Andor: One Way Out

 "I burn my decency for someone else's future..."

This is an extraordinary episode of television. Obviously the focus is on the priso escape, a heost in reverse, full of drama and tension. But, more than that, it's about the intense and extraordinary performance of Andy Serkis, whose performance deserves recognition come award season, as Kino Roy, a man of such intense and nuanced character who saves everyone yet must be left behind because he cannot swim. It's that good. That alone is enough to elevate this episode to the sublime.

And then we get Luthen, coordinating the Rebellion, making harsh decisions, choosing to let the empire kill fifty men rather than reveal the existence of a spy. And his speech, when challenged by the spy, is a thing of art, expressing the moral ambiguities which one must face when destroying fascism.

Thois is an upbeat episode. A moment of triumph, as five thousand men escape. Yet the existential horror of tyranny remains. The Empire is not some movie serial space tyranny. It is Lukashenko. It is Khamenei. It is Trump. It is Crown Prince Mohammed. It is Putin. As ever in Andor.

Andor: Nobody's Listening

 "I can't help him. I can't help anyone."

Andor continues to be the best television exploration of totalitarianism. Where to start? With Dedra being menacingly evil while having Bix tortured, with her being scarily efficient at uncovering everything? With Mon Mothma be caught with her funding rebel activities, and by the way Vel is her cousin? 

All these things emphasise the sheer intensity of Imperial oppression. Yet there are those who benefit. Dedra, despite the tightrope she walks. Syril Kane, who seems to be obsessed with her as much as his own ambition. That's a fascinating and creepy dynamic.

But the focus is on that prison, The horror of it, the hopelessness of escape. Yet, slowly, even Andy Serkis' prisoner supervisor starts to see the hopelessness as an old man, forty shifts from release, has a stroke and is euthanised. And it's realised that no one ever leaves; released prisoners are simply reassigned. There are only life sentences. That's evil.

And even the supervisor turns against them.

This is bleak, powerful stuff.

Andor: Narkina 5

 "You think the Empire stops to catch its breath?"

The episode begins like the Space Fall episode of Blake's 7 as a pseudonymous Andor and others are transported to a  prison planet, but soon takesa darker turn as we are forced to see the shher awful grind of life in an Imperial factory prison.

Yet the prison works also as metaphor for totalitarianism under Empire, with all civil liberties and natural justces eroding into utter tyranny. Yet, like a boiled frog, much of the populace, particularly privileged senators on Coruscant who, unlike a Mon Mothma desperately trying to hide her illicit funds, come out with statements like "If you're doing Nothing wrong, what is there to fear?" 

Yet all prison sentences are doubled. Arrests and imprisonment are, as we've seen, arbitrary. One is reminded of the vile, disgusting, tyrannical leaders of Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Belarus, Saudi Arabia and others. Palpatine is no different, but there is hope despite the oppression. As Luthen says, tyranny begets rebellion. And I suspect we're seeing that in the person of Kassian. Even Bix is arrested...

Absolutely first class.

Andor: Reckoning

 "What have you done?"

The series is hotting up now, with this episode beting the finest so far. Syril Karn, Sergeant Mosk and their other soldiers arrive on the planet, and Cassian's future looks bleak as his home is ransacked, his adoptive family threatened, and poor Bix loses her lover, despite realising earlier that it was Timm who sold out Andor.

The episode is crammed with both tension and action. We can almost smell Andor's desperation. Meanwhile, the dynamic between Mosk- the person really in charge- and Karn, a young officer deeply out of his depth and ultimately humiliated, is extremely well done.

 So is the meeting between Kassian and the mysterious yet charismatic Luthen- Stellan Skarsgard is superb- as it becomes cleare that Luthen wants not merely Andor's goods but Andor himself; his talents for sneaking about have not gone unrecognised.

It's a;so a nice touch, in the flashback scenes, to see how Cassian came to be adopted by the Andors, and their departure by starship is paralleled in the present day.

This, I suspect, is where the prologue ends...

Andor: That Would Be Me

 "I messed up..."

I have to confess that, while this is an improvement, I'm still not really feeling this series. That's not to say there isn't a lot to like about it, of course. The whole episode consists of deepening paranoia as Kassian comes under suspicion and the net tightens and tightens. Suddenly, Kassian is in an awful lot of danger, and at this point he's still young and inexperienced.

There's more backstory; we learn that Kenarii is a polluted and abandoned world, and there are more childhood flashbacks. The mined out terracing vista is an awesome bit of CGI.

Then there's the characterisation. Andor and his mother. Lovers Bix and Tim casually lying to each other and failing to communicate. And Deputy Chief Inspector Kyle Soller falling deeper into the rabbit hole as a naive young officer who, like many a dim young officer, finds a grizzled old sergeant to manipulate him. The awkwardly bad speevh scene is brilliantly acted.

There's real potential here. But I'm waiting for it to really take off.

Andor: Kassa

 "This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure."

Hmm. This isn't bad telly. It's perfectrly fine. But so far that's all it is. Perfectly decent but no more than that.

I suppose Cassian Andor was always going to be a harder sell than Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi or even the Mandalorian- a new character but a familiar look. These shows harked back to classic Star Wars; Andor appeared only once in Rogue One. Like many others, I've seen the original trilogy many times over the decades, but Rogue One only once. So Andor is a perfectly decent character, but he doesn't have the resonance.

Also, while this is clearly set in the lived-in future of Star Wars, with the tech and general look being unmistakeable... but there are far fewer Easter eggs than previous series on Disney Plus, and all the planets are new. No more Tattooine!

