD WAS THAT, EH? THAT'S MORE LIKE IT, DOCTOR WHO. I'M GOING TO TURN OFF THE CAPS NOW. That's better. But yeah, how bloody good was that? And not a single reference to the wider story arcs or anything (except that prophecy, more on which later), just a great standalone episode. Stephen Thompson, take note. Actually, this episode has even dried up some of my rage towards that unfortunate individual because, sadly, we can't all be Neil Gaiman.

And that episode was vintage Gaiman from start to finish. From the opening with "Auntie", "Uncle" and "Nephew" and the "I just wish I could go in your place, Idris... Actually I don't because it's really going to hurt", I was reduced to a state of lip-biting, toe-clenching glee. For those of you unfamiliar with Neil Gaiman (and for anyone with access to a bookshop/library/e-reader, there's really no excuse if you are), this is what Gaiman does: fantasy writing with a very homespun British feel to it that often plays off a core of darkness and unnerving...ness. This is a very general description though, and his short stories are probably the best illustration of his versatility, spanning from whimsical ones like 'Chivalry', where an old lady finds the Holy Grail in a charity shop and Sir Galahad turns up on her doorstep to get it back, to ones that play with established tropes and characters like 'A Study in Emerald', which is a crossover between the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft and does some very clever things in managing your expectations to unnerving ones like 'Babycakes' (the title is almost literal) and downright scary ones like 'Closing Time', which I can't tell you too much about without spoiling it but you'll never look at a wendy house in the same way again.

He's also written several novels, including Stardust (of which an ok-ish film adaptation was made a few years ago), The Graveyard Book (based on The Jungle Book, but the protagonist is brought up in a graveyard instead of a jungle, somewhat obviously) and a collaboration with Terry Pratchett called Good Omens, which I would sincerely advise everyone to read at some point because it is genuinely one of the funniest, warmest, scariest, most uplifting books I have ever read. Amongst various things, it's about prophecies and the apocalypse and the 11-year-old antichrist and witchfinders and the four horsemen of the apocalypse (on motorbikes now) and mostly focuses on the unlikely friendship between a fussy earth-bound angel who runs a bookshop and a sarcastic demon who "did not fall so much as saunter vaguely downwards" and has a tendency to hiss when agitated. And it's probably getting a four-part television adaptation soon, so there is a god. One last Neil Gaiman plug, I swear: he also collaborated with the Jim Henson Company to make a film called MirrorMask, intended as a kind of spiritual successor to 80s cult classic Labyrinth (yes, the film with David Bowie's crotch in it) and I think it succeeds admirably. Again, very English (it stars Stephanie Leonidas, Rob Brydon and Gina McKee) but very strange, absolutely beautiful design and some very unnerving moments.

Basically, what I'm trying to get across here about Nail Gaiman (apart from the, by now obvious, fact that he's awesome) is that he's basically the perfect person to write for Doctor Who - with the proviso that he does standalone episodes only. Because it was very...well, Neil Gaiman-y. I don't what it is but everything that man touches is marked with his own peculiar Writing Pollen. This is by no means a criticism - Gaiman has, quite simply, one of the best imaginations writing today and it's an imagination that goes into strange and dark corners of the world. If we could have Gaiman to write all the one-off adventures and Moffat to keep the series storylines on track, I would be a happy woman. Perhaps what made it feel so different was the warmth and heart of the episode - something which, sadly, Moffat episodes (for all their fantastic twists and turns and pitch perfect one-liners) seem to lack occasionally. I always feel, when reading Gaiman, that no matter what corner of time and space he's occupying at that moment, he's still this boy who grew up in Croydon (no, seriously) and read comics.

