Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 2 ("The Kingsroad")

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone."

I blogged the first episode of Game of Thrones on 18th September 2015 so... yeah. There won't be quite as long before episode three. Promise.

I'm still getting a handle on the setting; this is a fantasy world with only light fantasy elements- so far we've seen dragon eggs but dragons appear to be semi-mythical, and dire wolves seem not to be overtly supernatural. It's a gritty, realistic mediaeval world which is obviously going to focus on the power games surrounding the eponymous throne, and I've heard that this is based on both the Wars of the Roses and the Anarchy of the twelfth century. But Robert Baratheon is certainly no Henry VI; I'm not sure how strong a king he is but he appears laddish yet weighed down by kingship. I suspect he's not all that long for this world, given the apparent premise of the series.

Daenerys is interesting in the sense that she's getting a lot of screen time and her situation- marital rape in the context of semi-forced marriage- is horrific and surely would not be depicted so prominently if she were not eventually to end up powerful and fortunate in spite of it. Her brother claims Robert's throne. Hmm.

Meanwhile, Robert's only son Joffrey is a right little sod, as his behaviour towards Arya and her poor friend illustrates. Sansa is happy enough to marry him, but then she'll be queen. She's so motivated towards this that she's ready to lie under oath about her sister. But I suppose that being queen- a glorified womb- is the best a woman can hope for in this society. Certainly Arya's tomboyish ways are a fascinating way to explore the theme of what we can't really call feminism.

And then there's Tyrion. He's still a sot and a shagger, but there's a more intellectual side, too; he may be a semi-outcast just because he's a dwarf but, crude and direct though he is, he isn't shallow. And his relationship with the literal bastard Jon Snow (not yet a Channel 4 newsreader) is interesting. Jon, a very naive bastard, is off to devote his entire life to guarding the northern walls from whatever lies beyond, which none of his legitimately born relatives would presumably stoop to. Ned is proud but, when he says That "When we next meet, I'll tell you about your mother" I'm left suspecting that, one way or another, they won't ever meet again. Let's see if I'm right.

Meanwhile Catelyn Stark is keeping watch over the thankfully not-dead Bran but, after being attacked, she's off to tell her husband about her suspicions regarding the Lannisters. And, while she's away, Bran wakes- and he knows too much. Why do I get the feeling that the immediate future of the Stark family is not set to be a happy one?

Absolutely superb telly, this.

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Winter is Coming")

"Do the dead frighten you?"

Doctor Who starts again tomorrow. Yay! And I'm blogging so many other series at the moment, some at an embarrassingly slow pace- Sherlock, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Marvel's Agent Carter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Grimm, the Quatermass serials, Daredevil, and Penny Dreadful. There's nothing else for it: I'm going to have to start blogging another long-running series.

A few words before we start: you know that feeling of missing out on an important piece of popular culture by not being there at the start? And then, year by year, the season's roll along and there are more and more episodes to catch up on. And yet... how can I call myself a geek if I don't at least make an effort with Game of Thrones? Breaking Bad can wait. Especially as the first episode features a beheading, incestuous sex and a dwarf receiving a blow job.

I start out almost completely unspoiled; I'm trying to read the novels at the same pace to see how things diverge, but at this point I know nothing except the "red wedding", a massacre of unknown characters at someone's nuptials which I know will occur at some point. I also know that it's loosely based on the Wars of the Roses and will be looking for signs of this. Other than that I know nothing. So let's start.

It's an HBO show, so we can expect quality, and it certainly looks awesome. The cast is impressive, too: there are only so many tags at the bottom there and I've not been able to include the likes of Roger Allam or Donald Sumpter.

We are in the land of Westeros, ruled by a King Robert I. This land looks like mediaeval Europe and peoples' names are almost, but not quite, English. We begin in the northernmost province of Winterfell, ruled over by Lord Eddard Stark, played by Sean Bean in his native Yorkshire accent. It's a nice conceit, done consistently, to have the "southern" characters speak RP while the northerners speak in such a way as to make it very clear that this planet has a North.

We're clearly meant to feel that ominous tidings are afoot. Demonic and undead creatures are seen at the northern edge of the world, while Eddard Stark keeps banging on about the fact that "Winter is coming" which, I suspect, is meant to be both literal and metaphorical.

Plotting and skulduggery is rife at court, with the king's "hand" having recently been murdered, probably by Queen Cersei's brothers, Jaime Lannister and Teyin Lannister who is, incidentally, a dwarf (a short human, not the bearded, digging kind), and received said blow job. The king (and entourage) this visits Eddard to offer him the position, which he eventually accepts in the full knowledge that he is headed into a pit of vipers. 

He certainly has: Eddard's younger son Bran, seeing Cersei and Jaime, who are twins, shagging each other, is suddenly defenestrated to death, which is not a phrase I've ever had previous cause to use.

Meanwhile, across the sea, Luke's Prince Viseys, who also claims the throne. He's a thoroughgoing bastard, and we are most certainly meant to think so: his first act in the programme is to force his sister to marry a brutal and lecherous warlord.

This is pretty faithful to the novel, looks good and is very fast moving. I'll need a while to get to know the characters but this is a promising start.

Doctor Who: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone

The Time of Angels



“It’s the 51st century. The Church has moved on.”

Now that’s more like it. Bloody hell.

River Song, in what I’m sure is going to develop into a long-running tradition, gets quite an entrance. Having literally stunned Mike Skinner off of The Streets with some hallucinogenic lipstick, she casually leaves a message in Old High Galifreyan for the Doctor to find twelve thousand years later, and then arranges to for him to be her getaway driver, all in the coolest way possible. All whilst wearing the sort of heels that make me quite pleased to have been born with a y chromosome. Very cool indeed.