The story is engaging enough, and it's good that we aren't spoon fed either what Kassian is doing or what happened with him and his missing sister as children. It's a nice touch that, so far, the Imperial forces are a distant threat, the immediate problem being highly militarised corporate security.

It's all set-up, of course, but this is nothing special so far. But this is but the first episode...

Brexit: The Uncivil War

“Referendums are quite simply the worst way to decide anything. They’re divisive. They pretend complex choices are simple binaries- red or blue, black or white.”

It’s interesting watching this so soon after the National Theatre production of another James Graham play, This House; the parallels are striking, from the focus on back room operators rather than big political names to the introduction of each character as either "Remain" or "Leave", paralleling the uses of constituencies in This House. And, of course, the script is superb- human, philosophical, witty and awfully clever in how it presents the Brexit referendum as a coherent narrative.

Benedict Cumberbatch is superb as Dominic Cummings, unconvincing Mackem accent notwithstanding; this Leicestershire lad is married to a Geordie and knows these things. Cummings is, of course, much more well known today as Boris' puppet master and devotee of the driving-based eye test. This is a fascinating character study of a highly intelligent and capable man and a campaigning genius- I like how his clear campaigning methods are juxtaposed with those of the useless Remain campaign- whose sheer talent in this area should not be mistaken for a coherent or clever political philosophy. We are already seeing how his campaigning talents do not transfer to governing. Yet there's no denying his talents in the campaigning arena, especially against the uselessness of his opponents, unthinkingly rolling out the Clinton '92 "economy, stupid" campaign after a quarter of a century and not for once presenting Brexit as the massive surrender of sovereignty that it is, or speaking to those who have been forgotten by such campaigners.

We see both Cummings' arrogance and his unlikely charisma as well as, interestingly, as much of a clash between the two Leave campaigns as between the two opposing sides. And the script does not let Cummings off the hook for his "dead cat" methods of lying, nor for either the cynicism of letting Farage and his rabble of not-racist-buts talk about immigration, nor for his own mendacity about seventy million Turks. And yet the use of Bill Cash and Bernard Jenkin as foils allow even a Remainer like me to enjoy Cumming's effortless batting off of an attempted coup. One would think I would find this depressing, given the awfulness of its subject matter. It's a real credit to the script and to Cumberbatch that I don't.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: Arabella

"I merely asked questions. Surely that is the prerogative of any pupil?"

This is the episode where all turns dark. Strange, up till now both a member of the landed gentry and of the Establishment, hob-nobbing with cabinet ministers and the future Duke of Wellington, has his fall. He is widowed (sort of), disgraced (sort of), imprisoned and well on the way to madness. It is worth asking why Susanna Clarke punishes the character so. Simple narrative reasons? Hubris? Or are there deeper themes at work?

Strange's devastation at the loss of his wife is total. The current breast with his conventional brother-in-law- an old-fashioned country parson who still wears a wig in the late 1810s- is instructive. Strange, at first, seems to be the more together of the two but, while Henry goes through deep mourning and thus finds acceptance, Strange remains obsessed with the resurrection of his wife through magic, and this is his apparent undoing. There is much in this to support the theory that Strange represents the Romantic movement as opposed to the old-fashioned values of the Enlightenment, empiricist philosophy and high Whiggery which can be attributed to Norrell, at least superficially.

But is this too easy a conclusion? Yes, Strange has his archetypal fall, like Prometheus and any number of flawed tragic heroes. But he is an awkward fit with the tragic model, always retaining something of the manner of the unflappable fop, a sort of Sir Percy Blakeney of wizardry. I'll admit it's been almost a decade since I read Susanna Clarke's excellent novel, but both Peter Harness' script and Bertie Carvel's increasingly sublime performance seem to pointedly resist any suggestion of the conventional tragedy. There is also the fact that, as with Lady Pole, we are looking at a tragedy straight out of the darkness of pre-Grimm fairy tales. Perhaps the point is simply that life is capriciously harsh (making faeries a good metaphor) and we must be stoic. But we shal see how my views evolve.

Otherwise, the episode looks sublime, as always, courtesy of Toby Haynes. Bertie Caevel is extraordinary now he is suddenly given more demanding material, fully justifying his recent promotion to the A list of television actors. Both of the two female characters (Arabella and Lady Pole) in this very male world have now  been stripped of all agency by masculine design, quite literally. And we have a failed but very interesting attempt by Strange to reach agreement with Norrell which is stifled by the slimy Lascelles. Increasingly, it is Notrell's view of magic which holds sway in England and, increasingly, Strange is opposed to his Augustan Age reason and neatness. 

Oh, and there's a very interesting meeting between Strange and Childermass in which Norrell's manservant shows just how aware and able he is: potentially as great as either of the two magicians, he is hobbled by his social class. 

We end, though, with Strange at a seemingly low ebb, seeking faeries and madness. Once again this is a splendid piece of telly, written and shot to avoid the obvious readings and make the viewer think. Two episodes left...

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: All the Mirrors of the World

A guest post once again from MrVortexOfDoom, whose YouTube us most definitely worth a look for those of us who like to see excellent reconstructions of '60s Doctor Who. We will be splitting Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell between us. So, without further ado...

Jealousy Shines Through

Episode 4: All the Mirrors Of The World – 

an alternative review by MrVortexOfDOOM.