Sorry. I'll talk about Doctor Who now. And I really have to talk about Suranne Jones' Idris/TARDIS first, don't I? A tough act to follow for any future guest stars (again, Hugh Bonneville, take note), sort of Queenie from Blackadder II crossed with Helena Bonham Carter (which I think was actually the character briefing for the Red Queen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film, but of that monumental disappointment, We Do Not Speak). To give the TARDIS human characterisation when she's always seemed to have a personality of sorts anyway could have been incredibly risky but I think Jones and Gaiman pulled it off with aplomb: capricious, naughty, haughty, vulnerable and very much in love with "her" Doctor. After all, the Doctor/TARDIS relationship predates every companion and the Smith/Jones (what is it with Doctor Who and Smiths and Joneses?) chemistry was excellent, a great reflection of this. I particularly liked the childlike joy and fear that seemed to infect the Doctor this episode; we don't often get to see him partnered with an entity even older and more complicated than he is and it seemed very appropriate that being able to converse with his time machine for the first time in 700 years would reduce him to a state of bright-eyed a-quiverment. Much like I was by this episode. The way the relationship switched from wariness to excitement to flirting to bickering to a display of extreme mutual appreciation and love was beautifully written and deftly executed and I salute all those involved. My favourite line was, of course, "Biting is excellent. It's like kissing, only there's a winner." Although all the references to calling the TARDIS "Sexy" were pretty - to borrow an internet neologism - for the win.

Essentially, this episode was a paean to everyone's favourite blue box. It's long been part of Whovian lore that the Doctor stole ("borrowed") the TARDIS and it's long been a favourite fan theory that the TARDIS takes the Doctor to trouble spots, rather than holiday resorts, no matter what he wants. We got closure and confirmation on both of these things and it was absolutely thrilling. I think part of it was that being told things about the Doctor is still a special treat. For a show called 'Doctor Who', we really don't get to know him all that well, a situation which is often exacerbated by the focus on the human companions because they're "us", they react how we would etc etc etc. I really loved the way the the focus was balanced in this episode, placing the Doctor right at the centre and focusing on his relationship with his past. Speaking of which, I'm willing to bet that throwaway line about 'The Corsair' being female in a few regenerations will have actually exploded a fair few internet message boards, blowing the lid off the "Will there ever be a female Doctor?" debate. My guess is that the answer is Yes, There Could Be But No, There Won't Be. I also love the literary referencing going on there: The Corsair was a poem by Byron, one of the clutch he wrote that crystallised the whole Byronic Hero thing, focusing on the adventures of a brooding rake rejected by society who went around bedding women dressed as men and men dressed women. The obvious conclusions to draw from this are that a) Gallifrey was very permissive society and b) Byron was a Time Lord.

But for all its grounding in Whovian mythology and Doctor/TARDIS shenanigans, the episode wouldn't have worked without the Ponds enduring a series of truly horrifying mind games in the bowels of the TARDIS. It was great to see Rory and Amy working on equal terms again, although they really, really must stop killing him off now. I'm sure it must be leading up to something bigger, although (as I've said in previous posts) I don't think it can be a permanent death for Rory because we just wouldn't believe it so...Amy dies? Perhaps in childbirth? RTD said he'd never kill off a companion but I wouldn't put it past Moffat. I think he forgets sometimes that he's writing a children's show. Anyway. Rory and Amy. I love that the TARDIS has a little crush on Rory, or possibly just completely different aesthetic standards ("Your chin is hilarious!") Plus Karen Gillan really dialled it up a notch this week in the acting stakes. No overblown shouting, no strident petulance, and some nice sobbing in those corridors. Actually, I just really liked the way Amy was written this week: in a position of fear and ignorance but still competent and trying to think her way out of the situation. That's how all companions should be. Including Rory. And he was. Nice.

The whole ending sequence, from Idris fading away to that great gag about the bunk-beds, was superb. "Hello, Doctor" has never sounded more heart-breaking. But we know all this. So let's just take a moment to think about that tasty little prophecy line, "The only water in the forest is the river." Of course, the question we're all asking ourselves is "river or River?" To which I would add, "forest or Forest of the Dead"? Forest of the Dead, being of course the library in which we first met River Song. Taken like this, it could be some kind of exhortation to the Doctor to trust River (and believe me, I would love it if River and the TARDIS were friends) but I actually sort of doubt it. I feel like it might be a red herring, much like the "He will knock four times" thing from Tennant's exit, where we all thought it was the Master and it was Wilf (well, it kind of was the Master so maybe that was more of a double bluff). I don't know though, the TARDIS said it was something he would "need" to know, so it could be way down the line and not to do with the series story arcs at all. Also just occurred to me if we're debating water sources here: River v. Pond? Some kind of choice? Ooh.