The River / Doctor dynamic is great, and this time she’s found entirely new things about the way he flies the TARDIS to annoy him with. Then there’s the whole “spoilers” angle, with which she can annoy him so more. And Matt Smith does annoyed so well. Better still, Amy is added to the mix, teasing him about “’er indoors”. The three of them together are great.

So, we have Amy’s first alien planet, and somewhere on it there are Weeping Angels which actually kill people. We also have a bishop, leading a squad of fighting clerics. Here’s hoping they have Cure Light Wounds memorised. Pity that Turn to Stone isn’t a clerical spell. That was an in-joke for those of us who have played D&D. Thought I’d better point that out for the benefit of the other 100% of you, if I may semi-steal a remark from the Moff himself to the great Neil Gaiman.

We get an excellent spin on an old Moffat meme as some footage of a Weeping Angel turns out to be more than just footage. The scenes with Amy trapped alone with the footage are terrifying, especially as we keep cutting to the Doctor reciting some wonderfully evocative quotes from a book which underline exactly how much trouble Amy is in. This is proper scary. Fortunately, Amy is proper clever.

There are brilliant concepts scattered around like confetti- the gravity globe (which will become important later), the Maze of the Dead- and we get our first inkling of some dark secrets of River’s. Only when they’re deep into the cave do we realise that every single statue is a Weeping Angel. Oh, and Amy is turning to stone. This is even scarier than the earlier scary bit. Moffat is very good at scary, I’ll give him that. Sod it, he’s very good at pretty much everything.

The friction between the Doctor and the clerics and his interaction with Bob before and after his death are great moments. And this adds power to the Miss Evangelista-like use of Bob’s voice, and forelock-tugging personality, as the mouthpiece of the Angels.

This whole thing was planned by the Angel on board the Byzantium, in fact: it crashed the ship to wake up a massive army of Angels. An army which is surrounding the Doctor and co, and draining the energy from their torches. That’s what I call a proper cliffhanger.




Flesh and Stone



“A forest in a bottle in a spaceship in a maze. Have I impressed you yet, Amy Pond?”

If there’s one thing I love more than a proper cliffhanger, it’s a proper resolution. And this is one of the most proper resolutions ever. It doesn’t cheat; it uses elements which were subtly hinted to us earlier; I for one never guessed how they’d get out of that one. Nice one, Moffatt. Again. This sort of thing with shifting gravity on a spaceship is exactly the sort of thing that space opera sci fi really should be doing all the time.

We have intrigue amongst the danger as the bishop threatens to tell the Doctor who River really is, but much more than that is to come. It’s the crack in the wall again, and the arc plot is very much back in play in only the fifth episode of the season. New showrunner, new rules.

Of course, this being Moffat, we get scary, too. Amy’s counting down to her doom, which the Angels are doing purely to terrify her, for “fun”, is but a prelude to the ordeal she’s got coming. She has to spend most of the episode with her eyes closed, surrounded by really scary things. She has to walk through the Angels as though she can see. But she can’t, so we even see them start to move.

But, of course, the crack is a much greater threat than the Angels, whose plans for harnessing its power suddenly don’t seem so clever. The Doctor now realises the potential of a crack that can rewrite time, and it’s been happening around him; a duck pond with no ducks, Amy not remembering the Daleks and, best of all, “The Cyberking. A giant Cyberman walks over all of Victorian London, and no one even remembers.” Ha!

There’s coolness with the characters too, though. This new Doctor can be wonderfully Doctorish (I use tautologies now. Tautologies are cool.), with his seat of the pants spontaneity and his “Respect the thing!” And then there’s that scene with Amy and a jacketed Doctor, which just might possibly be revealed to have been frightfully clever. But there are plenty of revelations for now; the bishop is River’s probation officer. The crack was caused by an explosion on what we find out is the date of Amy’s wedding, 26/06/2010.

The bishop gets a fantastic, dignified death, perfectly scripted and performed, and gets a wonderful last line. He also gets to die with exactly the sort of cryptic revelation I hope to have ready for the time when I duly snuff it: “She killed a man. A good man. A hero to many.” But he has a reason to be satisfied with his death in a way the other clerics don’t. For those who believe in an afterlife, the thought of being erased from history and being irrevocably dead must be truly terrifying, and he at least is spared that thought.

The resolution, with the number of Angels present being just enough to seal the crack, is a little neat. But I think it’s earned. This is a fantastic two-parter. 5/5.

But we’re not done yet. There’s a fascinating conversation between the Doctor and a handcuffed River. “The Pandorica?” scoffs the Doctor, on being told they’ll meet again when it opens. “That’s a fairy tale!” “Oh, Doctor,” River replies. “Aren’t we all?” For a subtext, this fairy tale stuff is being foregrounded rather a lot. Could we eventually find out there’s more to it than we assume?

And yes, there’s the scene in which Amy is quite determined to get inside the Doctor’s pants. Ooh. Controversial. Dare I wade in? Well… I think this is perfectly fine. It arises naturally from the characters and their heightened recent circumstances. Think back to the extreme terror Amy’s being put through, keeping her eyes shut right until just before they say goodbye to River. Plus, women are allowed to be actively sexual, y’know. Yes, she’s getting married soon, and to have actually done it in those circumstances would have been wrong, but she doesn’t. And she clearly isn’t thinking anything close to normally after her last few hours. This is in character and, while Amy is wrong to do what she does, she can legitimately plead temporary insanity, I think. And the consequences (Rory joining them on the TARDIS) are quite proportionate, I think.

Oh, and speaking of consequences, I’ve just seen the second new scene on the DVD. Top stuff!