“You must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way”

Storytelling 101 states that, in any adaptation, screenplay or script, your start should be strong and your ending should be sharp and clean, possibly one that not many people expect. But they never say much about the middles. They are the great unknown of fiction and storytelling. So, if, in my mind, you get all the threads to meet up with not much casualty of plot, you are doing pretty well.

Episode Four is the midpoint, the point where the show is treading water, ready for its explosive last episodes. Or that’s how it should be. However, by a very clever sleight of hand (worthy of Vinculus himself), the series merges three key elements (which normally could bog down the script) into a dynamic sequence propelling you into the second half. From Gatcombe and Tantony (the Nottinghamshire brewers) to the King's Roads and beyond to Drawlight's unveiling is a fantastic sequence which must have been a nightmare to edit being as it is a mix of little-glimpsed sequences, episode parts, asides and nuances.

Plus, the episode has to introduce the major theme of madness in magic by the back door while keeping all the existing strands alive. Strange's trip through the Kings Roads for the first time. Lady Pole being sent to Segundus & Honeyfoot's Starecross (which I believe is referred to as the madhouse/asylum/Bedlam for the first time). Drawlight and Lascelles as Norrell's Jekyll and Hyde continuing their campaign of spite and manipulation. Plus the massive revelations with George the Third, which, here, is edited down to the bare bones, but still manages to keep some of its menace. 

In the promo pictures before the series aired, the bloody Childermass image at the location of the Hanged Man had a mirror instead of a face. And the country scene on the inside of the piano looked exactly like one of the bridges on the King's Roads between our land and the land of Faerie. It is true that you learn something every time you watch.

The series also continues to reward you with the entrancing mix of humour and practical drama. The practical natural aspects of the summoning spell. Colquhoun Grant being hilariously professional in the background while Jonathan and Arabella are having their domestic. The reference to the Cinques Dragownes (the magical court) which takes up a hefty chapter of the book.

And the acting gongs which this week go for me to Edward Hogg & Brian Pettifer as Segundus and Honeyfoot as Starecross gets its dynamite first client. Love John all serious, dressed up in his evil doctor's white coat. 

.

The picture of John Uskglass in the King's palace manages to be spooky, prescient and yet a precise summary of the last three episodes all at once. You feel that only a superior natural magician of high standing and power could perform the miracles that we have so far seen. But with the frosting of the mirrors, the boundaries between the worlds are cracking – and nothing will be the same again.

VoD 2015

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: The Education of a Magician

"Can a magician kill a man by magic?"

"I suppose a magician might. But a gentleman never could."

And on we go. More creative direction from Toby Haynes, more faithful adaptation of the novel by Peter Harness and more top notch villainy from Marc Warren. This continues to be a superb piece of television fantasy for all the reasons mentioned previously. And now we're getting to the really good bits. Jonathan Strange's adventures in the Peninsular War were always my favourite part of the novel, and they're just as extraordinary here.

Norrell, back at home, is rather passive, but malevolently so. He intercepts the letters between Mr and Mrs Strange lest he lose control of information, and he callously informs Mrs Pole of her awful fate, and the fact that he will not help her, and sends Childermass to destroy her rather nice tapestry. She is collateral damage in the cause of "respectability". Yet Norrell does not come across as evil, merely obsessive and addicted to missing the point, a bit like a bad boss.

Strange, meanwhile, is slowly learning, in Portugal, to rely less on books and structure and more on gut instinct, as far from Norrell as a magician can get; order versus chaos. (And it's interesting to think of the Gentleman in those terms, is it not? Chaos seems to often equal faerie, hence Norrell's dislike). One knows instinctively that Norrell would not approve of his raising the dead. Wellington (a superb character) cares not; to him, "Merlin" may as well just be a military engineer, a problem solver at his disposal.

But the episode's most powerful scene belongs to Stephen Black, a character thus far as marginalised on the narrative as he is I the narrative, as the Gentleman shows his horrific birth among the chains and disease and death of a slave ship, reinforced by the simple question "What was the name your mother gave you?" Much as the Gentleman may dangle the prospect of kingship at Stephen, we know (as the Gentleman seemingly does not) that this could surely never happen.

The end of the episode- Childermass takes the bullet as Lady Pole attempts to assassinate Norrell- is shocking. But not as shocking as the scenes in the slave ship. It is clear that the novel, like the series, is not just a superlative Gaimanesque fantasy, but has things to say about the world. And it's bloody brilliantly, too.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: How Is Lady Pole?

Something different today: a guest post from MrVortexOfDoom, whose YouTube channel you would be wise to have a look at, particularly if you happen to be partial to a bit of Doctor Who.

He and I will be alternating episodes of this splendid serial, and then going head to head for the finale.

That's the compere bit over with; let me hand you over to MrVortexOfDoom...

“I see no one. Or rather, I see roomfuls of people – and not a Christian amongst them”

What really annoys me about peoples’ appreciation of British telly is the fact that we in Britain can't recognise the fantastic and clever product being made in our backyard – while Americans lap quality like this up. Of course, our friends in the US regularly have at least a dozen hours of superb product to digest per week – while all we seem to want is more reality nonsense and documentaries about cats. 

Episode two of “The TV fantasy of 2015” (according to Rolling Stone .com , don’t’cha know) deals this out in spades. Having just finished rereading the fantastic novel by Susanna Clarke, you realise several things. 

1. Somehow, the BBC has managed to get the film rights back from New Line Cinema after the film giant collapsed – that’s why the adaption has taken 10 years to get to us. 