(Like a total idiot, it's also just struck me that if River is Amy's glow-y regenerating-y child, as per my mega-theory, then Rory is her dad, as I really don't think they'd introduce adultery into the show. It just puts that Rory/River conversation from The Impossible Astronaut into quite a nice, paternal light, that's all. Daw.)

All in all, I'd say that was a pretty flawless episode. Not quite as cinematic as we're used to but Doctor Who isn't cinema, it's bloody good TV. It was a tightly packed, beautifully designed, 45 minute feast of ideas and emotions and funny lines and it didn't need to tie into the series story arc to feel important. Satisfaction achieved. Next week looks like another 'too scary for the kids' week with something called The Gangers (off the top of my head but sourced from Wikipedia) and some creepy prosthetics. Goody. After this week, I'm expecting a natural drop in quality, something along the lines of the Silurians two-parter from last series (good but not great) but you never know, it could turn out to be a Human Nature/Family of Blood (way up there in my top five episodes). Either way, my faith in Doctor Who is restored. Neil Gaiman, please come back soon.

My Super Ex-Boyfriends

I've been watching a lot of superhero films lately. The context to this is that I'm also revising for Finals, the exams that determine what degree I get (except not really because I do English and you have to actively try to get less than a 2:1, so...yeah) and it does my heart good to indulge in a little escapism now and again.

Contrary to what you might expect of me given that this blog has thus far been largely dominated by Doctor Who, I never really read comics when I was a kid, or even watched Saturday morning cartoons. Okay, I read the Beano, but the Beano is great. And I watched The Simpsons but so did my whole family. In fact, the heroes of my formative years were the three greatest grubby little antiheroes of all time: Dennis the Menace, Bart Simpson and Just William. You can imagine how much I wanted a catapult and pea-shooter, but apparently those are Actually Quite Dangerous or some such thing. Factor in Woody from Toy Story (who I guess is kind of like a version of the first three but older and on the right side of the law) and I think the reason I was never really into superheroes as a kid is because I already had enough role models (of sorts). Besides, superheroes were for boys. Superman and Batman and Spiderman were good for nothing but adorning the lunchboxes of all those icky males I condescended to interact with occasionally.

I think it's also the fact that superheroes were supposed to do good and fight crime and uphold ideals and that was kind of boring to me. Dennis, Bart and William were the cool kids that I was never really going to be because, despite running my mouth off at every opportunity and getting in more than a few playground scuffles, I basically cared too much about school and liked learning and shiny Well Done stickers. Those boys didn't care about authority and they let us know it. They were rebels and outsiders and, now I think about it, in many ways responsible for a series of crushes on fictional and historical characters that include, at last count, Edmund from King Lear, Robin Hood (in certain incarnations) (okay, the Disney fox but it's not weird, I swear), Byron, Han Solo and Prince Hal from the Henry IV plays. With the possible exception of Edmund, these are mostly snarky rebels living on the wrong side of the law but without any real malice to them. Bad boy with a heart of gold, you know the drill. Hey, even William Brown fell in love with the girl next door. Superheroes, on the other hand, beat up people much weaker than them and we were supposed to applaud them for it. I had little to say about these grown men parading around in Halloween costumes.

This all changed, of course, with the advent of Spiderman 2. I was just a bit too young for the first one, which came out in 2002, but I was 14 when the sequel hit our screens and ready to be converted. Admittedly, a great deal of the way was paved by the previous year's Pirates of the Caribbean but pirates, superheroes, it's all a rich tapestry. The point is, I started liking action flicks around the age of 14 - unlike lots of my friends, I didn't grow up on Star Wars and Indiana Jones because no-one showed them to me. I was the oldest child and my parents were probably reading me Greek myths or something. My new found love of thrills and spills was probably greatly aided by the kind of action movies that developed in the 2000s. The 90s saw an upsurge in gritty antiheroes, often with dark, tortured pasts, who didn't mind getting their hands dirty to get the job done - cf. all the tortured navel-gazing of Tim Burton's Batman films (the first two obviously, I'll get onto the other two monstrosities in a bit). I think the 2000s gave us a happy medium between that and the Superman/Disney black and white morality, as demonstrated by the 'Pirates' model: better CGI meant better, more thrilling, action sequences, which in turn ups the dialogue stakes because you need a whole raft of quips that are actually funny to stop the film being just one big firework. I'm not pretending Pirates of the Caribbean is great cinema but it (the first one anyway) entertained the hell out of me.

Let's get back to the point. We have me, 14, all hyped up and pleasantly surprised by POTC (seriously, I was forced into watching it at a sleepover and then bitched and moaned about it right up until Johnny Depp dives off that cliff to save Keira Knightley) and looking for another action fix. Cue Spiderman 2. Didn't see the first one, oh well, it's been referenced enough in pop culture by now, I'm sure I've seen all the important bits (by which I mean the upside-down kiss). I toddle along, check it out, and BAM. A new love is born. Suddenly, superhero films are great. I'd clearly been missing out. So what happened?

Well, two things, I suspect.

1) Comic book films had always been mainstream, but usually they were marketed towards kids and the dark underbelly of adult fans. (You know, the ones who dressed up to go to conventions and things. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I was socially inept enough when I was 14, there was no need to add fuel to the flames.) In the last decade or so, filmmakers have started making more of a conscious effort to present superhero films as something that could be enjoyed by the whole family - explosions for the kids, serious adult dilemmas for the parents. This developed to the point where the films weren't really for kids at all any more. Slap a 12A rating on it and you can get 'em in so you don't lose money but when the little brats either start whining because they don't understand why Batman keeps talking and shit instead of punching somebody, or crying because Heath Ledger's Joker is haunting their dreams like Freddy Krueger with a pencil, it's totally the parents' fault for letting them watch in the first place.

2) On a personal level, I think I just had to grow up a bit to appreciate that being the good guy could be just as interesting and cool as being the bad guy. It's odd that this happened in my mid-teens, when we're usually busy fetishising bad behaviour (usually in a very lame way - the number of girls I knew who proclaimed they'd "totally be Slytherin"...) but it sort of makes sense: I was a good girl, a bit of a social outsider and a sarcastic witch with far too many black and purple clothes. Morally good, outside the norm and prone to dressing up. That's pretty much what a superhero is.

The thing I do find strange is that it was Spiderman that got me into it. If you think about it, Spiderman is the least adult-friendly superhero. Spiderman is just kind of silly. He's called Spiderman. His costume is red and blue spandex. He doesn't even have a cape. His alter ego is squeaky-clean Peter Parker, the most stereotypical of high school science nerds lusting after the pretty popular girl from afar. I strongly suspect my adoration had something to do with the intense blue of Tobey Maguire's eyes, but 14-year-old me just wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be ok. Plus, he managed to convey that sense of wonderment that I think is/should be Spiderman's trademark - where Superman is born with his powers and Batman doesn't have them at all, Spiderman/Peter Parker never quite gets over the random gifting of these nigh-godlike abilities. And (sometimes) he really enjoys being a superhero. So the effects in the first film were ropey, to say the least, but the swinging through New York sequences in the second and third were fantastic and greatly enhanced by the joyous whooping and shrieking of the eponymous hero. If New York was my giant jungle gym, I'd certainly make some noise about it.

But in latter years, I have turned away from that particular franchise somewhat. On re-watching them, the films are far more plot-hole-ridden than I remember, with some truly terrible lines of dialogue and a lot more general silliness, a lot of which (I suspect) was unintentional. And while Tobey Maguire is very cute, he does pull some ridiculous faces. And for the life of me, I'll never understand how I failed to notice James Franco standing right next to him for the whole thing, brooding and snarling and having daddy issues. But maybe you just can't make a gritty film out of Spiderman. Maybe it's just too comic book-y. Well, we're getting a reboot soon, so we'll see.

Batman, on the other hand, has proved itself resoundingly adept at 'gritty', largely thanks to Christopher Nolan resurrecting Batman Begins from the ashes of the franchise caused by the car crash that was Batman Forever. Now there's a film that makes a mockery of the idea that adults can enjoy superhero films. But the epic fail of both Batman Forever (although, shamefacedly, I will admit to quite enjoying Jim Carrey's Riddler) and Batman and Robin has been well documented. Let other keyboards dwell on guilt and misery, etc. Nolan's films have been a resounding success, a triumphant example of a franchise that is both money-making and not totally stupid. I'm not going to say they're perfect movies but I really do like the things he did with the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy providing the Baby Blues this time around) and the Joker, plus Christian Bale's BatVoice has provided me with endless amusement while revising. Seriously, just imagine Batman is reading your notes to you. Bet they're memorable now.