2. How much of an epic struggle it has been to get the monster 782 pages down to a workable mini-series.

And:  3. How much of a challenge it is to pack the iconic scenes into each episode. You read the chapter on the French discovering the rainships & the epic Sandhorses sequence and you think “well, I’m never going to see THAT on screen”. And then, they only go and show it. A brilliant &  breath-taking achievement.

However, what really is striking me about this is the attention to detail, taken faithfully from the novel. Writer Peter Harness could easily have chosen to cut the references to antiquarian times and antiquarian books of magic in favour of seven episodes of CGI and effects. But instead, in a bold move that’s not pleasing everyone, you really feel that the past history of magic is oozing through every minute. I cheered at every namecheck of days long gone – Sutton-Grove, Ormskirk, Mary Absalom, Ralph Stokesey, Lanchesters’ History Of Birds (and a wonderful set-up with Revelations Of Thirty-Six Worlds – which has a great pay-off later (I hope)).

And as well as all that, the episode continues to lay further intriguing questions at your feet. The constant cawing of ravens through the soundtrack. The influence of Fairie and the real world gradually being intertwined (Segundus & Stranges’ shared dream and Stephen's mysterious extra servants bell). The very fact that Segundus can sense magic being performed (store that in your mind palace for later). And a second lovely little set-up with the St Marks Square, Venice paintings. 

Of course, you could just discount all that and go goggle-eyed about how FANTASTIC Lost-Hope looks. But that would be a disservice to the source material and the sheer effort put in to what was considered in many areas an unfilmable novel. 

Enzo Cilenti as Childermass continues to rule every scene he’s in, looking moody in the background (it’s a fun game to spot just how much he’s taking in and observing). However, top billing for episode 2 in my eyes must go to Alice Englert and Bertie Carvel. Englert's Lady Pole starts to unravel badly with all the “fairy stories” taken directly from the text. And Strange himself is starting to believe just how far he can go in the magical world – with just one person standing in his way. 

And here’s a top piece of trivia for regular llama stranglers. Alice Englert's mother? Of all people, Jane Campion !! (Oscar-winning director of The Piano, In the Cut and the Top Of The Lake miniseries). If that juicy morsel doesn’t get you looking forward to episode 3, I don’t know what will.

VoD 2015  

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: The Friends of English Magic

"All magicians lie, that one more than most..."

I've been looking forward to this dries for ages; I loved the novel. Susanna Clark really has written a wonderful work of fiction, a Regency magical fantasy that wonderfully fuses the world of Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian with that of Neil Gaiman, building a wonderfully compelling world and peopling it with fascinating individuals. Go and read it now.

I had high hopes, therefore, of this series, and so far (I'm actually three episodes in) my hopes have been entirely full. It's a largely faithful adaptation by Peter Harmess, with a little necessary structural jiggery pokers so that Jonathan Strange can be involved early on, made visually sumptuous by the ever-creative Toby Haynes, one of the best directors currently working in British telly. But s large part of its triumph lies in the wise decision to leave so much of the novel unchanged to the point that I frequently findyself recognising pieces of dialogue.

Bertie Carvel, fresh from playing Nick Clegg in Coalition, is a triumph as the charismatic and chaotic Strange, while Eddie Marsan slightly underwhelms as the sour and miserly Norrell, although I'm aware that others have praised his performance. Still, I must also praise Paul Kaye for a splendidly mad Vinculus (but is he an uncomfortable Jewish Fagin stereotype or am I overthinking things?)and Marc Warren, whose performance as the sinister Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair is magnificent. Also impressive, albeit in the smallish part of Drawlight,is Vincent Franklin, whose performance in Cucumber should rightfully elevate him to leading man status.

It's early days yet, and this episode is, as always for first episodes, set-up. But it does a good job of achieving said set-up, nicely establishing Jonathan Strange as someone expected (not least by his own father) to end up as a rich, useless dilettante but who ends up pursuing magic to impress his belle, Arabella. Norrell's miserable and awkward nature is established, as well as his Faustian pact with the Gentleman. It's clear that we have a Roundhead magician and a budding Cavalier one. I'm also impressed with Childermass, at this stage far more interesting than his employer.

So far so excellent, but let's see how it goes...

Sherlock: The Reichenbach Fall

“Don’t be dead. Will you do that just for me?”

OK, I’ll say it straight up: THIS POST IS RIDDLED WITH SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE EPISODE THEN LOOK AWAY NOW. SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT.

Right, now that the formalities have been dispensed with… that was excellent telly. Superb, in fact. Steve Thompson has come good at last. Even so, it wasn’t quite as good as either of the Steven Moffat scripts (it lacked the spark and wasn’t quite as clever), or as good as Mark Gatiss’ The Great Game (the cleverest of them all). That’s to praise with faint damn, of course, but Thompson is no Steven Moffat. Similarly, we Doctor Who fans know all too well that Toby Haynes is a first rate director (I bet the Nina Simone stuff was played back during recording. Nice.), and he's done a first rate job here. He’s no Paul McGuigan, though. Then again, who is? Actually, let’s not allow the fact that other episodes of this superlative series are even better distract us from how bloody good this is.

The framing device, with the first scene being John telling us that Sherlock is dead and the story then unfolding in flashback, is utterly predictable, but that’s the joy of it. And yes, even the fact that it’s undercut in the final scene by a blatantly not-dead Sherlock is predictable. But again, that’s the joy of it. The cleverness is in the little things and the characterisation.

A lot of stuff pays off here, from Donovan’s suspicions about Holmes to Holmes’ relationship with the lovely Molly; at last he finally says something nice to her, and a bloody good thing too! I just want to hug her whenever she’s on screen. I suspect she had a lot to do with how Sherlock faked his death, although there’s quite a lot to be explained. There was a body! It was buried! And yet today we find out that a new series is on the way. Yay!

Both Cumberbatch and Freeman are extraordinary here, giving us a much wider emotional range than they’ve previously been called upon to show. But it’s Andrew Scott who’s the revelation here, managing to square the circle of being suitably and terrifyingly psychopathic without crossing the line into pantomime villain territory. This is Moriarty as the Joker, and it works. He’s a very disturbed individual, with a death wish because he’s “bored”. He defeats Sherlock, yet he’s the one who is, seemingly, genuinely dead. His own life means less to him than the silly little game he's playing. He’s clever enough to virtually warp reality itself, creating a world in which Sherlock is a fraud, but what does it bring him in the end?

Interestingly, this is an episode in which all the clever people fail. The fall of Sherlock, the apparent death of Moriarty and the accidental betrayal of his brother by Sherlock can perhaps be set against the humanity of John and, arguably, Molly, who finally gets at least some appreciation from the man she loves. Even Donovan and the journalist (it’s great to see Katharine Parkinson, but even better to see the tabloids getting skewered)) are arguably portrayed as too clever for their own good. This is the triumph of the ordinary. Appropriate; this episode is clever but, compared to other episodes, not too clever. But it certainly has heart.

Still, I thought last series ended in a big cliffhanger… how will they get out of this one? I suspect empty houses may be involved somehow…

Doctor Who: Day of the Moon

“We are not fighting an alien invasion. We’re leading a revolution.”

I’ve just looked at my notes and we’re looking at three and a half pages. This is going to be epic.

Steven Moffat does what RTD did in Last of the Time Lords, having a considerable amount of time (three months in this case) pass. It’s now July 1969, the month of the moon landing, and all three of our regulars are hunted fugitives whose time is running out. A bearded Doctor, meanwhile, languishes in Area 51 as a gloating Canton supervises the constriction of a dome of Dwarf Star Alloy (nice bit of continuity porn there), the perfect prison.

Things look pretty grim, although they also look pretty amazing. Certainly the Valley of the Gods in Utah, where Amy meets the end of the road, looks utterly sublime. Not that you’d notice as you waited to be shot, eyeing the empty body bag on the floor. Rory gets a very similar scene, this time among the spectacular scenery of the Glen Canyon Dam. River’s exit gives us a sliver of hop, though. Just before Canton is about to shoot her, she jumps from the top of a very tall building. We all know what happened when River leaps backwards from the tops of very tall buildings.

All three of them have covered their arms with tallies of the Silence they’ve sighted, a cleverly self-explanatory indication of what they’ve been up to. But the Doctor and Canton have been even cleverer. As soon as the Dwarf Star Alloy igloo is complete and the door closes, the tables turn and they spring into action. Canton was in on the plan all along, and the invisible TARDIS is right behind the Doctor. As soon as Amy and Rory get out of their body bags, and River is rescued in the usual way, we start to get some answers.

There’s some significant stuff here, too. So significant, we even get flashbacks from the mentions of the Silence last series. But we have it confirmed that you forget the Silence as soon as you hear them, they have the power of auto-hypnotic suggestion, and that, after you’ve seen them, you “sometimes feel a bit sick” but “not always”. This isn’t explained in this episode, so it’ll probably be important later. Oh, and it now seems that Amy is not pregnant.

The Doctor’s explanation of the nano-recorder, using an image of the Silent from Amy’s camera phone to trick Canton and underline his point, is very creepy indeed. Possibly even creepier is the orphanage where the little girl seems to have lives. The surroundings are creepy for a start, and then there’s all the writing on the walls. The only person present, Dr. Renfrew, is in a state of constant confusion from the constant memory wipes, still thinking 1967 is in the future and only being half-aware that he’s been in charge of just one child for years.

There’s a bit of light relief as we cut to the Doctor, having just made adjustments to Apollo 11, although there is of course a bit left over. But the creepiness intensifies in the orphanage as Amy and Canton split up. The scenes with Amy, alone, gradually realising through the increasing tally marks and her own voice message that the ceiling is crawling with Silence, is the scariest thing ever. Renfrew explains to Canton that “the child” must be cared for, because that’s what “they” said. Amy, meanwhile, sees a hatch in reality popping open. A woman with an eyepatch then pokes her head through and announces “No, I think she’s just dreaming.” How very weird. This happens shortly after Amy splits from Canton: there’s been scope for stuff to happen between then and now, let us note. We’re soon back to the usual weirdness, though. Amy enters a child’s room- presumably the little girl’s room, as it looks as though it’s in current use. There are photos of the little girl- and of Amy, holding a baby. This immediately hints at who this little girl may be.

Speaking of whom, here she is. She’s still in her spacesuit; Amy missed. Parallel to this, Canton finds a Silent. Being the capable type, he records it, and is told that “This world is ours. We have ruled it since the wheel and the fire.” Judging by the fact he immediately shoots it, we can probably assume he’s displeased to hear this. The Silence seem to be perfectly susceptible to bullets.

Taping (broadly one of Moffat’s personal tropes anyway) is central to this episode- the Doctor even urges Nixon to tape everything that happens in the Oval Office. That’ll turn out well.

The Doctor and Rory arrive to find Amy gone, but still able to communicate with them, Miss Evangelista-like, via a chip. Why has this chip been left behind to be found? Again, something which could be significant.