Plus, Batman is different from all those other spandex-clad show-offs. He wasn't bitten by a spider or sent here from another planet. He just goes to the gym a lot and has a trust fund. He's one of us just, like, super buff. So is Iron Man, sort of, but he's also a jerk and not nearly conflicted enough which makes him very fun to watch but he'll never be my favourite. Though I don't think I've ever not enjoyed anything Robert Downey Junior was in, and that includes Ally McBeal. Fun fact: did you know RDJ was originally up for Duckie in Pretty in Pink and if he'd done it, Molly Ringwald's character probably would have ended up with him instead of Blandy McDreamBoy? I might have actually liked that movie. Plus, what the hell was her prom dress supposed to be? I get she was meant to be 'different' and 'kooky' but I don't think either of those things are synonymous with 'hideous'. Anyway.

So at the moment, Batman is the hero for me. Sadly, I don't fancy Christian Bale but I hear the third film's going to have Joseph Gordon Levitt in it, so there's hope yet. Spidey, you'll always have a special place in my heart (you never forget your first), but Batman just makes a better movie. By the way, if you're wondering why I haven't really talked about Superman, it's because Superman is very boring. Objectively. "Truth, justice and the American way"? I'm sorry, I fell asleep while you were posing front of those stars and stripes.

It's not just the wholesome, all-American farm boy thing either. Or even that I can't quite get over the phenomenal stupidity of everyone in that universe who doesn't realise that Clark Kent and Superman are identical (at least say you're cousins or something). It's the fact that he can do just about anything, unless there's kryptonite around. Gee, what do you think's going to feature in the plot this week? Ding ding ding, we have a winner, it's kryptonite. Put it like this: the ancient Greeks didn't write epics about the gods. They were gods. Everyone would saunter off on quests for the gorgon's head if they knew they could just smite her or something. Greek heroes had to be human, they had to struggle to perform their incredible feats. My favourite was Odysseus, who I think is kind of the Batman of the ancient world. No superhuman physical strength or the ability to fly or anything, just really fucking clever. (I've been trying to find other equivalents and while Spiderman is definitely Perseus - young, whiny, has ability to descend from high places - Superman could be either Achilles for the nigh-invulnerability and one inconvenient weakness or Hercules for the mad strength but both are way too human and angry and tortured.)

Plus, Batman and Spiderman kind of have metaphors going for them. Spiderman is clearly a metaphor for puberty: your body changes (waking up to find your bedsheets covered in white, sticky stuff, hair growing in strange places) and you become acquainted with a new set of grown-up problems (negotiating the work/life balance). Batman is...fear, I suppose, and how you can conquer it and use it against people, and taking charge of your destiny, and all that but it's a bit more nebulous. Superman is a metaphor for what, exactly? You can have the powers of a god but it doesn't mean you'll know how to dress well? I don't know.

Anyway, while I have to yet to see Thor (and boy, am I looking forward to that, as I would look forward to anything that combined the dubious directorial talents of Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth's not insubstantial abs and NORSE GODS), I continue to enjoy my superhero movies. The whole Marvel comics universe multi-hero films sequence coming out over the next few years? Yeah, bring it. Why have one hero when you can have Robert Downey Jnr, Mark Ruffalo (as the Hulk, WHAT?) and Samuel L Jackson all in one Avenger-y package? I kind of like the steps towards integrating the concept of superheros more 'plausibly' into our own universe, mainly because it won't work so long as Thor is popping down from Asgard for a cup of tea, and I fully expect the results to be hilarious. And, hey, there's only one Nolan Batman left to come, so you got to work with what you're given.

I'm going to back to my revision now. I'm reading Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur, which is basically a prototype comic book adventure crossed with a parody of Monty Python, crossed with the Carry On films, lurching wildly from high romance lists of who laid low who in various jousts to Lancelot getting shot in the "buttok" by the arrow of a lady hunter (now we complain about women and parallel parking, back then it was shooting straight). I'm not kidding.

And I will take very great pleasure in reading King Arthur's lines in a Batman voice.