The Doctor’s chat with the Silent shot by Canton gives us another “Silence will fall”. What does this mean? Is it predicting the defeat of the Silence at the end of the episode, or something deeper? It’s something deeper, innit?

The little girl has disappeared, but River is able to find out a lot about the spacesuit. It can sustain its occupant through sunlight alone- no need for food, or presumably oxygen. It can hack, and communicate, and defaults to the highest authority, hence the calls to the President. The little girl seems to be human, but incredibly strong. As for where it came from, the Silence don’t make anything themselves. They’re parasites. And the Doctor insists that the only reason the Moon landing is happening now is because the Silence needed a spacesuit. What’s so important about this little girl and what do the Silence propose to do with her?

I like what’s not being said here: the Silence are getting humanity to do things by hypnotic suggestion, but all the ingenuity and brilliance is 100% human. This isn’t one of those annoying Death to the Daleks / Erich von Daniken theories which propose humans couldn’t possible be responsible for our own achievements.

That humans are in fact a bit clever is demonstrated by Canton, happily recording the Silent with Amy’s camera phone as it gloats that “We have ruled your lives since your lives began. You should kill us all on sight.” That’ll come in handy later. River, meanwhile, has worked out that the suit could possibly move on its own, and recalls that the little girl said that the “spaceman” was “coming to eat” her.

There’s an interesting scene where Rory listens to Amy’s voice from far away- is it him or the Doctor she loves? This is unresolved as he and the Doctor have one of those chats which avoid the issue but somehow don’t. Rory remembers his two thousand years of waiting, but “not all the time”- there’s a door in his head that he can open to reach the memories. This is probably necessary to give him a realistic psychology. It’s also very fairytale.

Amy awakens, as it’s implies she has done many times over several days, in a room, surrounded by Silence. She’s told, interestingly, that “We do you honour. You will bring the Silence. But your part will soon be over.” How will she “bring the Silence?” Is this connected to her pregnancy? Is she pregnant with the little girl? Is the Silence plan something much deeper than we expect?

The Doctor arrives, and notices the continuity to The Lodger.” Very Aickman Road. Seen one of these before. Abandoned. Wonder how that happened.” I bet this is significant, too. I notice, too, that he tells River and Rory to “keep one Silent in shot at all times”, confirming that the singular form is indeed “Silent”, plural “Silence”. Sorry. I’m a bit of a grammar freak. I have to know these things.

The Doctor seems ok with River shooting people, although he again insists on not doing it himself. He’s unlike his previous incarnation, too. This Doctor ostentatiously doesn’t offer his foe a chance to surrender before carrying out his plan. He also flirts outrageously with River. His plan is very clever, though: apparently the footage of Neil Armstrong stepping on to the moon, which we’ve all seen and which countless generations will also see, carries a post-hypnotic suggestion to “kill us all on sight.” Very clever, and very ruthless. River is pretty badass, too, shooting Silence left, right and centre just like, well, the Doctor in Frontier in Space.

It’s a satisfying ending, and there are some nice codas, too. There’s a heartwarming reunion between Mr and Mrs Pond, with any though of a love triangle involving the Doctor now firmly banished. The Doctor feeds Nixon’s paranoia. Canton wants to get married. And River, returning to prison (“I escape often enough, thank you. Besides, I have a promise to live up to. You’ll understand, soon enough.” Bet that’s significant.) kisses the Doctor. For him, it’s their first. And then she realises that for her, it’s their last.

The penultimate scene has the Doctor speculating on the identity of the little girl but then changing tack: “Or we could just go off and have adventures.” This seems deliberate. Has the Doctor realised or guessed something which he wants to delay facing up to? It wouldn’t be the first time. Oh, Amy should perhaps name her baby “Schrödinger”.

Six months later… that’s quite a scene. And that was quite a story. Doctor Who doesn’t get much better than this.

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut

“I’m going to need a SWAT team ready to mobilise; street level maps covering all of Florida; a pot of coffee; twelve jammie dodgers and a fez.”

Right. Well, I was going to do both this and Day of the Moon in a single post, but my notes for this episode alone stretch to more than three pages, so there’s no way I’m doing that. This is going to be long.

I watched this from a recording I made at the time, so I’ve just been briefly reminded of Don’t Scare the Hare and its cutting-edge animatronics and gripping quiz show suspense, surely the very high point of Sue Perkins’ career. My, wasn’t the world a rather odd place a few weeks ago? Anyway, we get quite a bang of an opening, don’t we? Cavaliers, The Great Escape, silent comedy- it all looks rather swish. And those days of people imagining the Doctor might possibly be asexual are a long way behind us. Time has passed and things have happened, though: Amy and Rory have set up house together, and surely that must have taken a few months; their house seems quite fully furnished. It’s made clear that this isn’t permanent, though; they’re confidently expecting the Doctor to explode back into their lives at any moment. And sure enough, in a scene resonant with Back to the Future II and, indeed, Moffat’s own Blink, someone at the door has an invitation, with a time and a place…

Elsewhere and elsewhen, in the Stormcage, River Song has received the same message. In a rather amusing comment on how often she seems to escape these days, there’s an awful lot of hoo-hah over the mere fact that she’s packing.

We get our first shot of the location scenes shot in America next, and it’s truly magnificent, as are a lot of shots to come. Amy and Rory get off a big American yellow bus into the red Utah desert with all those fantastic sticky-uppy things. And there they meet the Doctor (“I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool.), and then River. It seems that was a pistol she was packing. And her opinions of the Doctor and headgear are as firmly expressed as ever.

The Doctor’s being a bit cryptic, though. He was 908 when Amy and Rory last met him; now he’s 1,103. Not only that, but he seems to remember a lot of the events from River’s diary. And he says ominous sounding things, like “I’ve been running faster than I’ve ever run. I’ve been running my whole life. Now it’s time for me to stop.”

The scene switches from a diner (how American!) to a picnic by a lake, surrounded by some breathtaking landscape. The Doctor, sadly, still needs educating about wine. But Amy sees a watching figure: a Silence. (An aside: my hearing is a bit dodgy and I watch pretty much all telly with subtitles when I can. The subtitles always have the Silence as “the Silence”, not “The Silents”: singular “Silence”, plural “Silence”. Are subtitles canon?). And then an older bloke in a car pulls up nearby and waits.

A figure in a late 1960s NASA spacesuit emerges from the waters like a Sea Devil, and the Doctor sees that the time has come. “Stay back,” he warns Amy, Rory and River. “Whatever happens now, you do not interfere.” So the astronaut shoots him point-blank. Twice. He starts to regenerate. The astronaut shoots him again. Dead. At this point the bloke in the distance (Canton Everett Delaware III, who has also received an invitation) helpfully assures us that the Doctor is “most certainly dead.” And Amy, in voicing aloud the clone / duplicate hypothesis, seems to have ensured it can’t happen. Oh dear. It’s all looking rather unambiguous.

Except that, back in the diner, they find a fourth envelope. And the Doctor. It’s his earlier self- he’s only 909- but River slaps him anyway. We now have a situation where Amy, River, and Rory can’t tell the Doctor what just happened in case bad timey-wimey stuff happens. This is a problem, as the Doctor is bound to notice that they’re hiding something big. He does. And he’s not pleased. In fact he’s only convinced by Amy swearing on fish fingers and custard, as you do. And yet… surely the Doctor would have correctly guessed what this would mean? He’s not the type to be satisfied with not knowing, and surely he already knows enough for the possibility to have occurred to him?

In 1969, a young Canton has been called in by President Nixon. Tricky Dicky is being telephoned, every day, by a child who’s afraid of the “spaceman”. The child seems to be called Jefferson Hamilton Adams. Oh, and the Doctor is taking notes, right there in the Oval Office, which gets quite a reaction. But the Doctor, soon joined by the Legs, the Nose and Mrs Robinson, is soon able to get everyone on his side by Being Very Clever. Midnight this ain’t.

That doesn’t mean they’re safe though: Amy sees a Silence again, and remembers the earlier time. Does this imply that the earlier time was the first time she’d seen one? She doesn’t wait long until the next time either; there’s a Silence in the ladies’ loo. A male one, too. What a perv. It’s quite horribly effective how the other woman in the room sees it, forgets, sees it, forgets, and is then dismissively and shockingly killed by a lightning effect similar to that we saw at the end of The Lodger. Amy keeps her wits about her; she takes a pic on her phone, and the Silence doesn’t seem to know what it is any more than would anyone from 1969. There’s an interesting exchange, too. Amy must tell the Doctor “What he must know. And what he must never know.” Interesting. I wonder if we’ve all been understanding this correctly at all? The vague wording suggests some prior conditioning. And it seems that Amy is being told to actively tell the Doctor both what he must know and what he must not, instead of just telling him one thing but not another. Am I reading too much into this?

The Doctor traces where in Florida the calls are coming from (somewhere close to Cape Kennedy), and drops heavy hints at Canton that he should come along for the ride. He knows, of course, that it’s an obvious trap, but it’s intriguing; why is so much ultra-modern, yet indisputably NASA, technology found around here? There’s a manhole cover, too, which River decides to investigate. She’s “quite the screamer”, apparently. Ooh er.

River sees loads and loads of Silence just underneath, and then returns to pronounce the all clear. Interestingly, though, she goes back underground, this time with Rory, and feels momentarily sick. Is this significant?

These tunnels are “really, really old”, and have been here for “centuries” and run underneath the entire planet. Yet no one has ever noticed them, implying one of Moffat’s perception filters. Yet, if that is the case, how come the Doctor & Co noticed this one?

River’s conversation with Rory here is most interesting and tragic. When she first met the Doctor, this mysterious and unflappable stranger, he knew everything about her, and she found him irresistible. But every time she meets him, he knows her less and less: the Doctor’s confrontation with her earlier, in which he made it clear he didn’t trust her, must have really hurt. She knows that one day the Doctor won’t recognise her at all, and “I think it’s going to kill me.” Certainly ironic in the light of Silence in the Library. Speaking of which, about that title… you don’t think? Naaah…

They emerge into a control room exactly the same as the one in The Lodger. They’re surrounded by Silence, all identically dressed. Why are the Silence wearing suits, by the way? Do they dress like humans, or is it the other way around?

Amy and Canton have an interesting little chat too, and Amy says that she hasn’t seen the Doctor for “a while”- I’m asking this a lot, but is this significant? She then chooses one precise moment, just after they all hear the little girl’s voice, to tell the Doctor that she’s apparent. The exact timing of this bombshell certainly is significant: Amy even says that “It has to be now.”

Inside the spacesuit is a little girl. And Amy shoots her. The credits roll. And... one of the actors was playing “The Silent”. You should probably ignore what I said earlier about the Silence / Silents thing. Subtitles might not be canon after all…

That was well good.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

“Halfway out of the dark…”

This whole episode looks bloody fantastic, from the opening bit of CGI showing a very cloudy planet, to the many shots of fish swimming about in the air, to the brilliantly imagined futuristic yet utterly Dickensian style. Best of all, it all feels so very Christmassy, in spite of the spaceship captain saying that “Christmas is cancelled.”

The aforementioned ship is about to crash on to the aforementioned planet, which is causing a bit of bother for the captain and her crew, including one strangely Geordi La Forge- like person. Fortunately, on board the honeymoon suite are Amy and Rory Pond, both dressed rather interestingly. Never before on Doctor Who have we been given so much insight into the sexual peccadilloes of our regulars…

On the surface (which, I have to emphasise again, looks magnificent), we hear a voiceover which describes Christmas is very evocative (and very secular) terms. This is being delivered by the great Michael Gambon in tones which are far more cockneyfied, we’ll later discover, than they were in his youth. His character traits can be summed up as “right miserable git” and “mardyarse” (A word which, incidentally, cannot be legally used by anyone hailing from south of the Watford Gap. I’ve noticed much flouting of that law in recent years.). The current targets of his gittishness are a poor family whose surname may in fact be Cratchit after all (Abigail, who we haven’t met yet, is a Pettigrew, but her sister’s married name might not be). Their relative has spent a generation in suspended animation as “security” for a loan, and miserable old Kazran Sardick (great name) won’t even let her out for Christmas. Come to think of it, he won’t even lift a finger to save 4,003 people on a spacecraft above, two of whom are Amy and Rory, something he could easily do, even at the personal request of the president.

Enter the Doctor. Through a chimney, naturally. He seems to get clean rather suspiciously quickly, but makes quite an impression. Sadly, Sardick is impressed. The controls which could save the ship are isomorphic (ha!), the Doctor can’t just use the TARDIS for some reason, and Sardick is still being a git. Fortunately, the Doctor hears a Christmas carol at that precise moment and an idea suddenly comes to him. Gosh. I wonder what it could be?

The Ghost of Christmas past starts by using the fact that Sardick was unable to strike the son of the poor family, being haunted by the memory of his own abusive father. Playing timey-wimey tricks with footage may be a bit of a favourite Moffat trick but he still manages, as here, to find fresh slants on it. The scenes of the Doctor insinuating himself into the young Kazran’s life, while the older Sardick feels his memories change even as he watches the screen, are just wonderful.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Matt Smith’s Doctor has a fantastic rapport with kids; the scenes with the young Kazran are great. The best bit, of course, is when the Doctor assures him that “I think you’ll find I’m universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult”, only to find that’s a lie too big even for the psychic paper.

After doing a spot of fishing in Kazran’s room (as you do), the Doctor finds out that he may have bitten off more than he can chew. In fact, it’s a whopper, and the scenes with the Doctor and young Kazran being menaced by the shark are hilarious. I love Matt Smith’s Doctor.

But soon the shark is dying, unable to survive outside the clouds for long. Fortunately, though, there’s an “icebox” downstairs and, with a little bit of timey-wimeyness, they manage to move the shark inside one of the caskets for those poor unfortunates being frozen as “security”. The person making way for the shark, as fate and / or plot convenience would have it, is Abigail, who can certainly sing a bit. She’s the same girl, coincidentally, whom the elder Sardick was so gittish about earlier. But what do those numbers mean on the side of her casket…?

The three of them have a bit of fun travelling in the TARDIS, Kazran takes a bit of a shine to this gorgeous woman, and they end up doing it again and again, Christmas Eve after Christmas Eve, in what is a lovely advertisement of the Doctor’s lifestyle. But, as we know, the Doctor’s lifestyle carries a price, and Abigail’s fondness for the older and much more besotted Kazran is fated to end in tragedy. While the Doctor merrily enjoys his lifestyle (is the whole thing about Marilyn Monroe a bit of a metaphor about how he always runs away from commitment, or am I reading too much into this?), Abigail tells Kazran a secret which breaks his heart. Suddenly, he coldly dismisses the Doctor, never wanting to see him again. We’ve all guessed what the secret is by now, of course, but Kazran’s obvious devastation is no less affecting.

We also get a nice “Cratchit family” scene, of course, with Tiny Tim being unimpressed by the Doctor’s card tricks, and the Doctor’s advice to the adolescent Kazran on how to handle his first kiss is the funniest thing ever. Moffat’s given us some first class scripts before, but they’ve tended to be rather intricate and plotty in nature. This is his first triumph of mixing humour, sentiment and real emotional depth, I think. It’s very Christmassy and superbly judged, but there’s real emotional depth here.

Amy, of course, is the Ghost of Christmas Present, and it’s she who is told why Sardick remains unreformed. The Doctor has forced Abigail into his life and broken his life. She has but one day to live. How is Sardick to decide which day it is to be? The way the Doctor assumes the role of Ghost of Christmas Future, and breaks this impasse, is not only very, very clever in its timey-wimeyness but pitch-perfect in terms of the characters, their development and the themes. For the young Kazran to hear his older self spit out his bleak and selfish soul, bitterly asserting that “I’ll die cold, alone and afraid. Of course I will, we all do”, is quite eyebrow-raisingly powerful for a Christmas prime time family show, yet it works perfectly. The only thing left is for the plot to require Abigail to be woken, and sure enough: it happens.

There’s a happy ending; 4,003 lives are saved. But Moffat refuses the temptation to save Abigail, something I think is well-judged. This may be very sad, but beautiful things often are.